Baked Thai Meatballs packed with fresh flavors and paired with a simple chili sauce. Low FODMAP, Paleo and SCD approved.
*UPDATE 1/10/16* It’s recently come to my attention that coconut aminos are up for debate when it comes to an SCD diet because it’s made with coconut sap. As far as I can see it’s not listed at all on the Breaking the Vicious Cycle list of legal/illegal foods. It is however a recommended product listed on SCD Lifestyle and I’ve seen Danielle from Against All Grain uses it it many of her SCD recipes. Since Coconut aminos are fermented many people think that most of the remaining sap has ‘died off’. If you’re new to SCD it may be advised to steer clear of coconut aminos and then introduce it over time just to be on the safe side. Please leave a comment below if you have any more info on the matter!
So.
Have any of you ever heard of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)?
Up until a few weeks ago, I had only ever heard little bits and pieces of information about it. I knew it was similar to the Paleo diet and I had heard it compared to the GAPS diet, but beyond that it was just another acronym in a long list of acronyms that I can barely keep track of. Included in that list are FODMAPS, PoTS, EDS, CFS/ME – have I completely lost you yet?
If you’re new around here then let me sum it up for you quickly by explaining that my husband has only a million health issues that all stem in one way or another from Coeliac Disease that got completely out of hand after going undiagnosed for so long. Even though Mike’s been eating gluten free for over two years now his health has only improved marginally. Since taking a couple rounds of really intense antibiotics last year, his stomach has been completely off the rails.  Things improved after he started taking a medical grade probiotic called VSL#3, but many of the issues still continued. Again, things started looking better after adopting a Low FODMAP diet a few months ago, but overall he still struggles with fatigue, bloating, and general IBS discomfort. It’s been lots of fun.
I’m still trying to learn more about the SCD diet myself, but after a lot of dejection and desperation, Mike’s decided to give this new diet a go. Basically in the SCD you’re only allowed certain types of carbs that are easily broken down and absorbed by the small intestine and no starches. Instead of being broken down and used as energy for the body, in a person with a compromised gut certain carbs and starches remain undigested in the intestines where the begin to ferment and feed the bad bacteria in the gut. I’m sure this is exactly what you want to read when you come to a food blog. Bacteria and fermentation: Yum. (I’m sorry!)
The diet mostly consists of meats, vegetables, most fruits, specific dairy products, nuts, and seeds. SCD is not low carb.Though there aren’t a whole lot current of studies to show that the SCD diet is effective in healing Coeliac Disease and other irritable bowl disorders or diseases like Crohns Disease, there are quite a lot of testimonial stories of people who feel like their lives have been changed for the better because of it. I can’t think of many people who wouldn’t feel better by cutting out all forms of processed foods and sugars (except honey).
To be honest, it means more to me to hear from a person who suffered through the pains of chronic illness say that their life has been changed by a lifestyle change than to hear a dietician say that not enough evidence supports the claim. I know to a lot of people diet’s like this sound extremely restrictive, but from my perspective of watching someone I love struggle so much on a daily basis I think it’s probably more restrictive and exhausting to have to live your life ruled by ill health.
Are you still with me? I don’t blame you if you decided to jump down to the fun stuff. Why am I telling you gross things about IBS etc? Apparently I don’t know how to get to the point fast enough. Given Mike’s new dietary restrictions, I’ve been needing to come up with more recipes that are both SCD Legal and FODMAP friendly. It’s been quite the job.
First up on the menu: these Thai Meatballs. How’s that for getting to the point?
Do any of you guys have experience with with the Specific Carbohydrate Diet? I’d love to know your experience/pick your brain if you do!
Paleo Thai Meatballs
Baked Thai meatballs packed with fresh flavors and paired with a simple chili sauce. Low FODMAP & Paleo approved.
Ingredients
FOR THE MEATBALLS
- 1 pound ground turkey or chicken
- 1 large carrot, about 1/2 cup shredded
- 2 tbps fresh parsley chopped
- 1 red chili chopped
- 1/4 cup green onion, green parts only for Low FODMAP, chopped + more for garnishing
- 2 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
- 2 tablespoon Coconut Aminos or 1 -2 tablespoons gluten free soy sauce* see note
- 3/4 salt to your taste *see note
- pepper to your taste
- 1 egg
- Dash red pepper flakes optional
FOR THE SAUCE
- 1/4 cup (60ml) Coconut Aminos * OR 2-3 tablespoons for gluten free soy sauce
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) low fodmap chicken or vegetable stock
- 2 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon Fish Sauce, only if you use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce
- 2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon chili paste
- 1 garlic clove crushed, omit for low FODMAP
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C
- In a bowl combine all of your meatball ingredients.Mix well and form into balls. If the mixture is a bit wet and sticks, wet your hand with a little water and then roll the balls.
