Hmm. Well, I figured this would be a "campaign" question and would take a while. I might as well post my own findings, then. Here's a rushed report of my current experiments, including what I can/can't eat. Currently, I'm in a very beneficial situation right now, since I seem to be in remission, and I can instantly tell when something bothers me as it temporarily causes massive inflammation, and then after I go back to what works, the inflammation disappears a day or so later. I suppose that means the Cimzia is working ... ?:shifty:
Bear with me!
0.) Simple sweetener-free protein powder shake mix and cheapo multi-vitamin tablets. I make sure to get the tablets with vitamin K, Calcium, Iron, and B-complex at the very least, but ones that have all of these usually contain everything. I usually buy D3 tablets separately because I want to get the vegan variety pulled from bacteria & yeast rather than animals. (D2 is dangerous when consumed at the levels required to match D3, so I usually ignore it, since most multi-vitamin tablets that contain D2 don't have enough) I go for these rather than the expensive stuff or the overly-sweetened Boost/Ensures (But you have to find the versions with good amino acid profiles, especially ones with Glutamine, which is important for tissue repair) Right now I'm just doing the soy protein shakes from Whole Foods, but I'm still looking for a good cheap replacement with glutamine. As soon as I switched over to this rather than the expensive stuff, I noticed a huge difference in the reduction of inflammation and pain, so I know my body was responding to something in those expensive powders that isn't in the simple basic protein mix or the multi-vitamin tablets for that matter. The other issue about these is that if you get the right combination of protein powder and multi-vitamins, you'll end up saving money over the expensive stuff. I just find that the expensive stuff and the Boost/Ensures are just SO INSANELY PAINFUL when coming out.
1.) Vegetable Oils: (Updated 4/23/12)
Olive, Canola, Coconut, Walnut, Peanut, etc.
Increasing my intake of these with most of the foods I eat has helped immensely with the pain. I have no idea what it's doing to my cholesterol at the moment, but I plan on buying one of those cholesterol measurement devices at my local pharmacy pretty soon.
2.) Breads. I haven't been able to tolerate anything. It's all painful & inflammatory. I've tried Ezekiel, I've tried gluten-free, wheat-free, and soy-based, and making my own. So far, no good, although my next step is to repeat these experiments with Miralax.
3.) Creamy natural peanut butter. It's a miracle food for me. I have no idea about the impact it makes on my gut, because I hear peanuts technically aren't allowed in the SCD plan, but it works for me. While the final outcome usually messes with the setons, it's not painful. (Depending on how creamy it is. The creamier the better. Not all peanut butters are created equal.)
(Update, 4/23/2012, Can only eat this in moderation. If too much, it's still bad.)
4.) Oatmeal - The jury's still out on this one. It may have to do with how much water I use. I am currently awaiting the pain test.
5.) Steamed, blended cauliflower - Delicious with vegetable butter & salt. I added steamed carrots and steamed squash to the mix, along with some spices, and lots of vegan butter, and had a delicious cream of squash/cauliflower soup. I added the leftover pieces of squash and carrots into it, but it didn't taste nearly as good as when blended with the spices and butter. As posted above, I still don't know what this will do to me yet, but I will post info on whether there's inflammation and pain.
6.) Plantains - I stay away from these. I tried using them in place of eggs for various items. I haven't tried them steamed, yet, but every implementation I've attempted has ended in tears. Bananas appear to be more hit-and-miss, if kept in moderation. Either way, there's still inflammation. (Update, 4/23/2012: I just stay the heck away from bananas altogether, now.)
7.) Maltitol and xylitol - I still don't know what effect these will have on my guts, unfortunately, but I will soon. I do know that maltitol has laxative properties when consumed in sufficiently large amounts. These two sugar alcohols don't promote tooth decay, and while the former isn't digested by most bacteria, the latter actively starves off bacteria and yeast by blocking their food entry ports when trying to eat it.
8.) Garlic, Yellow Onion, Red Onion -
I found all three of these to be painful, (although I seemed able to tolerate red onions and a tiny, tiny amount of garlic in a tofu/egg scramble, but that was still with a lot of inflammation due to the Ensures I was drinking at the time. I must rerun this test to see whether or not there's any inflammation) but at the same time very important:
a.) Garlic is the number one generic anti-cancer vegetable. The only vegetables that come close to garlic in anti-cancer properties are its cousins in the leek family, (and of course, many of the vegetables in the cruciferous family) including b.) the yellow onion.
c.)Likewise, vegetables that are high in phytonutrients are also important, because those we can't get anywhere else, and are usually broken down quickly once the vegetable is in a mashed/digestible form. Red onions are amazingly high in phytonutrients, but then so are a lot of fruits. It's something to keep in mind.
9.) Turmeric - I add this spice to darn near everything I eat nowadays, due to its anti-inflammatory properties. I have unfortunately not noticed ANY difference whether I use it or not, but an ounce of prevention, as they say...
10.) Other recipes.
Early on, I experimented with tofu, bananas, soy & coconut flours, coconut ice cream, diabetic foods (to keep my sugar intake down), almond butters (almond-anything seemed to hurt a lot for some reason!), coconut fat, soaked nuts, and various juices. I almost have enough material to make my own cookbook, although I haven't fully stabilized most of these recipes. A lot of them might work for other Crohnies, although many haven't really done much for me. I guess I'll start posting them as soon as I can pin down the proper ingredient amounts that work best. The main problems have been with keeping consistent results across different sweeteners, oils, alt milks, eggs vs egg-replacements, and flours. Especially maltitol, which darn it, won't caramelize!
