Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)

[AliB]

Hi Emily, welcome to the thread.

It can take some time for symptoms to settle down. The night is typically the 'Liver Time' when your liver is processing and detoxing. Although you have now recognised that gluten appears to be a problem for you and have dropped it, your body is not going to recover immediately.

Damage that is done over a period of time needs time to sort itself out and heal so you may well find that you get all sorts of issues and symptoms occurring as time goes on.

Certainly following the SCD is a very healthy way to eat and is designed to support the body in its healing process. I have realised what damage gluten and the high-carb, high-sugar Western diet has done to my health and to be free of all that is pretty liberating - I tell you.

People feel sorry for me because I can't eat that rubbish any more - well, I feel very sorry for them that they are entangled in its clutches and are totally oblivious of the insidious damage it is doing to them. Funny how people recognise that sweets can turn their kids into Tasmanian Devils, that coffee makes them jittery and alcohol will make them drunk, yet they have no concept of the effects of gluten and all the other toxic rubbish that they eat and drink.

Anyway, hopefully as time goes on you will find your body starting to settle. You must make sure that all traces of gluten are eliminated from your diet in order to be sure. I fell into that one - I was eating some little oat cookies for a while (pre SCD) thinking they were ok - not realising the risk of cross-contamination from the factory processing.

What are you actually eating and drinking at the moment? Is there anything in your diet that could be a hidden source?

One other possibility I feel is that things like Candida, when their food source (the gluten) is removed can often temporarily die back or go quiet only to adapt to a different food source and come back with a vengeance. Cutting out the grains and starches is a good place to start, but, and especially if Candida is an issue, you may need to cut out honey and other concentrated sweet stuff like dried and fresh fruit for a while until the beasties have given up and left home.

Yes, the diet is a healing diet for the gut and the body, but a big part of it is getting the gut flora back under control.

[AliB]

Liz, when you first start the diet it is not unusual to get all sorts of weird symptoms. After all you are changing the way your body is supplied with nutrients. It has come to rely on certain food sources and when these are removed it then has to adapt and that can take a little time.

Not only that but the body then also has the opportunity - perhaps for the first time to off-load crud. About 10 days after I first went gluten-free I felt my liver clear out and a load of stuff go down my tubes on my right side - its as if my liver said "thank goodness she's stopped loading that crap, now I can start to sort myself out"!

After starting the SCD, as Pele will confirm (she was a great support in the early days!) my bowels went through the whole gamut of D to C and back again - several times. It is also not unusual for you to feel pretty rubbish for a week or two also as you are likely experiencing 'die-off' of pathogenic beasties in your gut and body. Without their yummy carbs they have nowhere to go.

It does get better though if you can just hang on in there.

Obviously your son losing weight is of concern but again it is not unusual. As you and he gets used to the diet and things settle down his weight should find its own level. At present due to the damage he may not be absorbing as well as he should so giving him really good nutritious food is very important.

I found this little link on the Pecanbread website that might help.

Open Original Shared Link

Ali.

[AliB]

Just out of interest for all I came across this very long-winded but extremely interesting link about Celiac and GI. It is quite an eye-opener and just reiterates the idea that everyone who is a gluten consumer is being damaged by it in some way or another.

Open Original Shared Link

[YoloGx]

What am I doing wrong?

My son has LOST 6 pounds since we started on Sunday. He can't keep losing weight! He hasn't "cheated" except for eating peaches, strawberries, coconut milk and some almond pancakes, which aren't cheating, just moving ahead a bit quickly. I have to find a way to keep some weight on him. He's lost 22 pounds since school got out at the beginning of June. He doesn't have much D from the UC.

I, on the other hand, have developed D and I was perfectly fine before starting this. I haven't cheated at all and have just eaten what he has, with the addition of some grilled zucchini and peppers. My husband and I both have headaches and I plain feel lousy. This is taking up ALL my time to research, plan, prepare and cook for everyone, including my 3 other kids who aren't on SCD. I find myself fighting tears, wondering if I can really do this, but afraid not to because of how sick I know my son will get if we don't do this. Help?

