What do I eat on the SCD as of right now

First, let me say that I am really new to all of this.  Second I really have adopted the mindset of "doing the best you can with what you have". At different points of my food journey, we have had different budgets.  We have also had different time budgets and allowances.  We have also had different "life happenings".  All of these things affect us and how we are able to fully invest in a food lifestyle.  But I firmly believe that ANY step forward is a forward step.  So if you are trying to change the way you or your house eats, then make any change.  You don't have to do an overhaul on the first day.  YOur body will hate you, your house will hate you and your bank account will probably hate you.  There are some hard and fast rules that exist for the SCD lifestyle.  I don't follow all of them.  I try to follow as many as I can.  Coffee is supposed to be light.  Yeah, that one ain't happening.  You should always know your meat source and it should be grass-fed and organic.  I try this but my budget doesn't always allow it.  But eating chicken that is antibiotic free that I cook at home is better than processed chicken nuggets from a drive up.  When meat is on sale and I can buy the way I want, organic and grass-fed, then I do.  But I don't beat myself up for stuff.

Here you go.  This is what a typical meal plan looks like for us.  Maybe there are some new ideas on here for you.  Or maybe you can share some with me.

Coffee
I'll put coffee first because it is #1.  It is my first love in the mornings.  Through coffee, I love my family better.  Without coffee.  Well, let's just say I am to be avoided.  My favorite it coffee with some kind of heavy sugar cream and a nice whipped up something on top.

Then I began eating Paleo a few years back and that changed how I drank my coffee.  I tried many things:
coconut milk and coconut sugar
almond milk and maple syrup
black
tea
mixed almond and coconut
canned coconut
coconut and dates

None of which I loved.  But I did learn to like some of them more and more.  My favorite was Coconut milk and maple syrup.  Or bulletproof coffee. (grass fed butter, almond milk, coconut oil, honey, and vanilla)

BUT.....that was my old life.  My life before SCD.

Now honey is the only sweetener and coconut milk or almond milk are my only "creams".  ....sigh.....

and tea or black coffee.
I did recently discover soaked cashews + dates+vanilla bean+full fat coconut milk= creamy coffee
It is yummy but...it takes work and it's pricey when you really look at the overall cost.

My goal is to LOVE black coffee.  Cheaper and easier


Breakfast
coffee.

Don't judge.  I'm trying to fix this broken part of my day.  But I'm not awake enough to think through what to eat let alone what to cook ....and from scratch.

In the warmer months, I am a BIG smoothie person.  That's easy. Fruit. Honey. DONE.  ok ok yeah yeah yeah you can add veggies.

I like eggs but with stuff.  I do enjoy bacon and eggs and will sometimes eat that for lunch.  An omelet is also a great option.  But I have never been a breakfast eater or cooker.  So this was a challenge before my new way of eating.

Lunch

I have found that I am in the best mood and most willing to cook or experiment for lunchtime.  I have the rare privilege of getting to be a stay at home mom.
Here are some things I rotate for lunch:
Salmon and zucchini
salad
Shredded chicken (I will sometimes make a huge crockpot batch at the beginning of the week.)
Smoothies
zucchini noodles and shrimp
soup in the instant pot
simple chicken salad with plantain chips are an easy lunch.  Especially if I have to make shredded chicken at the beginning of the week.

....or sometimes I just pout and drink a cup of grape juice some other juice and don't eat at all. Because I am lazy, tired, or in a food mood swing.  If this happens then I am starving by snack time and eat apples and legal peanut butter. A LOT of it.  Or chili lime plantain chips.  Or pork rinds (which are growing on me).

Chips and salsa used to be my lunch go to.  I could eat small snacks all day and then eat real food for my dinner meal.  But now that I am really having to fight through my food choices and I have to be more intentional with lunch.   I have a feeling the further I get down this SCD road the same thing will happen with Breakfast and I will get better with it and more intentional.  But for now, I am just trying to get lunch and dinner under control.

Dinner

Dinner is another beast altogether.  This meal has always brought more stress for me than any other.  It is when there are 6 opinions about what is going on the table.  Questions about what's for dinner, when's dinner, do we have to eat at the table, what time will dad be home, etc. etc.  That doesn't even begin to get into the "ewwwwww what is that? Do have to eat ALL of it?"  Sweet mercy the dinner time stress.

