A lot of people do not like yogurt. Is that why you haven't been using it? For me, after cutting out the starches, sugars and most dairy products, the homemade yogurt is what really makes the difference.

Here are a few things you can try if you really don't care for yogurt.

I make 2 quarts at a time. After it's had a day to cool, I add 3/4 cup of honey and put a bag of thawed, frozen fruit through the blender and add that. I use skim milk for this and drink this like a smoothie. I use fresh fruit in season, which always tastes a lot better. Especially blueberries. The frozen blueberries never come close.

I usually use skim milk, but for a treat, I use whole milk and drain it. I use some of that for treats like this: Throw fresh fruit in a glass, dump some yogurt on top, sprinkle with finely chopped walnuts and drizzle honey over that. Mmmm. I use some of the whole milk honey for salad dressings like blue cheese or ranch. Now if you want it to taste really, really, good, use half n half. But be careful, most of them have an added ingredient that will make it worthless for us. Look for the one that is natural and only contains milk and cream. It's pretty fattening, but if it's the only way you can get it down and be well, just cut fat and calories out somewhere else.

Another treat we call "ice cream": Mash a banana in a bowl. Pour skim milk yogurt that has been blended as above over the top, sprinkle with finely chopped walnuts and drizzle honey over top. Very tasty. We really like this treat when strawberries or cherries are used for the blended fruit in the yogurt.

There was a doctor that said once, that the very best probiotics you can get is from the homemade yogurt. Suppose to be better than the other probiotics sold in stores.

When I'm away from yogurt for any length of time and especially if I've eaten starches (mybad), I always get pouchitis. Then I use yogurt like medicine and eat it three times a day. It clears up pretty fast and I never need antibiotics to get rid of it.

It seems it'd be very difficult to recover from antibiotics if you don't do the yogurt thing. Try this if you'd like and let us know how it all works out. So many people struggle with this and end up losing their pouches for which seems like for no good reason if the yogurt and cutting out the starches, sugars and dairy products helps. It's just hard to get past the not liking yogurt thing if you don't know a good way to get it down.

Also, your idea to not make things too hard on yourself is a good one.

The easiest thing for us is to grill several kinds of meat: chicken, beef, fish, whatever and vegetables: zucchini, broccoli, asparagus, carrots, onions, etc. all at once. Then we just reheat and eat all week. No cooking and making big messes.

I have a recipe for a great seasoning for hamburgers and steaks and if you cook chicken breasts plain, you can use it for so many easy things. Our favorite is to shred it up, pour a little hot sauce on it and throw in over spinach or romaine with other salad ingredients and top with homemade ranch or blue cheese. I used to make the dressings with homemade mayo and yogurt but too much work and mess. Now I just use the whole milk yogurt. Not as tasty, but works well with the hot sauce.

I hope everything works out well for you. Keep in touch and let us know how you're doing.

-Roni*

toni love yoghurt but was eating faze greek yoghurt every morning..thought maybe i could get by by not homemade not as tasty but now as of today started eating homemade yoghurt i made yesterday..i have already been eliminating all starchy carbs but was big on having fruit ...wondering if i need to cut that back as well (sigh!)also going to try my darnest to eat smaller meals more often..hard when running around and not being able to do it with protein shakes use to take prior to uc and pouch..

roni..i found your remark about getting pouchitis if eaten to many starches...hmmm sounds like it is not pouchitis but zibo..has anyone every said after scope your pouch was inflamed?reason i ask is because after years of thinking i had on going pouchitis it has been zibo thus my approach to using diet..but beginning to think my issues are multi fold that is sibo plus other functional issues sensitive to not sure what!for example have to always go as soon as i eat anything,never been able to sleep at night without at best going three times and thats when its good..never ever having been able to get below going total of 8 times in 24 hours thats in good days,never being able to just eat whatever i want ever and thats at my best randomly having feeling of acid coming out of me on some eliminations and
the list goes on..

but so appreciate your email..i made my yoghurt from whole milk..trying to make it as tasty and thick as possible..

so its back to drawing board to keep trying to figure out how to best function with this pouch.7 years so far and still haven`t got it all figured out..

Ok Rebbe, so Ive been following you along on this journey and have been slightly behind. We have the same problem with bacteria overgrowth at the top of the pouch I believe as well. This is what I have learned and my theory. Restistsnt starches? The new buzz word. You need these to feed the bacteria. Cold potatoes! cold pasta, rice, and lentils are a few. I also take bobs potato starch working my way yo recommended 4 TablespoonI do a combo ScD and paleo diet and thanks to you I have cut out grains! got a great cookbook call Against all grains written by a girl who has UC ny times best seller, but bedsides the starches I make my own kifer,
lots of probiotics more than yogurt! and now
I just made the 24 hour yogurt. As you also know I did the Fecal Transplant hoping it would reboot my system? Being that we both seem to have somewhat of a structural problem I don't really know if any of this will be a permanent fix or just a temporary one. This is a whole new world for fecal bacteria and the research is just starting. How we not having a normal system will benefit IDK myself? It's been a month for me and I'm still hanging on. To be honest all this cooking on this diet is killing me and I'm crazing lasagna. Oh ps chocolate, dark or raw feeds the little buggers too. My treat

Roni,
I just made the 24 hour yogurt. I had some starter I wanted to use up? When it was done I noticed done dark specks on the top? I never had that on shorter cook times? Was that bacteria. Do you think it was safe to eat? I use a yogurt maker.
At your suggestion I upped my kifer and noticed a big improvement so thank you.
Susan

Susan,

I've never seen black spots on the top of yogurt before. I don't have a clue what that could be.

