Cooking for your Celiac Child

April 24, 2010

(In 1951, Dr. Haas published "The Management of Celiac Disease", a book that describes using the specific carbohydrate diet to treat celiac disease. At the time, the SCD was a well-known standard treatment for celiac disease.)

Recently, I was trying to learn about the decline in the use of Haas's diet after the celiac disease/gluten connection was discovered. I ran across a 1969 cookbook titled "Cooking for your Celiac Child". The introduction of this recipe book describes using a strict "beginning diet" for children with severe symptoms:

"When a child's celiac condition is first diagnosed, especially where the symptoms have been severe, many doctors will recommend a particularly strict diet at the start, eliminating all starches and sugars entirely, even those which may be gluten-free, and all fats as well. This rigid diet is used by different doctors for different lengths of time, varying from as long as a year to as little as a few weeks, or just long enough to control the briskest diarrhea."

The next paragraph then describes an SCD-like diet: "meats, fish, gelatin desserts, bananas, homemade broths and simple soups . . . cooked fruits and vegetables and non-processed cheeses such as pot cheese, natural Swiss, and cheddar."

This description appears to show a transition period in treating celiac diesease: where the SCD and a gluten-free diet were both in use.

Temple Grandin & the Specific Carbohydrate Diet

SCD Article in Binah Magazine