Where to Find the Best SCD Diet Holiday Recipes

The holidays are a beautiful time of the year – nights filled with easy conversations, loving memories and large bountiful meals. Unfortunately, for me and many other SCD’ers, large family gatherings are also filled with non-SCD time forged family food traditions.

I’m not normally involved in the food planning process, so lately I’ve been fielding questions about how we can update old traditions or forge new ones. This has been causing anxiety for me and my family. Not having full control of my menu tends to stress me out. Of course, I could make separate foods, but considering I’ve been given ample opportunity to have input on the menu that seems offensive to me.

While I’m not at the planning table for these gatherings, many of you are. I don’t have much experience trying to cook for more than 5-8, so I can’t imagine what large functions entail. (My family party will be 30+.) It must be a whole different stress trying to figure out how to please everyone, without compromising SCD principles.

While I don’t think it is possible to please everyone, I do think it is worthwhile to give it a try. With that in mind, I believe the secret to successfully navigating SCD family gatherings is pre-planning. Much like traveling on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, setting up the conditions for success is very important.

In my mind, when it comes to the winter holiday season, food planning is the most important condition to ensure your success.

There are plenty of the SCD legal foods to eat and many SCD replica foods to replace old SAD staples. A couple examples I use are mashed cauliflower for potatoes and butternut squash instead of sweet potatoes. In order to help you plan for success, I want to share an awesome holiday food guide being put together by Mrs. Ed over at Mrs Ed’s Research and Recipes.

She came up with a GENIUS idea of getting everyone in the community to come together and post your best SCD holiday favorites. If you are in the beginning stages of planning your holiday meals, you should check out the growing list of recipes. I do want to warn you that some of the recipes are not SCD legal but they seem to be properly marked. Please enjoy and contribute if you can, the more we share the richer all of our lives become.

-Steve