About Me

Most people think of the abbreviations B.C. and A.D. as” Before Christ” and “After Death” (even though it actually stands for Anno Domini). In our case, I think of these letters as standing for “Before Chron’s” and “After Diagnosis.” Our lives were literally turned upside that day in October when we received the news that our ten-year-old son had Chron’s disease. As the doctor proceeded to say to us, “we’re going to be friends for life,” I thought, “what is he talking about?” Whatever he spewed out after that went in one ear and out the other like I was in a cloud. 

Having graduated in the 80’s and 90’s and being a food scientist and biochemist, I thought I knew what good nutrition looked like. Our family ate whole grains and wheat, very little red meat (my daughter and I are vegetarians) low fat dairy, yogurt, legumes and soy in various forms and limited amounts. In fact, I distinctly remember a course in metabolics that taught the old 1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories, 1 gram of protein = 4 calories and 1 gram of fat = 9 calories, (oh and by the way, 1 gram of alcohol = 7 calories just in case you wondered) so when someone is trying to lose weight, it’s calories in vs. calories out. It’s that simple they taught us. I even repeated this mantra in a course I taught at one point in time, with a beautiful visual that burned a piece of meat vs. a piece of bread and a thermometer in a beaker above the food items and we would measure how many calories each piece of food had, since a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. What a fun class that was, the kids loved it! 

I did however, tell my children to watch their sugar intake, as kids today are surrounded by sugar. I would explain to them that it was important because they didn’t want to develop diabetes or other diseases when they got older (never focusing on things like weight). The challenge of children reducing sugar these days is in and of itself, difficult at best. It starts with back to school parties, Halloween, then all the sweets at Thanksgiving, and onto Christmas and New Year’s parties, then Valentine’s day, Easter, end of the year parties, and the cycle never ends! The constant exposure to cookies, candy, cupcakes, ice cream, treats of every type during school, after school, as a reward, as a motivating factor, after athletic competitions, birthday parties, and even just stopping in a place to grab a quick drink, is daunting! Little did I realize how much sugar is added to everything we purchase. I just never looked that closely, since after all, like I said earlier, I was buying whole wheat products, soy based vegetarian foods, and other “healthy” food items. I know, I know… I was in the industry, how in the world was I so lapse in my judgement? 

I’ll never forget sitting in a seminar and listening to the speaker talk about the “Snackwell’s” generation. I was on the team that developed those amazing Devil’s Food cakes and Reduced fat peanut butter and all those delicious low-fat snacks. Go ahead, eat a whole box! There’s no fat in them! YUM! Everything we put out on the market back in the ‘90’s was low fat and if it was a cookie or cracker it more than likely had saturated or trans fats in them and plenty of sugar. 

 Back to my son. Initially I thought our son possibly had celiac disease, so before we got the diagnosis from his colonoscopy I cleared the cabinets of all gluten. I was shocked at how all the “replacement” products, like pretzels, bread, and crackers were filled with things like potato or rice starch and sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. How was this any better for him? After he was diagnosed, I went into research mode. I called every place I could find that had any information regarding IBD and Chron’s disease. Within three days I had spoken to people in the U.K., Bahamas, Israel, Australia, Canada, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Maryland, and UMass just to name a few. Not a single GI specialist within our area was a believer that diet had anything to do with healing and insisted that my son needed to be on Humira or Remicade or a handful of other drugs. In fact, we tried Pentasa for something like $1000 for a month’s supply, and he had such an awful reaction to it, I personally threw it out and said that’s it. This is the gut we’re dealing with, food must make a difference! My biochemistry background and my motherly instincts kicked into overdrive and we decided right after Halloween (come on, I just didn’t have the heart to take away Halloween that year) we were going to start the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) that I had heard and read about. We went through our refrigerator and our cabinets and threw out I would say almost everything in them. It’s shocking what’s in our food when you take a good hard look at it. Everything had added sugar, preservatives of some sort, stabilizers, gums, colors. Is it even food anymore? Again, this was supposed to be the “healthier” stuff too. If we were eating this at home, I can’t even imagine what’s in the food we were eating out. At one point we went to a restaurant and my son wanted chicken soup. I asked if it had any sugar in it. My mother in law looked at me like a was crazy. Sure enough, the soup had sugar. She couldn’t believe it, why would they put sugar in chicken soup? If it’s made right, it’s sweet all on it’s own. It shouldn’t need added sugar.  Look, I was part of this industry, I feel like this has come full circle. I loved experimenting in the labs and scaling up the products in a manufacturing plant, then having my mother call and say, “I’m so proud, I just saw your product on the grocery store shelf and I told the lady next to me that my daughter made this!” I mean, come on, science and technology are fun! I had great jobs (I won’t name the companies I worked for, but let’s just say they were great, fun companies, with lots of fun food). I don’t want to be naïve either, I know other factors play a role in this horrible disease, such as stress. However, I am a true believer that “we are what we eat” and we are eating anything but real food at this point. I’ll be honest, this has not been easy. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I would say the first two weeks were by far the hardest. I think we all went through sugar / carbohydrate withdrawal. We were lethargic, grumpy, hungry and angry, not to mention I was trying to figure out what the heck to feed my family! We made lots of mistakes for months. We cheated a little here and there, with things like tapioca starch or if something had a little arrowroot, how much could that really hurt. I was exhausted. Cooking and cleaning all day long every day, every meal. These are kids, they wanted treats as well. I found recipes for baked goods and breads and tried a million different things. I have no idea how much almond flour and how many eggs I went through. I was ready to buy some chickens and some bees. I went through dozens of experiments that the kids didn’t like. I thought I was going to lose my mind! At about the five or six-month mark, I think it finally became a little easier.

I had figured out hamburger buns that the kids liked, I had some recipes up my sleeve that weren’t too difficult that I could make in the morning and heat up for dinner. I finally found some meals my son enjoyed taking for his school lunch. Snacks have always been the hardest. We’ve sort of made after school snack more like a fourth meal of the day. Truly, it’s a lot of planning. It’s still hard if I haven’t planned, but at least we’re sort of in a groove now and I’m not as stressed. That’s when we decided we should share some of our recipes with others. Our daughter has written a couple of cookbooks and now it’s time for my son to share his journey. We hope you enjoy these recipes. 

One thing you should know is that we have adjusted these recipes for the added ingredients that have been tested in the IBD community and have been regarded as tolerable for many IBD patients (such as cacao powder, not cocoa, gluten free oatmeal, and a few other ingredients) . Everyone is different. If there’s an ingredient that you find intolerable or that you haven’t experimented with yet, speak to your doctor or nutritionist or whomever you are working with to decide if it’s something you might be willing to try. Don’t forget there are stages to SCD. Some people aren’t able to tolerate some of the more advanced foods in the beginning. Do your research, try to stick with softer foods and foods that are easily digestible and make sure to chew your food well!