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Difference between IBD-AID and Gluten-Free


Gluten-free (GF) is now being defined by dietitians, and recommended by some M.D.s. I view IBD-AID like a subset within the GF world (and SCD as a subset within the IBD-AID definitions).

The foods

Gluten-free diets allow plenty of starches – potato starch, arrowroot, rice flour, tapioca flour – as well as conventional sugars. All of which encourage the overgrowth of the IBD-causing bacteria. 

These starches and sugars are are illegal on SCD, and not allowable on IBD-AID.

Gluten-free diets allow flours such as sorghum and cassava which are not yet cleared for use under IBD-AID.

What’s useful

In the past 20 years, major advances have been made in GF baking. In Santa Monica, California there is a bakery shop (Breadblok) which sells GF croissants and baguettes. GF cookbooks like pastry chef Aran Goyoaga’s Canelle et Vanille Bakes Simple will make your eyes bug out, they’re so enticing.

While many of these advances rely on ingredients which are not legal on SCD, not allowable on IBD-AID, the cookbooks and the combinations can teach you a lot if you wish to learn to bake in this brave new world.

For instance, I learned from Aran Goyoaga that in France savory crêpes are traditionally made with 100% buckwheat flour. That’s allowed on IBD-AID! Goyoaga also has a buckwheat + almond flour cracker. And she said on Instagram that her delicious-looking galette recipe works with buckwheat flour. Right there, I learned so much!

In reading expat recipe sites online, I have discovered that many traditional cultures baked with chickpea/garbanzo flour (a.k.a. besan). Many cultures have lentil-based flatbreads. Often, these recipes are tagged as “gluten-free” but they work for SCD and IBD-AID as well.

Additionally, between the “you can’t have it” recipes, there always seem to be one or two which leap off the page as possibilities – “wow,” you say, “I could probably adapt that one!” And right there is your starting place.

I continue to read GF recipes, simply because I never know what I might learn.

You can click on the Venn diagram above, to enlarge it.

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