Hi Liz,

I wonder if you introduced the fermented foods (home made 24 hour yogurt and/or cabbage) if you all would feel a bit better?

You and your son might also need to have some carbs too to keep the weight on -- I find eating more squash (summer and winter) really helps. I saw you had a bit of zuchinni, however he/you might need more. Ditto with fats?? Like butter for instance...

Further, like Ali was suggesting, you are probably detoxing big time--at least that is what it sounds like. There are herbs that can help with detoxing, like dandelion, yellow dock and cleavers or echinacea. Just don't get tinctures due to the alcohol. Go at it slow and see if they agree with you or not, one herb at a time.

I do agree with Ali that one still has to be careful not to get too much candida inducing sweets with this diet since eating a lot of fruit (esp. dried fruit) and honey can really wreck one if you are subject to candida overgrowth.

Bea

[Ms Jan]

Liz,

Like the others, I also went through a strong adjustment process in the early weeks of doing the SCD - with three days of strong D that I normally never have. Later I realized it was just my system adjusting. Also, to keep my weight stable I ingested tons of oil in the beginning, literally spoon fulls of coconut oil, olive oil, omega 3 mixed oils etc. and it really helped. Besides that, lots of raw nuts and almonds also help keep up the weight, as do bananas and avocado.

[Rhoger1]

Hi everyone,

Need some guidance on diets and recommendations for Candida diets/treatments and Leaky Gut healing that are SCD legal.

For Candida,

I've been diagnosed with "mild" sensitivity which hopefully means the SCD diet is working to fix this. I avoid Honey and Nuts for the past 2 months. Also, started taking 1 clove of Garlic / day for the past few days. I suspect I need to continue this for a few weeks, longer?

For Leaky Gut,

I've added L-Glutamine into the diet (5g morning, 5g night) - Any SCD issues with Glutamine? Anything else I should be doing and for how long?

SCD for 10 weeks and getting better, but still get stomach pain often. I suspect its due to a sensitivity reaction.? Does anyone else get this sympton where the stomach feels like a deep pain, almost like twisting the guts.

Any guidance on the diets, best treatments and durations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks..

[OliveBranch]

Hi AliB,

Thanks so much for your response. Your thoughts here and elsewhere in this thread have been very helpful to me in starting the diet. It's amazing how many variables there are to balance and how many toxins to eliminate, but I think I am on the right track. It's interesting what you say about 'liver time' -- very possibly my liver is still working hard to detox. Since my last post I've identified another possible culprit for the insomnia -- plaquenil, which my doc prescribed for my inscrutable symptoms (before we thought of celiac/dietary issues), so once I've consulted with him I may drop it or modify the dose (currently I take one at bedtime!). It also contains starch (though not gluten), so it's not an ideal medication in any case.

Apart from the difficulty falling asleep, though, I do already feel much better than I have in the last couple of years. Far less brain fog and aching fatigue (my two main symptoms), so I am very encouraged to continue with the SCD.

As for what I'm eating: breakfast is a smoothie with banana and frozen berries (I'm waiting very impatiently for my yogurt maker to come, at which point I can probably decrease the fruits a bit) and coffee with almond milk, lunch is a spinach salad with ham, a hard-boiled egg, olive oil, and vinegar, and dinner is chicken or fish prepared fairly simply (sometimes in an Indian/Thai style with coconut milk and spices) with cooked veggies on the side. I'm trying not to have too much fruit or honey after dinner, in case the sugars have been keeping me awake. For snacks I've been eating cherries and cashews, and drinking green tea. The one major breach I've committed is some chocolate (at least 70% cacao, low sugar, and only ever a square at a time), which I may be more ready to give up once I can get the yogurt going.

Thanks for your thoughts and encouragement!

~Emily

Hi Emily, welcome to the thread.

It can take some time for symptoms to settle down. The night is typically the 'Liver Time' when your liver is processing and detoxing. Although you have now recognised that gluten appears to be a problem for you and have dropped it, your body is not going to recover immediately.

Damage that is done over a period of time needs time to sort itself out and heal so you may well find that you get all sorts of issues and symptoms occurring as time goes on.

