Happy Belly . info

IBD-AID is grounded in science, being defined by the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Paleo is not based on a body of scientific research, instead it’s more like citizen science and each individual’s observations. Many Paleo recipe authors seem to fall into one of the following categories: pursuing weight loss, pursuing extreme fitness (such as crossfit), or having IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome). It seems like each Paleo recipe author has their own definition of which foods are allowed and what are not. The foods Some Paleo authors permit potatoes, sweet potatoes, plantains. Some permit rice, arrowroot, tapioca, potato starch, or maple syrup. Some venture into Shirataki noodles (a.k.a. konjak noodles, or konnyaku noodles). None of these are on the allowable foods lists for SCD or IBD-AID. Depending on which Paleo author you are reading, the recipes might be meat-heavy. Many use only standard American diet (SAD) portions of vegetables. Since my family isn’t in this for weight...

IBD-AID and SCD have similar roots, but at this point they are quite different. Since I've been Chef Mom under both diets, I can say that I find SCD to be much more restrictive, IBD-AID to be much broader in its list of recommended foods. Both diets limit your starches and sugars intake, and guide you to avoid processed foods, instead sending you back to pure food ingredients. The definitions SCD began as a hypothesis developed in the 1920’s by Dr. Sidney Haas, that if you starved the “bad bacteria” your symptoms would disappear. It was popularized by Elaine Gottschall through her book Breaking the Vicious Cycle (1994), together with lab research circa 1970-1990. The lab testing SCD received sounds like it was more like analysis of the chemistry inherent in the foodstuff itself, without much data on how it affected the whole patient. Recently, Seattle Children’s Hospital has begun to work with SCD and pediatric IBD patients.  IBD-AID is being developed today by the University of M...

There are no IBD-AID recipe books. At the time I write this, you cannot purchase a book and know it’s 100% IBD-AID as-written. Recall that SCD is kind-of a “subset” within IBD-AID; the food list under IBD-AID is broader than under SCD. That means that about 95% of SCD recipes will work for IBD-AID. There are a few SCD cookbooks, and I’ve read nearly all of them, but I only enjoy two of them.     • Kerwien, Erica, Cooking for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet ... I have the 2013 original, but she updated it in 2021     • Conrad, Kendall, Eat Well, Feel Well: Specific-Carbohydrate-Diet compliant recipes (2006)  That said, all other cookbooks require some adaptation in order to meet IBD-AID. Here are some cookbooks which are “a good start.” They aren't necessarily "diet" books, but they have 5 or more recipes which qualify as-written, or they contain recipes which can be adapted to IBD-AID without a ton of inconvenience.     • Barbieri, Cindy, Paleo Italia...

I’m Chef Mom. I love to cook, and to explore international tastes. I’m a crazy researcher, I explore TONS of sources, and I like to share. On this blog you’ll find IBD-AID, Specific Carbohydrate Diet, Whole 30, and Paleo, vegetable-forward yumminess -- including recipes and practical, real-life suggestions for comfort through IBD (Irritable Bowel Disease). I’m not a medical professional, but through dietary changes, my family has found comfort and easing of medical symptoms, plus fresh new healthy menu choices. I’m the one who does most of the cooking in our family. I LOVE exploring cookbooks. I like digging through gourmet recipe sites (New York Times, Bon Appetit, Ottolenghi, etc), and sites of expats and international cuisine, to find overlaps with our diet.  My dishes follow the IBD-AID diet. IBD-AID is kind of like “contemporary medical research updates the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD).” In comparison to popular diets, my dishes overlap Whole 30, Paleo, and gluten-free and...

My pantry doesn’t look like a standard-American-diet (SAD) pantry. What’s absent: In my pantry you won’t find sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, molasses, corn syrup.  In my pantry there’s no wheat flour, no cornmeal, no cornstarch. There are no breakfast oats (even though they’re supposedly “gluten free,” they don’t make EGE-FamilyMember’s gut happy). There’s no pasta, no substitute pastas, except for the 100% lentil kind. There are no crackers, no cereals, no granolas, no snack bars (UC-FamilyMember ran through the SCD-qualified Larabars, and called it quits.) Okay, full disclosure: there is a tiny jar of sugar so I can fill the hummingbird feeder in the winter. (In the summer the hummingbirds eat from all the flowers in my garden.) And, there’s a bag of rice for when we have visitors, and a bag of quinoa for when EGE-FamilyMember craves something different from our usual IBD-AID fare. But aside from those, our pantry is rather different. What’s well-stocked: What you will find ...