Just got the book and have been reading portions of it. Vey good stuff for us trying this diet.
It's amazing this lay person has had such an influence on the medical profession. it says a lot about Dr. Enbringer and his openess to find the connection and have Carol independently do so also. I get the impression she is an obsessive person. People like that make these kinds of great discoveries. Her bowel obssesion and the taking of laxatives in the amount she does is a bit alarming. I've had many nutty patients in my hospital who were obssesed with laxatives. But who am I to argue about a lady who has this kind of success?

The only other part of the book I would say I object to is her defending of McDonalds. The food there is borderine crap no matter if it's acceptable on the starch free diet.

hehehe, sometimes eating some borderline crap is good for the soul. Jon and I try not to be health nazi's 100% of the time....just most of the time.

I recently bought the book also. She said that she drinks coca cola. Coke has corn syrup in it. How can it be starch free with corn syrup in it? I'm confused.

Jeanne

Corn syrup manufacturing process breaks down starches into sugars, so there shouldn't be much starch (if any) left in it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_syrup

Health nazi's AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, that's a good one

And I can totaly relate. Well, i used to be one, so i know. That was till i rediscover exactly what you said, that some food it's a wonderfull soul food, so hell with being so strict all the time

Unfortunatly, given the fact that I started very recently with NSD it's time te be total strict for a while...

yes...i was really put-off by the mcdonald's comment too.

and...um, how to put this delicately, i was horrified at the fact that she hadn't had a b.m. in 3 weeks!! is that even possible??! i hope i don't sound offensive or insensitive about this because i can imagine that must be absolute hell...but after about 3 days i think i'd go to a doctor asap.

maybe it was the mcondald's that did it...?

don't even mention the "non-dairy creamer"

It's obvious if you're subscribing to the theory of no starch diet your not following the most healthy diet in the world. It's not a terrible diet per say. Most starch are in foods that are pure garbage. it's the loss of the root vegies and the grains that make it less then ideal. but if it alleviates a horrible disease that can literallly kill you then I say it's a pretty damm good diet. I just dont think you need to defend bad corporations like McDonalds or advocate soft drinks.

An ideal diet for a healthy person could easily include root vegetables and rice, but from what I've read lately skipping grains with gluten is not a loss at all.

Just one example:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=celiac-disease-insights

Oops, they made that one subscriber-only now; guess it was too popular.

Well this guy has some relevant references:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/gluten
especially note how lots of "healthy" people have IgA for gluten.

Yes, on the NSD you don't eat grains or root vegetables but this diet is still 100% healthier than that of the average Joe walking down the street. Most people eat a lot of refined grains and loads of refined sugar etc which are of no value. Not many people eat ONLY whole grains and actually eat a healthy diet with NO junk at all. VERY few. Perhaps you are one of the few?

In a perfect world nobody would never eat junk but we don't live in that world. Even on the NSD, a treat can boost the spirits.....whether that be a drink of coke once in a blue moon or some chocolate or whatever non starch thing you go for.

Me and Jon don't consider McD's a treat...more a place we go if he's desperate like if we're out and about all day and haven't brought a packed lunch with us. The only thing he can eat there is the hamburger patties (which are 100% beef and nothing else) and the salad. Not too bad really in the grand scheme of things.

He very rarely drinks soft drinks....maybe once every few months he'll have one

I think there is a huge difference between eating some "junk food" and actually being an advocate for the company that makes it or needing to rationalize that very food. There is my issue with Sinclair.

I think Carol Sinclair was just trying to give people a little heads up on eating out.

You could take some of her comments out of context and argue otherwise, but when you read the whole section under the McDonald's heading she is not so much "defending" McDonald's as giving people informaion about the best fastfood options for no-starch dieters (the best of the worst if you will - it's all fast food after all).

She says "when you're tired and hungry and scared to try unfamiliar food, those golden arches are like a magnet." She is saying that if you need to eat in an emergency then McD's is the safest option - or at least that's how I interpret it.

I wouldn't aim for those sorts of restaurants on a no-starch diet (or on any diet!! except on rare occassions) - but if I were to get caught out (and it does happen) then thanks to Carol I know what food is safe for me to eat at McDonald's. I also know what is not safe - without having to do all this research myself!

I have no ulteria motives or allegances here - just thought I'd give my view as I see it. No getting on high-horses intended

Take care, all

Hey, I'll defend McDonald's a little bit here

I think their Angus burgers are quite decent, order with bacon but no cheese, don't eat the bun

use the fork that comes from the salad, grilled, not crispy chicken option

Paul Newman Vinaigrette dressing, tested it at home with iodine

the salads used to be better, though. But it really did surprise me that one of them had as much raw spinach, tomatoes in them, not just iceberg lettuce

course, I haven't seen "Food, Inc." documentary about how all this is prepared

people who have watched it said they'll never eat at any fast food restaurant ever again!