Certainly following the SCD is a very healthy way to eat and is designed to support the body in its healing process. I have realised what damage gluten and the high-carb, high-sugar Western diet has done to my health and to be free of all that is pretty liberating - I tell you.

People feel sorry for me because I can't eat that rubbish any more - well, I feel very sorry for them that they are entangled in its clutches and are totally oblivious of the insidious damage it is doing to them. Funny how people recognise that sweets can turn their kids into Tasmanian Devils, that coffee makes them jittery and alcohol will make them drunk, yet they have no concept of the effects of gluten and all the other toxic rubbish that they eat and drink.

Anyway, hopefully as time goes on you will find your body starting to settle. You must make sure that all traces of gluten are eliminated from your diet in order to be sure. I fell into that one - I was eating some little oat cookies for a while (pre SCD) thinking they were ok - not realising the risk of cross-contamination from the factory processing.

What are you actually eating and drinking at the moment? Is there anything in your diet that could be a hidden source?

One other possibility I feel is that things like Candida, when their food source (the gluten) is removed can often temporarily die back or go quiet only to adapt to a different food source and come back with a vengeance. Cutting out the grains and starches is a good place to start, but, and especially if Candida is an issue, you may need to cut out honey and other concentrated sweet stuff like dried and fresh fruit for a while until the beasties have given up and left home.

Yes, the diet is a healing diet for the gut and the body, but a big part of it is getting the gut flora back under control.

[AliB]

Oh Emily - I too have struggled with the chocolate thing , and I too tend to just confine it to a square of the darkest I can find (currently 85%) which I nibble very slowly (and although I don't drink tea or coffee I do sometimes indulge in a hot chocolate with coconut milk (slap) so I can quite understand where you are coming from - not that I condone it you understand!

Recently I upped my fat quota - more coconut oil, butter and olive oil (and Cod liver oil) and I noticed interestingly that the desire for the chocolate disappeared - in fact the desire to nibble in the evenings disappeared which made me wonder if it was not actually the chocolate I was craving but the fat content in it.

As a Diabetic and with the gluten intolerance and gut damage it is highly likely that my lipid-based vitamin levels may well be low - vitamins A, D and E. Certainly the coconut oil seemed to be very beneficial to my digestion and helped to kick-start it back into working better but I am still out on whether the higher fat content is better for me over all.

The higher fat level is beneficial too though in that it is more satiating and for me, with blood sugar issues it is also neutral as a trigger so that is an advantage.

Although by far most of my earlier health symptoms have either abated or disappeared altogether, there is one rather persistent one that continues to bug me (apart from the Diabetes which I am dealing with through low-carbing, which the SCD tends to be anyway, and have been able to cut down on the medication) - for the last 7 or 8 years I have had a background 'thumping' going on which is obviously connected to my heartbeat but I don't know why.

It gets worse after eating and continues until the early hours and then tends to abate somewhat. There seems to be nothing wrong with my heart - but it is like a 'strong' heartbeat - enough for me to actually be able to feel it and be very aware of it. Not fast, just very obvious. My blood pressure went down shortly after starting the diet and I threw the tablets away but that hasn't made any difference.

Somehow it is connected to my digestion but I don't know what, or why. One day I hardly noticed it I had spent the day just having fruit and veggie smoothies. No protein, little in the way of fats. That was interesting and I really ought to try and repeat the experiment to see if it does it again. Certainly I do seem to do better on fresh raw food - the enzymes in it does mean that it is generally very easy to digest so that may be a good part of the reason.

But over all I am heaps better than I was 18 months ago. I have lost weight, have more energy, and am sleeping much better (restless legs and burning feet was my insomnia trigger). I think some things can resolve fairly quickly, but others just take longer, after all, few of us got sick overnight! If it takes 7 years for the whole body to replace itself then I suppose it is pretty logical to assume that 7 years would be a good time-scale to achieve a reasonably good restoration of health.

The lack of nutrients through malabsorption and the years of bombarding our bodies with substances it can't handle properly (or at all) would obviously have had an effect on cell metabolism and structure and that will take time to sort itself out.

[pele]

Have any of you had similar experiences? How long on the SCDiet did it take for you to see an improvement in sleep patterns?

