Diet fiends (joke!). If I were to go on an SCD-like diet...

...what would I actually eat? I'm actually being serious; every time I think about it I don't know what I would replace my usual snacks with. To give you an idea of where I am coming from, here is what I have eaten today. It's fairly typical of a normal day for me, I would say.

Morning: 1 cup of tea (sometimes have 2 or 3, depending. Never eat breakfast. Tea is always with semi-skimmed milk, no sugar)

Lunch: 1 bowl of "Limited Edition" Fruit Loops (disappointing, Kelloggs, disappointing) with organic whole milk; 1 bagel with smooth peanut butter

Afternoon: Another cup of tea. A few sweets, or, as Americans would call them, candies.

Dinner: Chicken thighs/drumsticks in a thai red curry marinade; a few well-cooked green beans; a few rice noodles, but they were dry and tasteless so did not have a lot. Peanut butter chunky Kit Kat.

Evening: 2 miniscule yoghurts. (Sometimes I have plain Greek yoghurt lying around, but these were just normal kids' yoghurts.) 3 organic wholewheat digestives. 2 slices of processed ham. And moar tea.

.........................

'S bout it. I tend to have more of an afternoon snack than I did today. But I don't always eat in the evenings, depends how hungry I am, or how my stomach is being. Also, I've been trying to up my calories lately, so getting sufficient calories is also a consideration. Today was not so good, 'cos I still feel like I've been run over by the back end of a bus, tbh.

Anyway, you see what I mean. Nothing I had today was SCD friendly. I don't want to spend hours a day baking, I really, really, really don't... Just can't think of anything I could have for a snack. Or for lunch, short of eggs, eggs and more eggs. (And I'm a bit bored with eggs at the moment, as it is.)

Also, I do have a stricture, which in theory contradicts fibre, but in reality I do eat a certain amount of it. I wouldn't eat raw or very undercooked vegetables, but berries seem surprisingly okay. (I love them, too - but they're even better served with broken bits of meringue and double cream <_<.) I'll eat nuts too, but I don't know how I'd be with those at the moment; been a while since I had any.

I realise I'm not asking an exactly easy question, but if you've got any suggestions for easy go-to foods which are sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free etc. etc., but (preferably) not taste-free, I'd appreciate it. If it could be made easy enough, I'd be far more likely to give such a diet a try at least. Cheers :p

I'm not a big avocado fan... :/ I mean, I can eat them, but I don't love them. Think they're best served with mexican food.

Oh sugar. I forgot to mention I'm in the UK, so anything you can only get in the US - like Larabars - won't help me much :-/ Might be some equivalent, though, if I compared ingredients.

As far as the SCD baked goods are concerned, I'm actually trying to avoid those for now anyway and find easier equivalents which don't involve using several pre-prepared ingredients.

One thing I forgot to add, when I was last on a liquid diet, I did learn how to make my own chicken stock. That wasn't too bad, I suppose. But I'm honestly not into hours of cooking every day; I'm actually not that interested in food at all at the moment, to be honest. But I want to eat enough for health and energy.

Edit: Thanks, btw. I'll check out pecanbread :p

Today was a low day - in all senses of the word :-/

No, not taking any vitamins... >.>

I don't mind a bit of cooking, but right now I just can't face the thought of endless hours each day deciding what to have, buying it, preparing it, cooking it, etc.

I can eat more meat, I guess... You're the only one who's ever recommended that for me :-/

Anyway, it's not so hard to add meat to main meals. I've heard of the good fats, but am not sure how to incorporate those really. Think I remember reading you're not supposed to cook with olive oil because high heat destroys whatever is good about it.

Thanks anyway!

Thank you!

There's probably no substitute for cereal, which is a pity as I like it :/ ... Oatmeal isn't allowed on SCD or is it? Mind, I only eat porridge with demerara sugar, so... :-/ Oh, and I make it with milk. That reminds me: is there any substitute for cow's milk?

My mum would help out, I think. Don't really like to ask her to do too much, though, but I think she would help with the cooking.

Anyhow, I'm off for the night after this. Feel a tad better now. Night folks :p

If or when your stomach can tolerate almond meal, you can actually make a pretty decent hot cereal with it. Oatmeal is not allowed on the diet, sadly. :\

Sorry, I hope you found something that looked good, tasted good and was kind to your gut.

Do not take this the wrong way, cause nothing bad intended, but it seems to me that you are so beat up from this DD, that nothing appeals to you. Your probably not eating well, and with a bad gut not getting the nutrition that you need to thrive. Lack of energy, too much effort to make food, nothing sounds too good...

In other words a negative spiral caused by this DD. I would love to hear that someone came to your house and took care of you. Made you some food that actually tasted good and felt good also. And you did not have to lift a finger.
(((hugs))))
No help, but I really feel for you and wish this DD would back off and give you a break

Dave - kicking your DD in the nuts

*hugs* Thank you, guys :p

Yesterday was not a good day. Very low, meant to go out yesterday afternoon to pick up my replacement PS3, but just collapsed in bed instead :-/ ... Today I went to hospital to get taught how to inject methotrexate by the IBD nurse (she's speaking to me! >_>). She did the first injection for me. No obvious side-effects yet, but presumably the MTX won't help my physical feelings of being wiped out.

