SCD thoughts given DrOz 3 Day Cleanse, Microbiome

SUMMARY:  Finally! A peek into our trillions of innards on a 3 day fruit and vegetable blitz!  Spoiler alert:  There is NOT much impact 10 days after stopping that 3 day cleanse, microbiome resulting from healing diet tenets persist!  

And that, I think, is the lesson to be learned for the healing diets such as SCD, GAPS, PALEO, AIP, WAHLs, to name a few.  Realize, the tenets of these healing diets are for everyone if you want to prevent chronic disease, not just those with chronic disease.  These protocols increase vegetables and fruits beyond what the normal Standard American Diet (SAD) yokel is consuming and adds in healthy fats so fat soluble vitamins are actually absorbed.  This is done concomitant with ditching processed foods,  including processed sugars, and other inflammatory foods.  How powerful are these tenets?  They are healing and inducing remission in messed up impoverished gut microbiomes, and some of those folks are only 80% compliant with the diet!  Nuff said.  Shouldn’t you know what these tenets are?

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50 IBD SCD remission patients: RUSH paper

SUMMARY:  In August, 2015, RUSH University published  their study of 50 IBD Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) remission patients: The Specific Carbohydrate Diet for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Case Series. This is the largest report on a series of patients with IBD following the SCD to date and describes their clinical characteristics.  50 patients in remission eating SCD case series are reported which comprise: 36 subjects had Crohn’s Disease, 9 subjects had Ulcerative Colitis, and 5 subjects had in-determinant IBD.  

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school lunch bag chocolate chip cookies

SUMMARY:  I hear you… school lunch bags and dessert.  Well… here is what I pack; it is the very same chocolate chip cookie recipe that you sampled.  Actually, I always double this recipe making it in bulk using a very large stainless steel mixing bowl that I happened upon at Marshall’s.  I freeze all these cookies, and we just eat them straight out of the freezer!  They make great packable school lunch bag chocolate chip cookies! Substitutions for healing diets SCD, GAPS, and UMass IBD-AID are noted.

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Two week Sugar Elimination: Mind and Body physiological changes

Summary:  A Two week Sugar Elimination challenge results in Mind and Body Physiological  Changes that are so true, vast, deep, and amazing — why anyone would not try a two week challenge, I’m clueless on.  This post provides some insightand How-To’s for doing a two week elimination of only refined sugar.   This post also includes excerpts from HOW GIVING UP REFINED SUGAR CHANGED MY BRAIN, which shares a dieter’s experiences doing this challenge.  That article is such a great read!  I wish every one would do a two week sugar elimination diet. You’d experience a revelation in Mind and Body Physiological Changes in how you feel including energy and mental clarity that are truly impossible to ignore!   Heck, even Dr. Oz’s three day vegetable, fruit, multivitamin and VSL#3 probiotic cleanse caused massive microbiome changes and you can read about that here too!

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Soybean oil, corn oil, diabetes, metabolic syndrome & P-450

Summary:  Learn the association between Soybean oil, Corn oil, Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome & P-450 inhibition, the main liver detox enzyme, having significant effects on expression of genes that metabolize drugs & toxicants.  Now is the time to be wary of and consider eliminating polyunsaturated fatty acids soybean oil and corn oil (as well as vegetable oil —since this typically contains soybean oil) as they were found to:

  1. Link to diabetes and metabolic syndrome. In the US, metabolic syndrome is estimated to be present in 20–30% of adults and 3–10% of children [100,101]. 
  2. Significantly affect the expression of many genes that metabolize drugs and other foreign compounds that enter the body, suggesting that a soybean oil-enriched diet could affect one’s response to drugs and environmental toxicants. The single most highly represented family of dysregulated genes was that of the [key liver detox] cytochrome P450 (Cyp) genes (30 genes total).

Also worth noting: the soybean plus fructose diet had less severe metabolic effects compared to the soybean oil diet, but it did cause more negative effects in the kidney and a marked increase in prolapsed rectums, a symptom of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which like obesity is on the rise.

