Steve’s SCD Healing Journal: Week 21 – Walleye fishing in the Saginaw Bay!

Co-Founder of SCD Lifestyle Steve Wright has finally broken down and started his path to intestinal healing.  After many years of undiagnosed digestive warfare in his body, these series of weekly posts will take you through his experiences, thoughts, and struggles on the SCD diet.  Check back and follow his progress:

Week 21 Summary

Another week down and another camping trip to fill you in about. But first I should mention that I tried broccoli again and this time I’m defiantly putting broccoli in the suspect category.  It wasn’t that it caused me horrible symptoms but I did notice a higher incidence of gas and my stomach made a bunch of noise after a couple meals that included it.  So until further notice broccoli is on my caution list and won’t be tried purposely for awhile.  Instead, I’m going to move on and start breaking into more vegetables in phase 3.  I’m still keeping fruit to a minimum until I get my stool test results back (Next week!).

I ran out of the anti-fungals I’ve been taking last week.  After my doctor’s appointment next week I will have a better idea of what or if I’m still dealing with bad bacteria/yeast.  I have noticed that since doing the round of anti-fungals my oral thrush is basically gone (encouraging).  But yeast problems are notoriously hard to get rid of so I’m not holding my breath. My BM’s stayed consistent last week rotating between 3’s and 4’s with the occasional 2.  I think it would good to note that I haven’t been eating any yogurt for 3 weeks now.  I plan to start again soon.

I am continuing to build my iodine dosage and haven’t had any side effects yet.  I’m currently taking 37.5 mg a day and next week I will bump it up to 50mg.  I plan on staying at that dosage for 3 full months and then dropping back down to a maintenance dosage.  I did do another zinc tally taste test and got some pretty strong taste sensations around the 10 second mark.  Much improved response after last week.  Unfortunately my allergies have got my nose so plugged lately that I can hardly breathe let alone smell.  However as dumb as it sounds I still get a big ol smile on my face when I randomly catch a wiff of some summer rain, a camp fire, or some fresh cut grass.

SCD CAMPING IS NATURAL

So last weekend I went on a guys weekend that included some golfing, fishing and camping.  It was great to get out of dodge and even though it would have been nice to catch more fish, any day on the water is better than a day at the office.  I do have to say camping SCD style is getting easier and easier.  It is natural to cook burgers on a grill, just make sure you pack your SCD legal cheese (don’t forget the Eden’s mustard if you can tolerate it!).

With all the natural foods that are allowed on the SCD diet camping can really is a breeze, this weekend I was stocked up with my standard camping diet of avocados, bananas and almond flour muffins but also I brought along a huge food container of pulled pork, cooked carrots and sautéed spinach.  I left the Lara bars home this weekend and while I do confess to eating my burger on non-cooked lettuce everything else was cooked and compliant to Phase 3.

Camping on the SCD diet, especially one that is not restricted by the phases, would be cake (almond flour that is).  I mean think of all the amazing SCD legal foods that are highly packable and taste great like raw carrots, raisins, any other fresh fruits, pre-washed and chopped raw veggies.  As far as meats go, pack the cooler with pre-cooked meats (cut up pork, chicken, etc) or just cook on the grill daily (burgers, chicken breasts, etc).  Honestly, it’s like it is NATURAL to eat SCD style while camping.  Many of my friends basically did this weekend other than their burger buns.

Now that I am thinking about it, it makes perfect sense, the SCD diet is extremely close to the Primal Diet.  My thinking is camping brings us as close as possible to the way our hunter gather ancestors lived.  It would only be logical then, that the easiest foods to eat and cook while camping would be the same ones that our ancestors did.  Never have I seen someone making bread in a campground.  Oh and it’s not really camping if you’re in an air conditioned trailer with TV, go spend the weekend in a tent and appreciate nature!

SPICE OF LIFE RAMBLINGS

This past week, I was posed with a new SCD diet problem. I signed up to go on a fishing weekend knowing that at least 1 meal (usually as many as possible) would be fish and everyone I know loves to fry walleye in the golden standard Drake’s breading mix.  Drake’s of course, is NOT SCD legal, so if I was going to make this part of the trip as un-socially awkward as possible, I needed to find a suitable replacement.

I did some research and found plenty of homemade fish breading mixtures, but basically every single one of them included non-legal SCD flour. So, I decided it was time to invent my own. Without further ado:

Wright’s Walleye Breading

• 3 cups almond flour
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons sea salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

Make sure all your spices are SCD legal, make your own garlic powder if needed.  Just combine them in a ziplock bag and shake. You can then either bread the fish when the fillets are slightly moist or beat a few eggs up and dip them in the egg and then coat them with the almond flour mixture.  However, I would recommend the first approach… I tried both and once the almond flour got a bit of moister from the egg my mix was ruined.  This breading would probably taste great on chicken or turkey and I plan on trying it soon.

So how did the mixture stack up against the current walleye breading champion?  I loved it and most of my friends had nothing but thumbs up (all non-SCD’ers).  The jury is out on who is currently wearing the Walleye Breading Belt but I can tell you that weren’t any wasted fish with my breading on it.  The almond flour provides a very light crust (doesn’t retain the cooking oil) with a nice texture and my mix of spices has a decent kick of heat to spice it up a bit.

Let me know if you try the breading I would love to hear some more feedback!  Anyone else pan-frying or deep-frying fish out there?

– Steve