- Place balls on lined baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes
- While the meatballs are baking, combine all sauce ingredients in a small pot over medium heat. Once boiling, stir, and reduce heat to a simmer.
- When meatballs are done pour sauce over it, or use sauce as a dipping sauce
Notes
Only use Tamari/gluten free soy sauce if you don't need this to be SCD. *If you're using Tamari or another soy substitute like Braggs Aminos you may want to decrease or get rid of the extra salt all together. If you plan on using soy sauce I recommend using a low sodium chicken stock. Otherwise I really love coconut aminos as a soy free alternative.
Nutrition info is calculated per meatball including sauce so that you can get a more accurate account
Kelly says
I have crohns disease, an Inflammatory Bowel Disease, not irritable bowel disorder such as you describe. IBD is a group of incurable bowel diseases that you cannot compare to IBS – irritable bowel syndrome. Please do not confuse the two.
Sarah says
Hi Kelly! My mistake! I changed the wording there to differentiate the disorder from disease. I think the reason I got confused there is because I’ve read people with IBS and some with IBD feel like some of their symptoms improved with the SCD diet – so I clumped them together in my brain when writing this. I understand the Crohn’s is on another level from regular IBS and I wouldn’t want to downplay that struggle. Thanks for pointing that out for me so I could fix it!
Emily says
Hi! Tasty but ours leaked ALL over the pan. Used turkey , wonder why?
Sarah says
Hi Emily! They do that while baking – I think it’s just some of the fact/meat juice draining away. As long as they still hold up after baking then it’s all good. Glad you still thought they were tasty though!
Dianna says
I’m on the whole 30 diet, trying to be, just went on a road trip and had a very difficult time eating…..anyway….my son loves meatballs and I’m going to make these and put them over boiled rutabagas ……..hoping my family says it’s a redo….oh…..before I went to the holistic doctor, I was diabetic…..after all the blood work he did, I had leaky gut, hoshimoto ( still can’t spell that) , and the flap to my intestines closes and doesn’t open!!!! My thyroid wasn’t working either…BUT my pancreas was and making insulin on it’s own!!!!! they treated me with herbs and vitamins and now I am healthy as can be. I still have to watch what I eat…no sugar, no carbs and no dairy……I’m always looking for recopies that my family will love!
Sarah says
So glad to hear that you’re doing well now! I find it so reassuring to know that we can do things to improve our health through diet! We’re still trying to work out the best diet for my husband, but he definitely does better when he avoids refined sugars and dairy too.
Hope you and your family enjoy these as much as we do! Thanks for leaving a comment 🙂
Radhika Bhandari says
These were AMAZING!! Made them as appetizers and they were gone in a couple of minutes. Will play around with the sauce next time. Thank you for sharing this great recipe!
Sarah says
Woohoo! Glad you all liked them! Thanks for coming back to let me know how it went 🙂
Heather says
These are my new favorite meatballs!!! I made theese oversized and with no sauce. Yum!!!
Sarah says
Yay! Thanks for coming back to leave a comment/rating! 🙂
Michael says
Thank you for this. Tonight was the third time I made them. I used Serrano chili and it was a good sub since I could not find a red one.
Sarah says
That’s great! So glad you enjoyed this recipe!
Jo Romero says
Made these for dinner the other night – we loved them, so did the kids!
Sarah says
Glad you guys liked them!
Michelle says
Thank you for “rambling” 😉 it was good to hear that I’m not the only one struggling, diagnosed CD a year ago after 20 years ill health. I’ve just started a grain free diet & I seem to be finding it difficult with being tired again. Looking forward to trying this recipe, thatnk you for sharing.
Sarah says
My pleasure! It’s nice being able to relate to other people on things like this – though I hate that anyone has to go through that kind of health drama. I know starting a grain free diet is something that can leave a lot of people feeling drained for the first few weeks as your body adjusts to the new normal so fingers crossed you bounce back soon!
Hope you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
Nancy Kenaston says
FABULOUS! The meatballs had a great thai flavor. The 3 of us gobbled them ALL down! (Sadly no leftovers for lunch tomorrow.) We will play with the sauce next time, as it seemed too …teriyaki? Not thai enough? Served it with rice & steamed vegis. Very satisfying. Thank you so much for a FAMILY WINNER!!!
Sarah says
So happy to hear you liked them!