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Home test finds gut inflammation before relapse (3 months prior)

SUMMARY:  Imagine a home test differentiating between Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and autoimmune Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)! The time is nearing…  IBdoc is a cheap easy to use home test that measures gut inflammation and presently is used in Europe.  It is still 2 to 3 years away from FDA approval in the US, but clinical trial recruitment has begun; make the call and participate (see below for details.) The device finds gut inflammation before relapse or flare: actually 3 months ahead of IBD relapse giving you (and your physician) time to address such.  The device hopefully too will be found capable of differentiating between IBD versus IBS.  Update: tweeted from 11th Congress of ECCO March 16-19, 2016 presentation: fecal calprotectin rises 4 months before flares. 

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Meet the FATS & Best Salad Dressing Oil, Part1

SUMMARY: The focus of this post is to better your understanding of vegetable oils and unsaturated fats.  Raw vegetable salads are chock-full of important vitamins and nutrients, but the latest science says you won’t get much benefit without eating them along with both the right type & amount of fat. In fact, essentially no or very low absorption of carotenoids was observed when salads with fat-free salad dressing were consumed (see this study or this study, Table 3.) 

In this post learn: the preferred fat/oil for best carotenoid absorption (spoiler alert: that would be unadulterated, organic, and cold pressed EVOO brands which are listed in the  UC Davis pdf report here — scroll down to the lightbulb for more details), that you can actually ditch dressing and instead add half an avocado, or you can add cooked eggs to an incredibly small amount of dressing to even further boost carotenoid absorption. Make certain you consider the sections entitled What inhibits Carotenoid Absorption for possible impact due to your particular health status, and the tips for Decoding Labels.

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4th of July Fruit Roundup & Burger Thoughts

Sharing an EASY 4th of July Fruit Roundup, and a Grassfed Burger recipe, for party & picnic ideas, although honestly, these are fun & fabulous anytime!

And the best part… absolutely NO artificial colorings, artificial flavorings, or additives!  Nature is providing all!

Tip:   Just dip banana slices in lemon juice to prevent discoloration.

Berries… please buy organic as they are on EWG’s Dirty List:

EWG 2015 Dirty and Clean List
Source: http://ecowatch.com/2015/02/26/shopper-guide-pesticides-produce/

For the pie recipe…  please don’t use canola oil… just use coconut oil!!!  You will soon see the post detailing transfat (and other) problems with canola oil — all industrial seed oils for that matter!

Burger thoughts

For mouthwatering burgers:Grassfed meat has fatty acids that differ from grainfed meats. Unique taste results and non-conventional cooking is required to bring out the tastefulness. The reference links in the Notes section are great for understanding fatty acid differences. Source: biomeonboardawareness.com

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4th of July Cashew Cheesecake with Nut Crust, SCD/GAPS/PALEO

Summary:  This is a great 4th of July dessert, and it is just in time for the holiday!  But honestly, we always have this Cashew Cheesecake with Nut Crust in our freezer for snacking! Some add peanut butter into the filling, or blueberries swirled atop the cheesecakes, and others top with coconut milk whip cream. I suppose that is what makes this recipe so fun… you can dress it up but you certainly don’t need to! It is equally delicious as is!  Credit for this recipe goes to Minimalist Baker, although  I’ve modified it to include proper nut preparation as well as to proportionately increase the filling ingredients to reflect 15 full sized muffing tins instead of one dozen, since I always get 15 nut crusts!

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SCD Protein Bar (similar to Cliff Bars) or Bite Sized Candy

SUMMARY: This is a favorite SCD protein bar that we actually cut into bite sized nugget pieces which are then frozen. It is perfect for snacking.  The recipe uses a food processor and no baking is required!  The ingredients are pressed into a parchment lined dish, frozen, and then cut into the desired nugget sizes.  I always double this recipe since it is a freezer stored food. 

Ingredients I Prefer to Use

The ingredients in this recipe make these bars an advanced food for those on healing diets such as SCD, GAPS, or PALEO.  For this very reason, I recommend properly preparing nut and seed ingredients  whenever possible to make such more easily digestible.  I use the following ingredients for this very reason although I am not aware of “SCD legal” letters for them.  Be cautious if you are SCD or GAPS and use these brands, but many use them without problem. You can be creative and use your favorite nuts, seeds, and nut butters, but I prefer:

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