@dave - Think you've touched upon a truth there. Food was my life once upon a time: I lived to eat, not the other way round. Now I'm not nearly as interested. Still enjoy some things (hello Tesco Finest NY vanilla cheesecake...), but food isn't my life anymore, really.

@ivy - I love custard, so that's certainly a possibility :p ... Lunch wasn't too healthy today, I'm afraid :-/ Ready Brek with demerara sugar, but also a piece of cold roast chicken, so I suppose at least I got the protein in!

My mum knows about the SCD now, 'cos I explained it (badly) to her. Also mentioned a book called Life Without Bread by a German doctor, Wolfgang Lutz. He's had impressive results with Crohn's patients by putting them onto a low-carb diet.

Crohn's disease is about a third of the way down, if anyone is interested:

http://www.scdiet.org/7archives/lutz/lutz7.html

Ivy - I don't think she had much choice! Somebody had to teach me how to inject the MTX and it wasn't going to be the consultant. To be fair, she acted pretty normal, so maybe she has finally gotten over it. I was as pleasant as I could be in turn. If you have a chronic illness, it's not a great idea to be on bad terms with any member of your treatment team, imo.

So far, touch wood, I've not noticed a single adverse side-effect. In fact I actually feel better than normal! That most likely coincides with the end of a very rough week, where a cold knocked me out for six, however.

Re injecting myself. Occasionally the NHS's stinginess works out for the good :p ... I suppose they don't want to pay staff to go round to people's houses to give them injections. I'm a little bit nervous about doing the injection by myself for the first time, but it seems straightforward enough. Should be all right if I'm careful. Also, if I get approved for Humira, I'll be injecting that at home as well.

My lunch today: peanut butter and nutella sandwich. I'm doing so well on the low-carb front... >_>

(Delicious though. It beats even a peanut butter and jam sandwich.)

Kazbern, I do agree with you about greek yoghurt. It's lovely with honey, or lemon curd, or fruit/jam and granola. However, even the yoghurt itself isn't SCD legal - only home-made yoghurt made fermented for 24 hours is.

Shopping for food a week ahead isn't difficult; the storage part is the trickiest bit, as we don't tend to have massive fridges/freezers here. But it's not undoable. PS: my mum would be in full sympathy over your resentment at cooking most days :p ... I don't blame her. I do help out and sometimes cook dinners entirely on my own, but I confess to not doing a lot on the cooking front lately. Should do more, tbh.

And re a low carb diet. I haven't given up on it, but I've put it on the back burner for now while I see what the meds do. If the meds work, I'll be less motivated, but not entirely so, as I still think my diet could use an improvement.

A few bits of info

Although you must make the Sdc yogurt, you can drip it and itcan be add thick as you like. Also believe me when I say your taste buffs will change. I used to eat the same as anyone else but now veg I never liked tastes great and just the littlest bit of honey is enough. I did not do anything it just happened.

Also Life without bread its a great book imho. It was only after I went low carb after reading that book scd produce results for me. Prior to that, 8 months, I was not getting any results from scd
Dave

*googles Stoneyfield*. Nope, never seen that anywhere here. It looks like good yoghurt though - pure ingredients. For Greek yoghurt, I usually get Total, which is available in most supermarkets:

Total yoghurt

I think the main reason SCD disallows shop-bought yoghurts is the lactose: the SCD folk maintain you need 24 hours of fermentation to get rid of all the lactose. To which I can only go 'hmmm'. They may be right, but if you're not lactose-intolerance does a bit of lactose really make that much difference? I think the whole area of sugars is where the SCD - and other related diets - is the most contradictory. I can buy into low-carb in general, but I can't understand why the simple sugars are demonised so much, when they actually seem 'better' than complex sugars, in the sense of being digested more quickly.

Sure I'm missing at least a few things, but can't seem to find relevant info on the net. Anyhow, sorry. Got a tad diverted there... :p

EDIT: Oh okay, the bacterial cultures are relevant as well >_>. I dunno why, but for the first time, I'm actually slightly interested in making my own yoghurt. However, there's a million steps between having a mildly intrigued thought and the actual acting on it thereof, so I'm sure it will be a while before I stop buying the Total.

And dave, I'm gonna order the Life Without Bread book. Was gonna buy BTVC too (as much as for my mum who doesn't use the internet as for me), but after seeing it cost £25 I thought '**** that' >_>.

EDIT II: Exactly 2000 posts! Go me! :p

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 7/19/2012 9:43:14 AM (GMT-6)

The home-made yoghurt does sound quite nice. I'd need to buy all the yoghurt-making equipment - oh my mum will so love me :p ... Thanks for the tip about freeze dried starter; wouldn't have thought of that.

Cheers! :p I wouldn't say no, but I would pay for P&P costs <_<.

Well, hopefully a copy of BTVC will be winging its way across the Atlantic to me soon <_<. (Thanks WingZero! :)

The general gist makes sense; I suppose I'm just being nitpicking. Ultimately, I don't think there is a diet out there for Crohn's which doesn't revolve around carb restriction of some sort. The only exception may be that Japanese semi-vegetarian diet (it came up in another thread), but to be honest, I didn't know what most of those foods were >_>.

I'd be interested in the recipe for the home-made vanilla extract: love vanilla.

And I probably won't buy one, at least not at the moment, but I'll look into yoghurt makers.