Nicole Sillapere says
Hi Sarah, About to try your recipe, it looks great, thanks for sharing! I wanted to give you some feedback about the SCD/Gaps etc… and your husband’s health. I have tried just about every gut healing protocol out there in an attempt to heal my brain fog and joint issues (as well as a few other issues). I have been working on this for 10 years and only in the last year have I found real healing. I’m guessing you know by now that his joint problems are very likely an auto-immune issue caused by his gut dysbiosis. I have found that when I eat too many complex carbohydrates my body becomes inflamed and my joints get set off. But if I keep it to a minimum, and focus on specific carbs, as outlined in the Gaps diet and SCD, I continue to heal and do not have pain and joint weakness. Yay!! The most important thing I want to share is that I spent 9 years self experimenting with diet before I decided to work with a functional medical doctor after which I finally had a true clearing of the fog in my brain (halleluja!!). Not sure if you have worked with a functional doc, but I’ve tried every other kind and these people are different… and in my opinion from personal experience, far better for helping heal chronic issues naturally. What I found is that everything I was doing was generally right, but we found through a very specific type of test that I had a pretty serious bacterial imbalance, along with candidiasis which was preventing my body from fully benefitting from the fabulous foods I was eating… After doing a few months of a specific protocol tailored to my specific issues… I started to see real progress… I recommend checking out Chris Kresser’s website and podcasts if you haven’t already, and I highly recommend finding a functional doctor, perhaps one that his office recommends, in your area. It is not cheap, but our health is worth whatever it takes in my opinion. Love and luck! Nicole
Sarah says
Hi Nicole!
Thanks so much for your comment! I really appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment like that. When it comes to gut/general health problems it’s nice hearing from people who understand/have gone through it….as much as I wish that no one has to deal with health problems like this.
Right now Mike’s biggest issues seems to be muscular/joint pains. We were just talking the other night about changing his diet up again – so your comment was very timely. We only really did the SCD diet for about a month or two (the time I originally posted this recipe). Because he had such bad gastritis at the time he had to eat a low FODMAP diet in conjunction with the SCD diet which was extremely limiting. Not to mention he was also dangerously underweight because of all his gut problems, so we had to cut the SCD short. I do really thing that even that shot period of eating SCD made a difference though. I think taking a break from all the starches/ sugars gave his gut the break it needed to get to a better place.
Now that he’s in a somewhat more stable place we’ve been thinking about going back to paleo/SCD. I’ve even thought about looking into finding a functional medical doctor, but it’s not been easy finding anyone. As you mentioned, I’d love some tailored guidance to help us get to a better place. I’m definetly going to start checking out more of Chris Kresser’s stuff though in the mean time. I used to listen to his podcast quite a bit, but I think I got a little burnt out on all my health/nutrition podcasts for a bit.
I’m so glad to hear that you’re starting to see progress! AS someone who’s seen how crap life can be when you’ve got chronic gut problems, that makes me so happy to hear!
Thanks again for your comment! Good luck on the rest of your journey! (Hopefully I wasn’t rambling too much in that reply!)
Shawnee says
Hi Sarah, I randomly landed here but wanted to respond because I’ve also been dealing with long term (20 yrs) health issues around CD. Personally, I had disastrous results with the SCD and cannot recommend it. It triggered multiple additional food allergies in me, specifically almonds from all the almond meal baking. Also, I cannot take Elaine gottschall seriously when she lists chocolate as non compliant because it comes from the same plant as cocaine, which is patently false. However the FODMAP diet, which I’ve recently started is helping after a recent increase in GI issues, and is also scientifically backed. After a recent nose dive with fatigue and joint/muscle pain that was incapacitating I found out I was dangerously deficient in vitamin D, which most people with CD are. So I did something I should have done years ago- got a 5000iu vitamin d/k supplement and started taking l-glutamine, which helps heal the gut. Note that vit d takes a few months to increase to right levels. Just 4 weeks ago I thought I might be facing disability, but in the last couple weeks I’ve had great improvements in pain and fatigue lifting (and mood). I’m starting to feel like my old self and have hope again. It’s simple, but overlooked. Also know that it can take up to 6 years to heal your gut from CD, so he may not be out of the weeds yet, or he may have IBS and CD (I do), and will always struggle a bit. Also try removing dairy if you haven’t, it is very cross reactive for CD. As for alternate things, cannabid oil does seem to be promising, and was going to be my next try if the vit d hadn’t worked. Please feel free to dm me if you have questions. Good luck. It’s a hard journey.
Sarah says
Hi Shawnee! Thanks so much for your comment! As we’re still trying to figure out all his health issues I find it really helpful to get an idea of what’s worked/hasn’t worked for other people who are going through similar problems.
I totally know what you mean about the SCD diet – we only did it for a few months because it got to be too difficult when done in conjunction with the low FODMAP diet. Fortunately he didn’t develop any additional allergies from it, but we ate very little nuts/seeds at the time. Personally, the crazy amount of nuts in paleo baking in general is something that drives me a little crazy. I can’t imagine it’s a good idea for people who already have sensitive stomaches. Funnily enough the other main reason why Mike didn’t stick to the SCD diet too long was the whole chocolate thing. He only ever eats dairy free dark chocolate – as dark as he can get it – but it was still considered off limits and it was never really explained why. We’ve got no problems cutting out problematic foods, we just want a good reason for doing so.