Many thanks!

~Emily

Hi Emily I've been on the SCD for 16 months and it has done wonders for my digestion but zip for sleep. If you continue to have problems sleeping, then there may be a non-diet reason. I hope you have a good doctor that will help you pursue this.

Chocolate (gasp!) has caffiene in it. Are you eating that late at night? If you can force yourself to give up chocolate for a couple of weeks, the cravings for it will go away.

While you are waiting for the yogurt maker, you could try fermented cabbage juice. There are some recipes for it a couple of pages back.

[pele]

Hi Rhoger1

I know there are people who have been on the SCD for years and use L-glutamine so it must be legal as long as there is no sugar or starch.

As far as candida, I read that Elaine said the diet will discourage candida even if you eat fruit and honey. I eat a lot of fruit and honey and my GI test just came back candida-free.

10 weeks is a short time for the SCD. It took me 8-9 months to really feel "healed". That is how long it took me to realize one day that my guts no longer hurt. And, according to the GI test, I still have some leaky gut issues after 16 months on the diet.

I think your healing time will depend on how much damage there is. Everyone's experience will be different. You are on the right track.

[pele]

What am I doing wrong?

Hi Liz

IMO you are doing nothing wrong. You are both going through an adjustment period which is pretty normal when you make this kind of dietary change.

I was starving at first and I ate a lot of peanut butter and honey. Hmm, I still eat a lot of peanut butter and honey. Mix them, 2 parts PB to one part honey, stir in some unsweetened shredded coconut, roll into balls and freeze. If he can handle PB, this will stick to his ribs (and yours). Use any kind of ground nuts the same way.

Eat more vegetables. We are so used to eating little bitty portions of everything but grain. My typical serving of swiss chard or zucchini is about 4 times larger than in my pre-SCD days. And I will never forget the day (about 4 months into the diet) when I was starving for lunch and went to eat a cucumber and it actually tasted sweet and took the hunger away. That never happened pre-SCD. I think my body started to metabolize vegetables differently and I get a lot more nutrition from them now.

Ditto on the fermented cabbage juice. It may help both of you.

Stick with for your son's sake. The diet beats harsh drugs and surgery.

[YoloGx]

Oh Emily - I too have struggled with the chocolate thing , and I too tend to just confine it to a square of the darkest I can find (currently 85%) which I nibble very slowly (and although I don't drink tea or coffee I do sometimes indulge in a hot chocolate with coconut milk (slap) so I can quite understand where you are coming from - not that I condone it you understand!

Recently I upped my fat quota - more coconut oil, butter and olive oil (and Cod liver oil) and I noticed interestingly that the desire for the chocolate disappeared - in fact the desire to nibble in the evenings disappeared which made me wonder if it was not actually the chocolate I was craving but the fat content in it.

As a Diabetic and with the gluten intolerance and gut damage it is highly likely that my lipid-based vitamin levels may well be low - vitamins A, D and E. Certainly the coconut oil seemed to be very beneficial to my digestion and helped to kick-start it back into working better but I am still out on whether the higher fat content is better for me over all.

The higher fat level is beneficial too though in that it is more satiating and for me, with blood sugar issues it is also neutral as a trigger so that is an advantage.

Although by far most of my earlier health symptoms have either abated or disappeared altogether, there is one rather persistent one that continues to bug me (apart from the Diabetes which I am dealing with through low-carbing, which the SCD tends to be anyway, and have been able to cut down on the medication) - for the last 7 or 8 years I have had a background 'thumping' going on which is obviously connected to my heartbeat but I don't know why.

It gets worse after eating and continues until the early hours and then tends to abate somewhat. There seems to be nothing wrong with my heart - but it is like a 'strong' heartbeat - enough for me to actually be able to feel it and be very aware of it. Not fast, just very obvious. My blood pressure went down shortly after starting the diet and I threw the tablets away but that hasn't made any difference.