Hello Dow

No Angus burgers in France - man you've got my mouth watering!!!
We have the famous "Mc Croque" burger here (based on the traditional ham and cheese Croque Monsieur) this is really not good enough!!!!!!!

As for preparation of fast food... well what you don't know can't hurt you... or make you gag!!!

McDonalds in France...

gotta make me remember this:

(caution, four-letter words )



but I think it's only fair to recognize that McDonald's HAS improved their nutritional content of foods. Still not good, I'll grant you that

but try looking at the nutritional value here:

http://nutrition.mcdonalds.com/nutritionexchange/nutritionexchange.do

add a Premium Bacon Ranch Salad with Grilled Chicken

with Newman's Low Fat Balsamic Vinaigrette

and an Angus Bacon & Cheese, but tell them to hold the cheese, and don't eat the bun

bottle of water to drink

really not too bad, I think, 1090 calories, and don't know how to calculate how much should be subtracted for not eating the bun and cheese-

Hey, Tinkerbell:



Well said. In her presentation she stated that the reason she wrote a COOKBOOK was because she never eats out--almost nothing is trustworthy except stuff like the unadulterated (all-beef) MickeyDs patties. It is more a statement of fact that it is possible to find something universally available, in a pinch.

You have just interpreted her words the way she intended--certainly no advocate for MickeyDs.

And for others, she does not normally take physicks (Epsom salt), but on one occasion was bound up for a long time after eating improperly harvested nectarines. Eventually, the ambulance ride to hospital jarred and bumped her enough that stuff began to move in the right direction.

Best Regards,
John

fast food restaraunts are dipping there hamburger in ammonia to prevent E coli outbreaks. Now one will never be able to trace getting a disease or sickness to eating an ammonia burger so they will get away with it. But do you really want to eat an ammonia burger?

I'm quite certain they dont use angus beef here. If your able to buy a burger for one dollar it probably corn fed beef right out of the feed lot dipped in ammonia.

Happy eatings.

I have gone almost 2 weeks... after a while you stop eating because it is uncomfortable. And yes I was going to doctors every couple of days since items were not improving.

Very frustrating with IBS when it happens. Thankfully last 4-5 years really no major issues. Most is maybe 2-3 days.

Tim

Yikes!!!


they certainly claim to, and their Angus burgers are not a dollar, they definitely taste better than their other burgers. if you have them without the extras, bread, mayonnaise, cheese and all that, it's pretty clear there is a difference

Guess as usual, the truth is likely somewhere between their slick PR and people's fears

Just as a silly aside, and to demonstrate that I am far from an expert on the subject of meat, many many years ago, took a vacation in the Florida keys, and when we went driving around, saw all these steak restaurants that had big neon signs that said they featured something called "Black Angus"

I kept wondering, who is this guy Black Angus?

Somehow I kept thinking of Eddie Murphy... ()

Marsha just sent me this:

NY Times article about ammonia injected in beef products to prevent E.coli

we noted that the process is done to grocery chains meat, not just fast food, as well!

and not as effective in preventing contamination as originally believed

Double Yikes!

Par for the course, in the mass-market beef industry... I go for the occasional grass-fed organic beef. My poor friend who is an environmental-toxin canary can really tell the difference between cheap meats and real meats...

I read the article. No where in it did it talk about any outrage about putting ammonia in the beef. Does that not cause any concern here? Geez.

I bet the solution is to put more ammonia in the beef. This is why I only shop at Whole Foods. They dont buy there food from the same place as the supermarkets. They are local buyers and organic buyers. Their beef is natural organic grass fed.

The politicians are all bought off by the lobbyists for the farm industries and related processing plants. They dont care about your health. They know they just have to stamp "safe" on the food and the blind public will buy it.

Sometimes we buy expensive fresh frozen steaks by mail from here:

Omaha Steaks

Keep them in the freezer until we are ready for them

Better?

oh, that's not sounding too good

and no, don't know enough about beef to recognize that we should avoid any raised in Nebraska

no Whole Foods in our immediate area, although they are now building a natural foods type place in the same area where we walk our dogs, we are looking forward to it being completed

but next time we are in the Phoenix area...

Dinner at Finnari's!!!

Right that's it!
I'm going on a food free diet!!!!!

According to Wikipedia(sorry, don't know how to do the web site thing), Coca cola is made with sucrose in some countries and high fructose corn syrup in others. A Coke once in a while is not a bad thing especially if you add a little rum to it!

Jeanne

Or Malibu!

I noticed she didnt mention coconut flour or coconuts for that matter in her book. unless I missed it?

My wife made the coconut flour chocolate chip cookies. They test negative for starch. They are super soft but wow what a treat after eating all that meat and salad.

Double Yikes from me Dow... I thought the same when I read that. But after working at processed cheese plant in States, nothing surprises me any more regarding food in the States.

Tim

Hey Finnari,

What Whole Foods do you shop at in Phoenix... I used to live in Chandler and work in Tempe for 5 years... there was a Whole Foods I used to shop at in Tempe and a Trader Joes in Chandler. I also liked Sprouts.

