Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet

Elaine Gottschall's book, Breaking The Vicious Cycle, which details the SCD, saved my life. This book is THE AUTHORITY on doing the SCD. It describes in plain terms, the science behind why and how it works. It details what to eat and what not to eat. There are even many recipes included that will help you see the many possibilities of yummy foods you can have on SCD. Many of these recipes are extremely kid friendly.

I tried many things before SCD, gluten free, casein free, various other elimination diets, rotation diets, digestive enzymes, but nothing worked to the level that SCD did.

Before trying the SCD, I had Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (autoimmune), Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the early stages of both Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid Arthritis, and symptoms of Bipolar disorder.... I was lost in chronic pain, brain fog, insane exhaustion-- unable to enjoy life. SCD has given back the joys in my life. I've lost 80 pounds and have stabilized at a healthy weight. I have so much more energy to live, not just physical energy, but mental energy as well. I can keep track of what chores need to be done and don't feel overwhelmed or daunted anymore, and I have the energy to actually complete them! I can discipline my children and actually be effective. I can follow conversations. I can move and walk and even dance pain free. I feel connected to the world around me instead of lost in fuzzy brain fog. I can enjoy my children, my husband, my friends, my family and my life once again.

My son has been pulled from the brink of Asperger's by this diet. His ADHD has also been fading. Emerging is this sweet, calm, focused, articulate little boy. SCD also gave him the first solid stools of his entire life. His little body is rapidly healing on this diet. I should also note that Feingold Program did not help at all and actually made his sensitivities worse, even after trying it for many months! SCD gets at the source of the salicylate problem. Removing them completely with Feingold is just a band-aid approach. Doing SCD my son's list of salicylate foods that he can tolerate is growing and growing. He can now have tomatoes, many high sal spices, small amounts of berry juices, which before SCD would have sent him pinging off the walls.

Thank you Elaine for bringing this diet out into the public's knowledge! Rest in peace knowing you made a difference in this world.

"All diseases begin in the gut" - Hypocrites (460-370 BC)

R e a d t h e b o o k !
T r y S C D!
It is specific healthy whole foods. It can not harm you.
When you go on the SCD diet you can see for yourself intelligently from your first hand experience if it works for you. I was eating this way for over six years and it was not that hard to eat healthy when it made me feel great and stop all my symptoms..

The SCD diet has a very high percentage of success and there is a good reason for this.
It completely eliminates refined sugar, artificial sweeteners and flavorings, white flour, any food high in trans fat and of course any junk food, which is bad for everyone.
This diet takes care of: bacteria overgrowth, gluten intolerance (very common in IBD patients), allergies for wheat and oats and allergy for soy.
Eliminating milk from an adults' diet helps with digestion for everyone, with or without lactose intolerance or milk allergy.
The downside of this diet is that it is unnecessarily restrictive, hard to follow and extremely expensive .
There is no need to eliminate all the grains for ones with gluten intolerance or wheat allergy and of course for ones whose problematic food is milk. Maybe white rice really is not good, but brown rice has very high nutrition value and should be allowed. Quinoa and amaranth are very good sources of protein, iron and calcium.
Maybe at the time that the book was written there were no available high quality commercial yogurts, but now one can find lots of them in any health food store.
This is definitely not a diet for ones with allergies for nuts, fructose intolerance and who has difficulties to digest animal protein.
The difference between SCD and elimination diet is that SCD eliminates foods just 'in case', because they could be a problem, while elimination diet is designed to identify the food allergies and/or sensitivities for every individual person and remove only that foods, which are problematic for that person.
Also, elimination diet does not sell books for $22.

I have Crohn's disease, and lately I've read several books about nutrition for people with IBD, gluten intolerance etc. This is the only one I'm keeping

Diet and nutrition are complicated, and there is little agreement beyond the basics. The thesis in this book is that many people, especially those with IBD, have difficulty digesting complex carbohydrates, found in grains, milk and sugar. This is bad not only because of reduced absorption, but also because those carbohydrates remain in your gut longer than they should, and become food for harmful bacteria.
By avoiding complex carbohydrates, and getting your carbs from fruit, you help starve the harmful bacteria.

I've been following the book's thesis, and am feeling better than I have in a quite while. But the main reason I recommend the book is that it's well reasoned, sensible, and optimistic. So many books have doomsday scenarios. This one even suggests you can leave the diet once you're healed.
Along the way there are tons of pieces of information backed by references to real articles on real journals.
If you're suffering from IBD or gasses, cramps etc., give this book a serious try.

This book made a huge difference for my husband who was suffering from a bad case of ulcerative colitis. Her approach is so sensible and based in science, it's a mind bender why doctors are not utilizing her knowledge. Within a few days of following the diet suggested, my husband had a great improvement in his symptoms. I'm recommending this book to all my friends who have "stomach problems" and those who have lactose intolerance.