Why are you eating all that weird stuff, and when will you eat normal food again?

What's wrong with eating starches, and grains, and . . . ?

Owen and I have been on a special diet for more than 2 months now. To most people, I'm sure it just seems weird - another strange thing we've done in a whole line of odd things. I am posting some excerpts from emails I recently sent to Carolyn and Alison explaining why we embarked on this journey, why we took Owen to a dentist, and where we are headed:

The book Gut and Psychology Syndrome was really helpful, and I have also read bits and pieces from Breaking the Vicious Cycle (http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/). I have learned a lot from mothers on a couple of yahoo email lists including the Weston Price Baby list I own, the leakygut list and the GAPS help list.
We have been eating a mostly whole foods diet with grass fed meats and milk, mostly organic veggies, about 70% of our grains were soaked/sprouted/fermented, and mostly organic fruit for about 4 or 5 years now, and we were still having what appear to be nutritional issues. I am hungry all the time (even before pregnancy and nursing), Owen's teeth (we do brush, but I don't think that it has that much to do with tooth decay - the main issue is nutrition with tooth decay), Owen's crankiness as a young baby, his excess spitting up, his still difficult sleep. . . We also seem to have some food and environmental sensitivities. The dentist referred us to a doctor who works with a nutritionist and does mostly nutritional analysis and counseling, but we can see him until the 24th of Sept.; he is in high demand.
So, until then, we are doing a very strict GAPS diet introduction. Hopefully, he will have some helpful advise. I am also going to discuss celiac testing for Owen as I have a nagging worry over that - not exactly sure why except for the teeth. There is some newer stool testing that seems to be more accurate in younger children than the older blood tests. I'd like to know what the dr thinks.
GAPS is really just the latest iteration of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet which was developed for celiac patients (back when celiac disease was more loosely defined to encompass a broader scope of issues than small intestine degeneration due to gluten intolerance). The ideas set forth by Campbell-McBride are not really all that revolutionary. She is mostly in agreement with the developers of the SCD as well as with tradtional food advocates and researchers such as Weston Price. Her big push to use prepared probiotics is a bit different, but there are certainly people who have seen great results without capsules of probiotics and used lots of probiotic foods instead.
Long term I know it is not realistic to never eat modern/processed starches again, but I do think it is a reasonable goal to steer away from processed foods - especially nutrient poor starches and to eat mostly whole vegetables, meats, carefully prepared grains (if you can), as well as fermented foods. I think that eating these things for a lifetime would certainly be wise and healthful. It is also much less expensive to eat this way. Eating cheap cuts of meat with bones to make stock, fresh local, organic veggies, and pastured eggs is the cheapest we have eaten in years! That doesn't even take into account what we spent eating out occasionally, and food costs overall are rising here in the US. Wheat and corn are more than double what they used to be - almost triple at the store.
I certainly miss my milk - especially buying the most beautiful $5/gallon Jersey milk from the Amish farmers right at the farm, but we will be adding it in, in due time. And I do miss beer; we're still making home brew - just not for me. But mostly, I have realized over the past few weeks that a lot of the starches we were eating were just fluff in our diets; they really aren't necessary. We are getting plenty of simple sugars from the veggies and now limited local fruits that we can get.
I guess our long term goals will be more clear once we have talked with the new dr and had any necessary testing done. With GAPS, you start off with just meats, broth, and cooked and fermented veggies since most people tolerate those well and since these things are rather easily digested. From there you add in foods methodically - ghee, eggs, avacado, olive oil, raw veggies, fruits, fermented dairy (so all the lactose is gone), dairy, then some grains may be trialed starting with rice. Hopefully, we will be able to add back things to make our diet a bit more varied and "normal." I think it would certainly be wise to always keep a variety of fermented foods in our diets, but I am still undecided about the capsule probiotics after we have gone through a course and are back to maintenance.
Sorry for the novel. If you are interested, the GAPS book is really interesting and not too long for a mama to read during nap times. It was just reprinted, so I think copies should be available again.
Sent to Carolyn September 11, 2008