In the past, when I was only eating Paleo I would typically fix the house one thing and then myself something else.  It just made life easier...and cheaper.  But since then I have had a change of heart.  After dropping almost 6 grand on surgeries and doctors in 3 months I figure cost was something we needed to re-evaluate.  If I truly believed that eating healthier meant you were actually healthier and that meant fewer trips to the doctor, then eating clean definitely had to be cheaper than doctor bills.  I don't want to digress away from dinner too much, but the bottom line is that this mindset change caused me to re-think my groceries.  It also required me to be less territorial about my "healthy" food and allow the entire house to eat them too.  After all, I want my house to be healthy not just me, right?

I won't lie. I do have to bite my tongue when someone is eating the last avocado or munching on my parmesan cheese crips. But keeping "health" in mind I am able to take a deep breath and share.

So here is what dinner looks like recently:

First off Against all Grain is a great website and youtube channel.  Danielle Walker doesn't specifically follow SCD but she is very close to it.  And the recipes that she uses normally have options that include SCD.  She is beautiful, her food is beautiful, her attitude is beautiful.

Cashew cream sauce over chicken with a veggie or over zoodles (this recipe calls for nutritional yeast.  You can omit that if you want a creamy sauce. Add it for a cheesy flavor.)
Salmon and zucchini (if I didn't eat it for lunch and if the kids aren't joining.  They aren't fish fans)
Creamy Mexican chicken soup 
Steak and veggies
Hamburgers with or without buns for those who can eat them and a veggie
Salads Salads Salads
Taco Salad (which is a go-to when the rest of the house is having tacos or nachos)
If I have eaten a larger lunch I will sometimes eat my 24-hour yogurt with a little honey and mixed berries.  It is my favorite right now.  The yogurt takes some work on the front end but once it's made, I have enough for the week.


There you go.  Hopefully, my lists will continue to grow.  My journey is forever expanding.  There are still days that I order the kids a pizza and have a smoothie for myself for dinner, just because it is easy.  Or even because I am not in the mood to talk my teenager into trying zucchini again.  Soups and salads are my saving grace. When I need to fix the family an "old favorite" like spaghetti or nachos, I am able to easily eat something in my lane without totally derailing to SCD process.



DateNight

As if eating at home wasn't hard enough, eating out adds another level of complexity into my life. My husband and I do date night once a week.  This has proven to be tremendously difficult.  We love to eat out.  We love our quiet, uninterrupted eating time, our conversations without the kids, eating without sharing.  But trying to find a place that can accommodate all of my needs is next to impossible.  This is not something I have figured out yet.    My best answer right now is to just do the best I can.  Stress is probably more of a trigger than food anyways.  So being stressed about where to eat is not helpful.
Right now we go to restaurants and I eat a steak with salt and pepper as the seasoning (which you have to ask for).  Or I do a salad with balsamic.  The other night I was adventurous and we had Pho.  Which had rice noodles (a SCD no-no) but gluten free and no additives.  I truly enjoyed our date night and didn't feel sick afterward.    The main point of SCD is not letting bad bacteria grow and feeding your guts with good.  So eating simple foods, allows them to be digested and used quicker, therefore not growing bad bacteria.  Rice is not simple.  I honestly don't know if rice noodles actually hurt my stomach or not.  Maybe it did and I just couldn't see it.

This is the biggest struggle right now.  How to eat to live while actually still living. I am not fully sure how to do this.  In a culture that lives to eat.  And lives to eat things that are not good for us.  It is hard to swim upstream.

I am a work in progress. Here is what my kitchen looked like yesterday.  From left to right I will list what you see.  CHicken in the crockpot for the week, Nutritional yeast, Ghee, Liquid aminos, Olive oil, milk cooking for 24- yogurt, yogurt jars, dates, cashews soaking in the Blendtec and my yogurt maker.  Oh yeah and my mixer that wasn't being used yesterday. 

Whew- This is my life in the kitchen while the kids were schooling and the dog was sleeping.

LL