Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; A Low Starch Paleo Cookbook for AS!

coconut flour or almond meal (if you can tolarate it)

I was also a big baker.

I spent years learning how to bake the perfect bread and pizza. I used freshly ground whole wheat for extra flavour.

I don't miss it. Now, bread is just baked porridge to me. I feel like I have wasted enough time (and health) on it. It is hard to walk away from a skill it has taken years to master, but I don't want to have anything more to do with it. (I rarely ever use my oven anymore.)

There is so much great food to eat which doesn't come from grass-seeds processed beyond any recognition.

But if you must
Some nut flours (kind of) work for baking (almond, but also walnut-flour and flaxseed-flour), but I think that it is very easy to over-eat on nuts and seeds if you substitute flour-bread with nut-flour-bread or cakes. And I think nuts are best in moderation. I do on rare occations bake a paleo-bread (nut/seed-bread), which is basically a heavy seed-omelet which looks like a brick, but works well instead of "schwarzbrot" with various Scandinavian specialties, which would just be weird to eat without some kind of bread-like "edible plate".

Mainly I have substituted baking with wind-surfing, snorkelling, hiking and other fun i can have without back-pain.

Just checking in!

If I could delete this old post about my Low Starch Cookbook I would. After 1 and 1/2 years I decided it's time to stop selling it, time to move into the next adventure!

I've actually gone back to eating a diet very high in starches and I honestly feel better than I have in 10 years! My diagnosises of AS and IBD are in what I consider remission for my body! I am the success story I used to dream of. Yeee!!!

For me, starch isn't the enemy. The only foods that cause inflammation for me now are soy, cows milk, and refined sugar / cane sugar. I haven't tried adding back in gluten yet, but I am currently eating all other starchy grains and starchy foods without any AS or IBD related flare ups.

My cookbook was completely gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, soy-free, corn-free, nightshade-free, refined sugar-free AND the recipes were also very low in starch. And I always believed the latter (starch) to be the Least threatening of that list, but still a very good one to avoid when healing a leaky gut, especially if one has AS. Unfortunately based on the many emails I have received regarding my cookbook from those who are stressed out and in pain, I feel like my main message of eating Pure and Simple Real Foods, (basically the Paleo diet with an emphasis on very low starch) was often missed and the take away by many readers was only that "starch was the enemy", as this was the most emphasized message in many of the forums.

I'd hear from so many people who complained to me that the diet wasn't helping, yet they had still had not tried giving up dairy products or sugar (hello yogurt, butter, kombucha & store bought chocolate, I'm looking at you!), or tried doing an elimination diet or food intolerance testing to identify their unique food intolerances. I personally did not experience radical healing until I cut out all soy, dairy from cows, and refined sugar / cane sugar 100%. I noticed early on that I flared much worse from a teaspoon of soybean oil hiding in a restaurant salad dressing than I did from a bowl of starchy pudding, same goes for flaring from eating storebought chocolate (which contains soy lethicin, refined cane sugar, and can contain milk), so I simply make my own dark chocolates without those ingredients and I enjoy my homemade chocolates everyday, very blissfully I might add.

So my main takeaway is to really put the time and energy into seeing what foods help you thrive vs. which foods are causing an inflammatory response in your body.

I believe there is so much more to healing than just avoiding starch. (But in reference to this Kickas group, I still think it's a very good start to help get people looking deeper into what foods they put into their bodies while they also look for other possible food intolerances and lifestyle changes to make. So I will continue to refer folks here as there is a lot of valuable information and friendships to be found here! I also like to refer people to the SCDiet - without dairy until symptoms are gone!)

If anyone is interested I've shared more about my healing journey and the alternative therapies that have helped me along the way via the link in my profile below. But I am no longer available for any private messaging convos, instead anyone is welcome to read the hundreds of posts, comments, and recipes I have shared over the years on Kickas, on my blog, and in the Low/No Starch Facebook group. (A lot of my fave Low/No Starch Paleo recipes are still available for free on my blog.) Ultimately I believe the life changing answers you seek will come from within, by listening to your own body!

Wishing you all many sunshine filled pain-free days!! xx

PS: for those who have enjoyed my grain-free recipes I am working on a new cookbook of nourishing gluten-free & grain-free recipes featuring some pretty amazing breads and baked goods, (with many recipes that can easily made low in starch). This new book will not have a focus on overcoming AS or any specific illness, instead the focus will be on a celebration of nourishing foods!