Somehow it is connected to my digestion but I don't know what, or why. One day I hardly noticed it I had spent the day just having fruit and veggie smoothies. No protein, little in the way of fats. That was interesting and I really ought to try and repeat the experiment to see if it does it again. Certainly I do seem to do better on fresh raw food - the enzymes in it does mean that it is generally very easy to digest so that may be a good part of the reason.

But over all I am heaps better than I was 18 months ago. I have lost weight, have more energy, and am sleeping much better (restless legs and burning feet was my insomnia trigger). I think some things can resolve fairly quickly, but others just take longer, after all, few of us got sick overnight! If it takes 7 years for the whole body to replace itself then I suppose it is pretty logical to assume that 7 years would be a good time-scale to achieve a reasonably good restoration of health.

The lack of nutrients through malabsorption and the years of bombarding our bodies with substances it can't handle properly (or at all) would obviously have had an effect on cell metabolism and structure and that will take time to sort itself out.

Hi Ali,

I just wanted to comment on the thumping which in my opinion could also relate to the restless leg syndrome. My heart used to thump and finally got around to rattling upon any real exertion as well as in the middle of the night and my restless legs got worse and worse at night so I oculd hardly sleep at all. I thought this was due to an old injury, however although that was part of it, a major part was due to a vitamin deficiency. I discovered a few years ago that I was very low in my ability to metabolize vitamin B-1 which is by the way essential for both carbohydrate metabolization and nerve health as well as a host of related conditions. Vitamin B-1 deficiency by the way causes Beri Beri. Its not supposed to happen any more except for alcoholics or for those who are on a starvation diet. However it obviously does. Its actually known to occur in certain families in northern Europe. I actually heard of a distant relative that died from malabsorption at age 18. I never really knew what Beri Beri was until I looked up vitamin B-1 deficiency--although I used to joke around that I had Beri Beri due to my distended belly.

I started taking co-enzyme B complex and the problem resolved itself in two weeks. Of course exercise is still important due to old injuries to my L-5 vertebrae and sacrum which when out of joint can cause nerve pain in my low back, hips and legs. However the heart palpitations have gone completely away and most of the restless leg and other nerve problems (like in my elbows and sometimes nose and lips) have either disappeared or been greatly reduced. I now take 2 Country Life co-enzyme B complex capsules every night before I go to bed or early in the AM before I rise. The sorbitol in most of the sublingual co-enzyme B tablets does not seem to agree with me.

It makes sense to me in retrospect that I might need to be on the scd in part due to this vitamin B-1 deficiency tendency as well as having celiac. The co-enzyme B complex has helped a great deal but obviously hasn't totally corrected the situation. Thus simplifying the carbohydrates and sugars really is a life saver for me and maybe others like me as well as you Ali. Am just wondering how many here on this diet might have this same B-1 absorption difficulty. Taking the B complex is I think important to make sure none of the B's are out of balance.

Bea

PS--I wanted to add something about the chocolate issue: --often we need not only fats but also the extra magnesium which chocolate also has a great a deal of. Unfortunately the caffeine in chocolate is often contra-indicated esp. for people who already have over active immune systems, which is in part why I think its not recommended by Ms. Gottschall -- since otherwise you could just mix up your own chocolate with honey. Meanwhile I am glad to hear the fats made it so you stopped craving the chocolate. Hooray! Am I right to assume you also take extra magnesium?

[Gfresh404]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but instead of religiously following the SCD couldn't one just supplement with Pancreatin? That way the disaccharides and polysaccharides are digested for you. Just a thought.

[AliB]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but instead of religiously following the SCD couldn't one just supplement with Pancreatin? That way the disaccharides and polysaccharides are digested for you. Just a thought.

Well, in theory maybe it ought to but in practice it doesn't necessarily seem to work like that. I have tried taking digestive enzymes in amongst the different things I have tried over the last 18 months and they made little or no difference.

Quite why I have no idea. Perhaps it depends on how far the pancreatin gets into the digestive system before it is dealt with, after all, it doesn't normally come from the stomach but further down in the digestive tract.

The point of the SCD is to get the body working properly - producing enzymes et al where they should be and to be doing what they should be doing. Taking any kind of supplement or support may help to a certain extent, but doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

And that sort of links me into your point Bea. Yes I am taking magnesium, but in the meantime what I am really doing is trying to work my body back into a place where it can glean what it needs from my food and do what it should do with it.

