So . . . What Do We Eat?

My last post told what the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) and Paleolithic Diet (Paleo) each entail.  It also clarified that we have been cooking (and Lauren has been eating 100%) according to the SCD since 2005; but we have all been following Paleo for quite a few months, with some very nice results.  The natural next question is:  “But what do y’all really eat?!” 
I love most of the Paleo Pros out there who are happy to share info. It Starts with Food authors and founders of The Whole9, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig, have a 60 second explanation to “What do you eat?!” which they are happy to share with other bloggers.  Here is that quickie explanation:

I eat real food – fresh, natural food like meat, vegetables and fruit.  I choose foods that are nutrient-dense, with lots of naturally occurring vitamins and minerals, over foods that have more calories but less nutrition.  And food quality is important – I’m careful about where my meat, seafood and eggs come from, and buy organic local produce as often as possible.
This is not a “diet” – I eat as much as I need to maintain strength, energy, activity levels and a healthy body weight.  I aim for well-balanced nutrition, so I eat both animals and a significant amount of plants.  I’m not lacking carbohydrates – I just get them from vegetables and fruits instead of bread, cereal or pasta.  And my meals are probably higher in fat than you’d imagine, but fat is a healthy source of energy when it comes from high-quality foods like avocado, coconut and grass-fed beef.
Eating like this is ideal for maintaining a healthy metabolism and reducing inflammation within the body.  It’s good for body composition, energy levels, sleep quality, mental attitude and quality of life.  It helps eliminate sugar cravings and reestablishes a healthy relationship with food.  It also works to minimize your risk for a whole host of lifestyle diseases and conditions, like diabetes, heart attack, stroke and autoimmune.

For the rest of the post from which I borrowed this quickie explanation, check out: Nutrition in 60 Seconds
But what does our little family eat?  How do we mix it up and not get bored?

What is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and how does it work?

Okay, so now that I have caught you up on how Lauren is doing, and it’s clear that most of our good news is the result of our discovery in 2005 of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), I’m ready to answer more fully the question, “What is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet and how does it work?”  So here comes the craziest synopsis of SCD you’ll ever read. 

Catching up: 10 Years since Dancing in Cornmeal

Warning: This is the long promised, as well as just SUPER LONG, blog post that serves as “the rest of the story” to Dancing in Cornmeal: Life with Autism. I began writing this post the week of Lauren’s 20th birthday, and intended the title to be 10 Years of Catching Up—on Lauren’s 20th Birthday! But long stories take time to tell. So instead, here we are 10 years after the release of the book (approximately—it was spring). The story stopped when Lauren was 10 years old, so . . . same thing really.

One of the purposes of creating this blog was to share our success and to network concerning diet, specifically SCD and Paleo, so heads up that there is quite a bit of medical history and diet talk in this post. I tried to keep it as streamlined as possible, but . . . Lauren’s story is what it is, and streamlined is not a descriptor I’ve ever used for it!

Part I: Intro

In the 10 years since writing Dancing in Cornmeal: Life with Autism, our family has been through a lot with Lauren. Dancing in Cornmeal helped to define “a lot,” as will this blog post.