How old is your starter? I'm assuming it's the powdered stuff, right? Does that ever go bad?

Sorry, I can't tell you if it's safe to eat or not. I have no idea what it is, but I'm glad to hear you're noticing improvement with upping the Kifer. I've never had a clear understanding of what Kifer is, but if it works, I'd go for it.

Hoping you see continued improvement.

-Roni*

P.S. Can someone tell me how to edit something once it's been posted? I always proof read before I post something, but once I post it, I notice a bunch of errors. I don't know why I don't see them in the first place. Sorry guys!

allykat whoop you have me confused..you eliminated starches but you add cold potato rice and so on..do not get that ..they feed bad bacteria right?

what is difference from pale and scd exactly?i know its totally no sugar including fruit,honey..anything else? just curious what it is...

i am now going to bathroom a lot day and a half ..mine by the way has always been at night..starts early evening and keeps going..and have to push to feel eliminated both symptoms of my sibo in past...so far not the killer symptom that brings me to my knees the soreness inside rectum so bad..can feel like broken glass when i have to go..my body shakes from pain..ugh! hoping at least the diet prevents that but everyday now is different..thinking if i do not have cdif going to ask shen why i cannot go back on antibiotic at least short term..maybe get back to square one where i go for long period of time on diet..but of course i am only guessing..

interestingly if you recall about 4 months ago i had cdif again went on vanco and then shen said do not go back to antibiotic..thought he was nuts and its history now but i was more or less good...thus my announcement of the diet miracle!!!sorry gang !!! but maybe there is a fine point between diet and antibiotics use?

Rebecca,

I kind of lost track; are you following SCD? Paleo? A combination?

All of these diets are extremely difficult to maintain. They're a lot of work, so time consuming and not very portable for our busy, running around lives.

If you're trying to follow these diets, chances are you're going to eat things that aren't "SCD or Paleo legal." When you eat the illegal foods, you have to remember if you want to start feeling better again, you have to start all over with the starter diet.

What the starter diet does is quickly kill all that bad bacteria by starving it to death. The Atkins diet and several others start out with that same goal.

So if you're just "trying" to stay away from starches, etc. but continue to eat them without doing the starter diet again, you'll be caught back in that vicious cycle.

If you do stick to the eating plan in every other way, I don't see a reason you need to give up fruit. Even on an SCD starter, they have you using grape and pineapple juice.

So if you're going to cut something out, I'd defiantly keep an eye on those starches and sugars.

All this stuff is so difficult, isn't it? Hang in there! I hope you find something that works for you. I do think the yogurt is pretty important, so glad to hear you've decided to do the 24 hour stuff.

-Roni*

roni..i would say following the scd diet...the resin i thought maybe cut back fruit as well is because not clear if scd specifically considers everything(foods) that feeds bad bacteria pacifically but inflammation formed by micro organisms or something like that..

remembering to that when my son was fighting the bad bacteria thing ( for other reasons than disease or in my case structural changes after operation) he was forbidden to eat fruit fruit as well..didn`t matter it was different form of sugar..

i really have followed scd as instructed for forbidden carbs ,processed foods and i thought any added sugar..except now using homemade yoghurt..thats why i thought maybe i also needed to cut down on fruit..allowing myself just handful of blueberries in yoghurt..

I'm not totally sure of both differences of scd or paleo but here goes
Scd allows some cheese and 24 hour yogurt and later possibility kifer
Paleo is grass fed meats, no dairy
Both are grain free sugar free
Roni is right! you might have to restart. Remember a few weeks ago I was bad and started to flare up again? That's why Imrestarted with the fecal transplant along with diet. I started to notice a big difference when I added resistant starches into the mix. Goggle it. Oh, also I did 3 weeks of xifacan to wipe out the bad bacteria before the transplant. You can do this with diet too but be very strict? Then slowly add your yogurt, kifer, homemade, snd resistant starches to feed those buggers.I too have problems st night and even though things seem ok I had a really bad night the other day that I finally had to take a Imodium to get dome sleep. I have no idea why this happens. I am determined to stay away from antibiotics as I Also had c diff 4 years ago. Funny but our pouches seem like soul mates, lol.
Roni, I ate the yogurt snd lived. It was from a starter but it had not expired. I also used grass fed whole milk low pasteurization so maybe that had something to do with it.
Kefir is drinkable yogurt, fermented milk, has way more probiotic strains than yogurt. You get grains and leave them in milk overnight! stain! let sit another night to get the lactose out and drink. It us very sour, an acquired taste, like beer. My cats love it. I think they get drunk from it.

Not just any starch
RESISTANT STARCH
Bobs potato starch work up to 4 T slowly if you don't want to add cold pasta, rice, beans, etc. Google you'll see a list of foods.

quote:

My cats love it. I think they get drunk from it.

Lol!

I have been trying to follow this thread and I am totally confused by resistant starch and how it fits into the SCD. I have looked it up and am no further ahead. Is someone able to provide a link that helps explain it in relation to the j pouch? I have found academic papers which just baffle me (http://edepot.wur.nl/49267) and other sites that seem to be more about blood glucose and diabetes. As you can likely tell, I'm feeling frustrated. It's exacerbated by feeling increased bowel urges and cramping this morning. I don't know what to eat and what not to eat. Thanks for your help.