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Is this an SCD Legal Yoghurt Starter?

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Posted 4/10/2014 12:54 AM (GMT 0)
I want to try the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, but I'm hitting major roadblocks before even starting. I have no source for the dry curd cottage cheese, which seems to be a pillar of the diet. And another critical component of the diet is of course the yoghurt (which also becomes the substitute for the darned cottage cheese if you don't have it). In NZ I have no access to any of the SCD recommended starters for the yoghurt either. I think I might have one chance with this product, but I'm not 100% sure it's going to work:

http://www.easiyo.com/easiyo-product-details/greek-unsweetened.html

So it's apparently got all the right strains: l.bulgaricus, s.thermophilus and l.acidophilus, and without the illegal bifidobacterium (which is the problem with every other starter I found).

However, it's got soy derived lecithin in it. The SCD site says:

breakingtheviciouscycle.info said...
Lecithin: Legal. Derived from soy (illegal). There is plenty of good lecithin in egg yolks, and Elaine sees no particular need to take it outside of a whole food.


Am I to interpret that to mean that a) Lecithin is legal, but soy derived Lecithin is illegal, or b) while soy is illegal, soy derived Lecithin is legal?

The other thing is that it includes milk solids as opposed to being the culture alone (which I would have preferred), however the book says:

Breaking the Vicious Cycle said...
You may use powdered, skim, 2%, or whole milk.


So that should still be OK. But it also goes on to say:

Breaking the Vicious Cycle said...
If you use
powdered milk, add only the amount of powder which you would
use to make regular fluid milk. Do not add additional milk powder
to fluid milk in order to get a thicker yoghurt or more protein as
you will not get a "true" yoghurt and it will be detrimental to
those on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.


I was going to just carry out the standard SCD yogurt process with milk and add the easiyo, but it looks like the included milk solids might disrupt things. If I just use a small amount of the easiyo, will it still work as a starter for the milk without messing up anything?

Post Edited (MongolianFairyBread) : 4/9/2014 6:58:49 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 4/10/2014 3:04 AM (GMT 0)
I think you'll be just fine with that starter even if it has a slightly illegal/questionable ingredient. After all you're just going to use it in minimal amount for a starter.

If you're trying to be 100% SCD strict then you can also just use regular store bought yogurt for starter rather than a powder starter packet. It's cheaper and easier to come by.

Just use 1/2 cup of regular store bought yogurt:
When your milk cools to the right temperature, put the 1/2 cup of yogurt into a large glass - add a half a cup of your cooled milk and stir, then add ,more till the glass is full and stir again. Add this to back into your cooled milk, stir and pour into your yogurt maker - hopefully that made sense. Mixing it down in a glass first by stirring just keeps your final yogurt from getting lumpy is all. Though some people just plop their 1/2 cup right into their pot on the stove and stir, but I take an extra step and it always comes out nice and smooth.

Just make sure your store bought plain yogurt lists only the cultures you mentioned. You might find it easier to just use Plain Balkan/Greek Style Yogurt for now as it's usually made with just l.bulgaricus, s.thermophilus - Or call the manufacturer to find out wait strains are in it. I had to do this a few times cause the back just said "bacterial cultures" and nothing more.

It's a pain in the butt to get started/used to SCD! And you'll probably drive all over the darn place trying to find things but eventually you get real good at it and finding things like legal foods and such. So it adds a lot of time to shopping at first!
Posted 4/10/2014 11:20 AM (GMT 0)
That starter should be fine. A small amount of the lecithin is legal and the other milk stuff will get consumed by the yogurt bugs. If you can get shipping form the US you can get a bottle of the GIPro starter that will last you several months. Also, the Yogourmet starter was available on Amazon if you can take a look for that.
Posted 4/11/2014 11:17 AM (GMT 0)
I've located a source for straight culture with no bifidobacterium strains in it, however its just l.bulgaricus and s.thermophilus.

Will it be an issue if l.acidophilus is not present?
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