Paleo Diet v Specific Carbohydrate Diet

How astonishing! I finally got around to finding out more about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which so many people believe have helped their children with autism symptoms. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it sounds almost exactly like the Paleolithic Diet! I am still trying to understand the differences among different carbohydrates, but according to the official website of Breaking the Vicious Cycle, which popularized the SCD:

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet™ is biologically correct because it is species appropriate. The allowed foods are mainly those that early man ate before agriculture began. The diet we evolved to eat over millions of years was predominantly one of meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, nuts, low-sugar fruits. Our modern diet including starches, grains, pasta, legumes, and breads has only been consumed for a mere 10,000 years....

How very fascinating.

Our foray into the Paleo Diet got interrrupted by a very fun birthday party, with not-very-paleo birthday cake, so I am putting off final analysis of the results.

The Paleolithic diet -- worth knowing about

Well, I am still learning about this, but I am very intrigued by the so-called Paleolithic Diet. It seems that our ancestors during the pre-agricultural age didn't eat beans or any grains like wheat, rice, etc. Which kind of makes sense when you think about it, because these things are all grass, which is not exactly intuitively appealing. They also didn't do dairy. Can you imagine chasing and catching some giant wild animal ... and then MILKING it?? LOL. Although people have been drinking goat milk for a really long time, but not apparently during the paleolithic or before.

I think it's interesting because:

* well, the paleolithic diet happens to be, among other things, casein free and gluten free

* it is naturally low glycemic index, so it probably makes you less likely to get diabetes

* it is naturally high in fruits and vegetables, which we already know are good for us.

They DID eat a lot of meat though! The catch here, though, is that their prey animals were all wild game, so they were very lean. (similarly, the fruit was all wild, so it wasn't nearly as sugary as what you get in the grocery store)

Apparently this means also ... a diet naturally low in saturated fat.

So ... it's interesting to study. Here's a really nice, thoughtful article:
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The major downside to this diet? no sandwiches! no crackers! no cereal! how does one feed a toddler/preschooler?? what do I pack on the way to the playground? so far my best ideas are: (don't laugh ...) beef jerky (if I can find some not full of horrible chemicals), dried fruit (if I can find some without too much sugar), and maybe some of those vegetable chips (you can get beet chips and sweet potato chips now with no trans fats, only canola oil). For crunchy snacks I guess you get nuts and maybe carrot sticks? crudite?

My problem is that we also suspect food sensitivities, so I think we need to do an "elimination diet" where you only eat certain limited things and then add foods back one at a time to see what happens.

Throw in the chronic constipation in one kid with frequent diarrhea in the other, and planning a diet/nutrition plan gets really complicated.

So I'm not sure yet exactly what I'm going to do, but in the meantime, I think the paleo diet is definitely worth knowing about.

A new drug ...

There is a new drug being tested for autism, according to this. It is supposed to supply some sort of enzyme to help digest proteins. The first article I read said the inventor/found claims that studies have shown that some autistic children can't digest protein. This was news to me.

Well, apparently, they are talking about the whole gluten-free, casein-free (i.e., gfcf, to those in the know)(and for some, soy-free) diet thing. But I was unaware of any studies that showed that any autistic children really were not capable of digesting these or any other proteins.

We're not GFCF, by the way. I tried it for a few months at first. It did turn out that T's twin brother really was having serious issues with dairy, because boy did he react when I did the challenge part of the elimination test (i.e., gave them dairy for the first time after weeks of no dairy), but T -- results were less clear. I had T tested for gluten allergy, and although I know those tests are not determinative, they were negative. I hated being gluten free. Turns out, I really really love gluten. who knew?

We went back on gluten. I couldn't tell any difference, honestly.

But I have continued to wonder. There sure are a lot of true believers in this diet. Can they all be wrong? Maybe I've made a mistake? I don't know.

Also, I have been struck lately by an amazing fact: our paleolithic ancestors did not eat any grains or dairy (or beans, either, by the way), at least accordong to the experts I've been reading.

In case you didn't know, supposedly we are still genetically identical to those ancestors, who turned eventually to the ways of agriculture when their meat supplies ran low. Before that, we didn't grow food or raise cattle.

And boy did they eat a lot of meat. It was about 50% of the diet, apparently.

And when we started eating all those grains etc., you know what? we got shorter as a species. we got some other diseases, too.

Pretty interesting.

So ... more to think about.