Best to you,

Tim

Hello there

No, Carol uses almond not coconut in her book as far as I could see. Could this be because her diet is more aimed at IBS and coconut flour is super high-fibre? Perhaps it is not IBS friendly? It doesn't affect my AS symptoms, but if I eat a lot I find I have a little trouble going to the toilet (sorry if that's too much information!)

I have made the cookies twice - the first time they were really crunchy on the outside and softer in the middle. The second time they came out more like coconut marcaroons. I didn't have any brown sugar though, so maybe that made the difference the second time, I don't know. I did like the crunchy batch better I must say!

You are so right though - they add a new dimension to all meat and veg!

I didn't have gut problems with coconut flour, and i'm sufering from rectocolitis and AS both.
But probably we respond diferently, depending on our own body

PS. it takes a lot to learn how to use it, my wife had several tries before making a good apple pie with it. Now we're stuck at sour cherries pie but we'll manage :))

Her book was published several years ago now. Coconut flour is kinda a recent thing so that's why she hasn't mentioned it. It may have been around for a while but it wasn't widely used or well known.

ooooh ooooh ooooh! PLEASE post your wife's apple/cherry pie recipe. I have Bruce Fife's book Cooking with Coconut Flour and he has recipes for "pastry" but I am wary to try them. A lot of his recipes are actually disgusting despite his claims that they are delicious. there are only a few recipes in the whole book that I use. I made one of his cake recipes and it had 12 eggs in it and is just tasted like egg....ewwwww gross.

I used to go to the one in tempe but they built an even bigger one in chandler. Since I live in chandler it's really awsome they have it there. They have so many choices of products there it's mind boggling. After shopping whole foods its hard to go into a regular supermarket.

so lets hope my translation is ok for this recipe:

so for the dough you need:
eggs - 9
honey - 4 spoons
coconut flour - 11 spoons
1 small ampulla of vanilla essence
1 half spoon of sodium bicarbonate.
mix those thinbs with the mixer/blender until you have a omogenous paste.



now for the apple thing:
apples 2 kilos (whateever you like but they must be succulent)
Must rasp'em all (with or without peeling them before - if you don't peel them you'll have more arroma inside the pie).
1 small ampulla of rum or vanilla essence
honey - 2 spoons.
butter - 1/4 package

what to do:
mix the apples and those things that comes with them.
put them in a pot and cook them until they get really soft - be carrefull not to burn them - the butter must get into the apple...


get a baking tin that's big enough to hold all this.
smear the bottom with some butter.
cover the bottom with cooking papper (i don;t know the exact translation for this one, it'a papper that's used for cooking, not the aluminium stuff, just some special papper). smear it with some butter too.

put half of the dough on the bottom.
put the apple mix over it and cover it with what's left of the coconut dough.

be carrefull - the coconut dough can crumble verry fast - so strech it using a spatula you use for salad or something.

leave it in the oven until it reddends.

pull it out and leave it about 2 hours, then you must turn it upside down (be carrefull with this...) so that the upper dough side can moister too.
leave it some 3-5 hours so that all thing can moister.
i usualy eat it the next day - because the coconut stuff is verry dry from it's nature and it takes some time to moisturise.


bon appetite...


probably you will need to work on it several times before you'll make it to your taste

Thank you so much for the recipe! I'll have a go...may take a few tries.

i hope you'll like it

hey, just finished watching "food, inc" thought it would make me want to go vegetarian, but rather it just made me more motivated to find alternate meat sources.

we're good with the fruits and veggies for the most part. our grocery store sells a lot of organic of those. and living in upstate NY, surrounded by small local orchards, farm stands, nurseries, etc, and know a lot of these farmers, enjoy talking with them.

but meat has been more of a challenge, but our grocery store does sell organic chicken, tried it tonight, and it was wonderful! so chicken dilemma solved, i think.

yeh, i miss whole foods, we had one in maryland, and i loved it. had a food coop where i could buy better meats in virginia. but up here, our natural foods store doesn't have a meats section or much of a produce section, mostly packaged foods and a bulk section, so i get what i can there but meat is still a dilemma.

interesting that after the documentary, as i was trying to find internet sites to help me navigate to grass fed animals, etc, one of the best sites i came across was that eatwild.com site. have some good leads. we also have a local public market and there are a few small scale farmers there who sell meat, think next time i will take a cooler with me and get some meat in addition to the fruits and veggies we get.

as for healthier fish, i watched this TED lecture on better fish farming, and found it really fascinating:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html

thanks for this information!

and if you know of any other links to help us further, greatly appreciated.

i wondered about this too so i went to 'coca cola uk' site [thats wher she lives right?] i read the ingredients and their coke is made with SUGAR .. haHA. as for supporting mcD's and coke ummm its good to know there is a quick option when you are hungry that is the same pretty much no matter where you are. for me this is my replacement to typical comfort foods :]