Disaccharidase Deficiencies

Gesundheit.

Seriously. I should have studied better in health class because this was a new one. Like most medical terms it sounds like your life is over.

It’s my other half that has had this fun to deal with. We’re over halfway through his first round of torture and then we start letting him eat real food again.

Do I have your attention yet? Sounds awful? I’ll fill you in.

Disaccharides are enzymes produced by your body to help you break down food. When you are deficient in- or lacking- them, you can’t absorb the nutrients and digest the food as needed. Often you get pain or other symptoms because the food just sits in your intestines until you can get rid of it. For certain enzymes you can take medication (to the tune of $8,000 a pop for some… Gag) or replace the food with a close second (lactose intolerance anyone?) or just stay away from it entirely.

In order to figure out which food is the problem you get to avoid ALL of the foods that the enzymes help break down. So no milk, no grain, no nuts, no table sugar, no corn, no beans/legumes…. No happiness! Seriously it’s like the entire western diet is off limits for four weeks while you see if you can get feeling better. Then after four weeks you start to add in foods one at a time until your body reacts again and you know which food is the problem. Or maybe it’s all of them.

Right now we’re about half way through the purge step of the diet and it’s been interesting to see how desperate you get for anything with sugar and carbs in it. When my guy decided to give it a try we searched the internet for something, and then anything, that would help give us meal ideas and came up blank. This diet isn’t Keto, or Atkins, or Paleo or anything that has hit the trends lately so we’ve been flying blind. I’ve gotten a little mad scientist in the kitchen, finding recipes that are close and then experimenting to replace the things that don’t fit. We’ve eaten a lot of eggs and hashbrowns as well since those are some of the only things I know are 100% kosher.

Anybody out there gone through this before? We’re not sure if it’s helping but got to rule things out as we go. I’ll share some of the recipes I’ve come up with because it’s been an adventure. (Insert very large eye roll here.)