The fact that I am getting stronger and have more energy is a big indicator to me that my body is now absorbing more from my more beneficial food. That would indicate that my gut is healing and I am really beginning to make inroads into the Candida et al (despite the occasional chocolate!).

Interestingly, it was not the added magnesium that has impacted on the chocolate craving, but the fats which may indicate that I had a shortage of fatty acids or lipid-based vitamins/minerals.

I have tried taking all sorts of supplements and have a very comprehensive array of pots and potions on my worktop in the kitchen, but nothing has made any difference to the 'thumping', so I am not convinced it is due to a deficiency. It may be linked to toxins - it might even be linked to my gut or bowel. I thought initially it was to do with my blood sugar, and eating carbs does affect it but I get it even when my blood sugar is normal.

As the only time I have really had any relief was when I had the all-veggie day, I then wonder if it is a protein digesting issue, so this week I am going to experiment and try and have a couple of all-veggie and fruit days to see if it does work again.

Today I have just had so far (it's 4pm here) two apples and two handfuls of nuts. So far it is still keeping a fairly low profile. We shall see...........

Although the restless legs etc., went with the removal of gluten (and only returns by the accidental ingestion of it), taking gluten out of the equation has made no difference to the thumping so I am not so sure that there is any relationship there. Definitely it is linked, somehow, to my digestion though.

Of course, being Diabetic does throw a spanner in the works as it could somehow be connected to that too - but I am gradually dealing with that - trying to get myself to a point where I can get off the medication. I have made good strides in that area, but still the thumping persists...............

[lonewolf]

Ali, Bea, Pele and Jan - thanks for the tips and encouragement. I'm doing a bit better now. My son is still hungry all the time and I decided to start baking almond and coconut flour things (cake and pancakes so far) for him so he can feel full and satisfied. It doesn't seem to make him any worse.

BTW - we are used to eating a lot of fruit and vegetables. Fortunately, all my kids are good veggie eaters. It's normal for us to eat 5-6 large peppers and 2-3 zucchini or yellow squash grilled along with chicken or salmond for dinner. The only difference now is we have no rice or potatoes or gluten-free pasta or bread as side dishes. I can't imagine doing this diet without having been gluten-free first and knowing how to restrict things and cook your own food!

We were away for the weekend and it wasn't as hard as I thought to make all SCD food. My other kids didn't even eat the bag of potato chips that I brought! They all loved the banana cake (from Breaking the Vicious Cycle) and the coconut flour pancakes I made. I also baked some nut butter brownies (almond butter, honey and eggs) and they were eaten up.

Maybe things are on the upswing!

I'm really learning a lot from reading other people's questions the responses to them too. I'm so glad this thread is here!

[YoloGx]

Hi everybody,

Jan you are encouraging me by your example to try some of those desserts sooner. Have been waiting since I have been historically so very allergic to eggs and nuts. Am hoping with this new diet that my allergic response will die down--and actually just be an intolerance that goes away. Is this wishful thinking?? I still haven't tracked down the dry curd Cottage Cheese in my area, though I just learned I might find it in Mountain View, CA (I am here in San Jose). Meanwhile its good to hear that your family is doing so much better now that you have rounded out the diet more for them with these desserts. Similar to you, I am glad I went off all trace glutens for a year before going off all grains. It was then roughly 7 or 8 months before I ran into the scd diet. Am certainly glad I did! Being off all grains plus having no fruit or any kind of sugars or cheese was kind of boring, though I was glad to feel better overall.

Ali--like you I am discovering I don't need as much in the way of supplements as I used to. this scd is really helping me that way in leaps and bounds. I almost am starting to feel like a more normal human being! lol! Am glad to hear that the increased fats is diminishing your desire for chocolate.