Owen has some serious tooth decay that I noticed just before we moved. I have recently been looking back at pictures to try to pin point when it started. (See pictures for a progression.) His lateral incisors are the worst, and they look fine in pictures from around 12 months, but they have significant enamel loss down to the dentin and are very short now. We pretty much went to letting him eat anything (that was "real" food) around a year, and I have some serious concerns about grains being a culprit.
I have done a lot of research on infant tooth decay since I noticed his problem, and there seem to be a lot of different ideas out there, none of which really make 100% sense to me. I believe the root of the problem is nutritional - probably partly my diet during pregnancy/nursing and partly his diet. Since we have been eating what I consider to be a good diet for some years now, I think we must not be properly absorbing the nutrients in our food - again, I think this relates back to grains.
We have started a diet based on the specific carbohydrate diet that excludes all grains and starches and for a time disaccharides such as lactose. We have now added back kefir and will also do yoghurt as they have all the lactose used up in the culturing process, so we are not dairy-free now. We stared right after we moved and I read a book called Gut and Psychology Syndrome which discusses the diet (which is from the 1950's) and other measures to heal the gut. All of the advice was very practical and jived with my current understanding of nutrition. Basically, polysaccharides (starches in grains, potatoes, etc.) and disaccharides (lactose, sucrose(table sugar)) are difficult to digest and therefore contribute to bad flora growing in the gut, so the only sugars used on the diet are simple sugars which do not need further digestion to be used by the body - honey and the sugars in ripe fruits and in vegetables (mostly glucose and fructose). We are also eating fermented foods at every meal and taking a probiotic to help colonize our guts with better flora and heal them. Owen, of course, is still getting lactose in breast milk.
We saw a holistic dentist in Philadelphia because I wanted confirmation that I hadn't missed something obvious and to make sure there wasn't anything that ought to be done to his poor crumbling teeth. The dentist mostly confirmed that we should beef up his diet and see a nutritional-minded doctor. He also confirmed that we have bad gut flora, so we were already on the right track. He said Owen wouldn't be experiencing any pain and there is nothing to do to the teeth themselves at this time. So, we are not going back for any check-ups - only if we see a change that needs to be addressed. The nutrition doctor had some supplements to suggest but overall thought Owen was eating really well.
We had started 1x a day brushing, and the dentist suggested 2x and no nursing between brushing and bed. We did add the second brushing to our routine, and I feel conflicted about it as Owen really hates brushing, so I have to hold him down twice a day and force his mouth open to do it; it seems so violating, and I'm just not sure it really helps. On the other hand the actual brushing (as opposed to the violation of his personal space by forcing something into his mouth) shouldn't hurt anything either. What's a mama to do?
We are slowly trying to transition Owen to going to sleep without nursing, but with the big changes that came with the move, his sleep has been worse, so this is really a work in very slow progress. Again I have conflicting feelings on this as I believe nursing is one of the best things I can do for his dental health as well as his physical and emotional well-being. The studies on night-nursing and dental carries are divided and there is no clear information that tells me that the best thing to do for him is to night-wean. He often nurses to sleep and usually nurses 2-4 or even 6 times throughout the night still. Before we moved, he was down to about 1 nursing during my normal sleeping hours.
Abram and I think that the decay seems to have stopped or at least slowed down so much that it is really hard to notice since we moved/started the new diet. So for now, I think the problem is being managed. We'll see how things go.
Sent to Alison September 30, 2008

Click to enlarge pictures.
12 months


14 months


17 months


So, we try to eat plenty of good fats and bone broth at least once a day from properly raised animals. We eat most vegetables and limited fruits. We try to eat as many local, in-season foods as we can because these are the least expensive (in overall cost - see Michael Pollon post) and the most nutritious. We are now eating lacotose-"free" dairy including kefir, aged cheeses, and butter. We take cod liver oil and butter oil daily because of the research of Weston Price.
Sometimes explaining our food idiosyncrasies to people feels overwhelming. Sometimes I feel like people are intimidated by our choices or figure we disapprove of theirs. Of course I think that most people in our country could really use some improvements in their diet. Of course I wish for the people I love and care about most to enjoy long and healthy lives, and I think eating well is a key factor in that. But, believe it or not, I know I don't have all the answers and know that there are multiple paths to wellness and health. That's not to say that I think all views are equally valid, but they are all certainly worth considering and holding up to the light of day to see what they have to offer. So, when you see us eating sauerkraut with almost every meal and drinking broth or soured milk or steering Owen away from bread or potatoes, I hope it'll make a little more sense why we do what we do. I welcome questions and am always looking to learn more, so by all means, speak up if you want to learn or share!