That’s really good to know about the vitamin D! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was deficient seeing as how we live in a very rainy place with limited sun. If he’s more likely to be deficient because of his CD he’s probably extra low than most. Also great to know about the l-glutamine! I remember hearing about that a couple of years ago, but I’ve completely forgotten all about it since. I think I actually bought him a jar once only to realise when I got home that it listed gluten as a cross contaminate. Figures! I’m going to look for both of those today (certified gluten free this time).
Really glad to hear you’re starting to feel more like yourself again! God knows health problems like this have their ups and downs and I hope yours continues along the right path. I’m so glad we’ve got the internet these days so that people are able to come together and talk about what works for them and what doesn’t. It really is a huge help – thanks again for leaving a comment!
Alex Reynolds says
I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend kefir. It is a probiotic drink which you can make yourself at home. This stuff is unbelievable. I have had a chronic disease called restless leg syndrome for the past 2 years. To say it’s horrible is an understatement. It controlled my life 24/7 and kept me indoors. There’s basically no cure for it (all the doctors say this) and it only gets worse with time. A few months ago I found out that I’ve had IBS for my whole life. I then learned that there may be a connection between restless leg syndrome and bad gut health. So I put all my effort into the low fodmap diet and my restless legs improved pretty drastically in 3 weeks. I have been spending all my time trying to find out the best ways of improving gut health and eventually I found out that probiotics are very very good for the guts. So after even more research I eventually found out about kefir. I have been drinking half a cup of kefir every day for three weeks and my restless legs are completely gone! I am in complete shock. I’ve been like this for about 10 days now and feel amazing. In fact I’m still in shock that I feel so good and I think that will last for a while. I read one of your recipes (Thai meatballs I think) before and you mentioned the challenges that go with having a chronic disease that you can’t manage. I completely agree. My life went from extremely hard 24/7 to absolute heaven and I have to thank people like you who share all these great recipes for those struggling to manage. Thank you!
Sarah says
That’s amazing! I’m so glad it’s making such a difference for you! I’ve heard of restless leg syndrome before but I had no idea it could get that bad – so happy you’ve got it managed now! It never ceases to amaze me how many health problems really do stem from the gut. There was a period of time where my husband had such bad gastritis that he couldn’t eat much of anything without getting stomach aches. He’d get the sweats from the pain and he was really underweight at the time so eating too little was a huge problem. After he started taking some medical grade probiotics he was able to start eating more normally after about a week. I’ll definitely look into making kefir! Thanks for the recommendation – it sounds perfect!
Sheri Goodwin says
I find cheese and dairy to be inflammatory too. I can not begin to tell you the laundry list of benefits from turmeric. There are so many ways to incorporate this into your daily life. One of my favorites is bone broth (with lots of herbs added rosemary, thyme, parsley) with my turmeric paste, I make from scratch, and freeze into ice cubes. It is then simple to take out a quart of bone broth with two cubes, pepper, and 1 tsp of olive oil, simmer for 15 minutes, drink. Wonderful flavor, with tons of health benefits, one turmeric is extremely anti-inflammatory. Make sure to add pepper and oil for your body to uptake the compounds from the turmeric. Another highly inflammatory food product is processed foods, bacon, lunch meats, hotdogs, boxed foods, regular loaf bread. Each one of these can be substituted for better options..
Bread… make homemade tortillas ( simple and quick to make. You can make a batch and keep in the refrigerator for a week)
Lunch meat… Cook a turkey, we use the infrared, slice thin freeze into small portions. We use a food sealer, A LOT.
HOTDOGS … horrible don’t eat.
Bacon… but you can buy good ground meat mix your own sausage, then you will not have any nitrates which are so inflammatory.
Box meals.. Cook from scratch, know what is going into your meals.
We catch our own fish, kill our own and process deer, grow tons of medicinal, culinary, and tea herbs, and have a variety of vegetables and fruits (if the deer don’t nail them!)
Sarah says
I really love how you incorporate turmeric! For a while I was making golden milk for him every day, blending up fresh turmeric & ginger with almond milk, but we ended up going out of town for a few weeks without access to a blender and I kind of just forgot about it until now. Your way sounds way tastier though so I’m going to start making some today!
For the most part we cook entirely from scratch. Since he’s coeliac there are so many packaged foods that don’t have clear or trustworthy gluten free labels that we’ve learned it’s usually better to just make as much as we can at home.
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave that comment – I’m excited to make that turmeric bone broth. It’s been so cold this past week that I’m sure it’s going to hit the spot!
That’s so cool that you guys are able to eat what you catch/gather! I imagine home cooked meals are that much better when you know exactly where your food came from and who earned it. I’d love to learn more about wild herbs – we live near quite a lot of woods and I’m sure there are tons of plants around us that would be perfect for cooking/ making into teas.