I have used pancreatin in the past--it was very helpful for digesting proteins in the early days after going off all trace gluten. Now I use these plant enzymes by NOW. Not as much as in the past, however they still are helpful. I think its all a gradual thing--especially for someone such as myself that apparently has had run-away celiac all her life despite efforts to combat supposed "allergies" when I was younger. I still take the E-zorb for calcium and liquid sea trace minerals and magnesium citrate since otherwise my joints ache after exercise in particular--plus the magnesium helps to keep me more regular. Nevertheless I am finding I don't need as much of the magnesium as I used to.

Its hard for me to believe that I can eat fruit for breakfast and dinner each day without ill effect! I am so pleased. We have a beautiful peach tree that is ripe and its so nice this year to be able to eat fresh peaches!

A friend turned me on to an article in the New York Times featuring several fruit soups. With just slight alterations I think they would be good for the scd diet. I'll send the article along in my next post...

Bea

[YoloGx]

Here's that fruit soups for summer article:

Tara Parker-Pope on Health: Soups for the Summer - Well Blog

By Tara Parker-Pope

Published: August 21, 2009

Open Original Shared Link

[AliB]

Bea, don't worry about finding the Dry Curd cheese (DCC) as you can drip the yogurt to make as good a substitute - after all that is pretty much what the DCC is.

Put some muslin into a sieve over a bowl, pour in the yogurt, cover and leave to drip for a few hours or overnight if wished in a cool place.

You can use as DCC. The whey can be drunk or used in cooking.

[YoloGx]

Bea, don't worry about finding the Dry Curd cheese (DCC) as you can drip the yogurt to make as good a substitute - after all that is pretty much what the DCC is.

Put some muslin into a sieve over a bowl, pour in the yogurt, cover and leave to drip for a few hours or overnight if wished in a cool place.

You can use as DCC. The whey can be drunk or used in cooking.

Thanks Ali--I'll do just that. I was thinking dripped yogurt might make a good substitute for it but wasn't sure. How cool does the dripping yogurt need to be? Does it help to leave it out of the fridge to ferment even more?

Thus I'll make twice as much yogurt with this next batch. I found my old stainless steel pot I use for making large quantities (of lentil soup or whatever) in Los Gatos and brought it back over here to San Jose where I am now living.

Question--what do you use the whey for in cooking?

Bea

[AliB]

Anything you need to add moisture/water to. Of course the cooking would kill any bacteria and enzymes in it but there are likely to be vitamins and minerals in it.

You can also add it to fruit and/or veggie smoothies/juices, use it as a starter for cabbage juice, drink it as is if you like it, or you can just throw it away!

(denatured whey is touted as a precursor for glutathione production in the body - how true that is I haven't a clue, but as it is eaten in yogurt it has to be beneficial in some way and it seems a shame to waste it.)

[YoloGx]

Anything you need to add moisture/water to. Of course the cooking would kill any bacteria and enzymes in it but there are likely to be vitamins and minerals in it.

You can also add it to fruit and/or veggie smoothies/juices, use it as a starter for cabbage juice, drink it as is if you like it, or you can just throw it away!

(denatured whey is touted as a precursor for glutathione production in the body - how true that is I haven't a clue, but as it is eaten in yogurt it has to be beneficial in some way and it seems a shame to waste it.)

Thanks Ali! I'll definitely save the whey! I used 1 1/2 gallons of milk for the yogurt preparations last night. The yogurt goes pretty fast since both G and I use it. Making the yogurt cheese seems like it will be a lot of fun.

Is it really sufficient to just add the whey to the cabbage and not the yogurt solids for the fermented cabbage making process (my next project after the yogurt cheese)?

Meanwhile you continue to be a treasure trove of information...glutathione production for instance being kind of important for creating more basic energy in the mitochondria as I recall. I used to take L-glutamine for that very purpose--but stopped after I started having a recurrence of kidney problems in the spring of last year. I read too its not good to take if you have diabetes either by the way. So a natural source that helps one create one's own L-glutamine like whey seems far better. It would be interesting to find out more about it...

[lonewolf]

I have to share a funny story, because honestly, I'm having a hard time with this. It's fine for me (but I'm not the sick one), but my son isn't getting enough to eat and I have 3 other kids and a husband too. I start back to work tomorrow and I don't know how I'm going to find the time to make all this food. Anyway, I needed a humor break, so I guess I got it...

This morning I decided to make breakfast burritos - homemade sausage and sauteed red peppers and onions wrapped in thin omlets. Sounds good, right? Well, I beat the eggs and poured the first bit into the pan to make the first omlet. I set the pitcher on the counter, kind of close to the edge and accidentally hit it with the pan handle, which sent it flying to the floor - with 4 beaten eggs in it. So, after yelling (I did NOT swear) and expressing my frustration, I called the dog to help clean it up. Buddy was happy to help, but decided that he should stand in the middle of it to lick it up, so he got it all over his paws and when he moved, spread more egg mess on a bigger part of the floor. So I ended up washing his paws (he's half lab and has big paws) as well as the floor. What I didn't think about was that this whole time the burner was still on and the omlet was cooking a little too much and was fairly brown and tough by the time I got back to it. My son thought it was a tortilla and was really happy and told me thanks twice - and then he tasted it and realized that it was over done egg. With the amount of eggs we've been going through we didn't have any more, so one omlet was "stuffed" and split 3 ways for the 3 of us that were home. I'll try again tomorrow!

[AliB]

I just learned two things from the 'Eat Fat, Lose Fat' book by Sally Fallon & Mary Enig.

Apparently, adding a tablespoonful of whey to homemade mayonnaise helps it to keep a lot longer in the fridge. Two weeks without and 'several' months with. That surprised me. (Mary uses a blend of equal parts of coconut oil, expeller-pressed sesame oil and olive oil for the mayo). I'll have to try that one.

The other thing that is mentioned is that many people with thyroid imbalances - both up and down, have found that it settles after a few weeks of taking coconut oil. Presumably it must either be supplying something that the body is lacking, or it helps the body use something else more effectively.

[AliB]

Oh dear Liz. Funny how things happen in a chain reaction......

I took a chicken out of the roasting casserole the other day and put it on the upside-down lid to carve up. After dinner I got sidetracked and forgot to put it back in the dish. Along comes my husband and decides to put the base over the lid to protect the chicken. What he failed to notice was that there was a load of greasy juice in the bottom and he tipped it upside down.

You can imagine the outcome. Guess who got the blame..........

It's still lurking underneath the kitchen cabinets........

[YoloGx]

I have to share a funny story, because honestly, I'm having a hard time with this. It's fine for me (but I'm not the sick one), but my son isn't getting enough to eat and I have 3 other kids and a husband too. I start back to work tomorrow and I don't know how I'm going to find the time to make all this food. Anyway, I needed a humor break, so I guess I got it...

This morning I decided to make breakfast burritos - homemade sausage and sauteed red peppers and onions wrapped in thin omlets. Sounds good, right? Well, I beat the eggs and poured the first bit into the pan to make the first omlet. I set the pitcher on the counter, kind of close to the edge and accidentally hit it with the pan handle, which sent it flying to the floor - with 4 beaten eggs in it. So, after yelling (I did NOT swear) and expressing my frustration, I called the dog to help clean it up. Buddy was happy to help, but decided that he should stand in the middle of it to lick it up, so he got it all over his paws and when he moved, spread more egg mess on a bigger part of the floor. So I ended up washing his paws (he's half lab and has big paws) as well as the floor. What I didn't think about was that this whole time the burner was still on and the omlet was cooking a little too much and was fairly brown and tough by the time I got back to it. My son thought it was a tortilla and was really happy and told me thanks twice - and then he tasted it and realized that it was over done egg. With the amount of eggs we've been going through we didn't have any more, so one omlet was "stuffed" and split 3 ways for the 3 of us that were home. I'll try again tomorrow!

That is a funny story!--in retrospect of course after the frustration is over.

Just want to reiterate--squash, avocadoes, and as Ali keeps saying, coconut oil. I eat a lot of sunflower seeds too.--they are great in a pinch..and mucho vegetables along with the meat and eggs, yogurt and fruit. Recently I am finding cheddar and swiss cheese to finally be good for me--might be for you guys too? Very filling with lots of calories as well as protein.

My best advise--make a bunch at once--and get your kids and husband into the act. You all could take turns, maybe each with his/her specialties.

Bea