Last month I attended the SCDROCKS convention in Seattle Washington. It’s a two day conference put on by the Specific Carbohydrate Diet Association, which included speakers, spreads of catered SCD food, and plenty of social time with like minded people.. This was my second SCDROCKS convention.
I had never been to Seattle, and found it to be a beautiful city. And an even more beautiful climate, a pleasant escape from the triple digit heat we have been having here in Texas (It’s September and still hasn’t let up).
Dr. Alessio Fasano was the keynote speaker for this one, so I definitely didn’t want to miss. My husband calls him my favorite quarterback. Dr. Fasano is the researcher who discovered zonulin in 2000. Zonulin is a protein our body releases to regulate the tight junctions in the wall of our gut. Digested food needs to pass from our gut to our body somehow, so there’s a “porous grout” in our gut wall. Zonulin can regulate the size of the “pores”. Too much zonulin makes the pores open wider, allowing larger molecules of food to enter. (aka leaky gut) Because the molecules are larger than they should be, the immune system sees an invader, not food, and prompts an attack. This can trigger an autoimmune response. Gluten and some bacteria cause zonulin release in everybody. In Celiac disease, gluten causes and exaggerated response. Do a search in PubMed for zonulin and autoimmunity and you will find it implicated in many autoimmune conditions.
I first ran across Dr. Fasano’s work years ago when researching my son’s health issues. He is able to take complex science and make it understandable (and interesting) for everybody. Here are some video examples: The Gut is Not Like Las Vegas/2003, Gut-Brain Interaction in Autism/2013, Interview with Mark Hyman/2022. His talk at the conference was fascinating. I’ll add the link when it’s available.
Me and Miriam with Dr. Alessio Fasano, our keynote speaker.
Also speaking was Dr. Christine Bowen and Dr. Ali Arjomand. Dr. Bowen went in depth on IBD related conditions and Dr. Ali spoke on how the oral microbiome affects our intestinal and heart health. Both talks were full of valuable “nuggets”. They have presented at previous conferences (see here). When the new videos come out I’ll add those links as well. Dawn Sabin, an award winning professional body builder, spoke about competing with UC and the SCD diet. Natalie Hill, RD, LD, gave a presentation on how to successfully implement the SCD in children, from infancy to young adulthood.
I also met other fellow bloggers who have been around awhile. Sherry Lipp of Happy Gut For Life and Tali Guday of Gut Harmony were both there. They were blogging years ago, back when I had my old blog. So it was great to finally meet them. Sherry spoke at the conference and has her second cookbook premiering in November.
The food was another major highlight. Chef Laura Taylor (Honest to Goodness Personal Chef Services) was the talent behind the cuisine. She has also catered for Camp Oasis, a camp for children with IBD.
Besides gorging myself on the food, the weekend was full of social time. Saturday evening was a social in the park plus they built in plenty of chat time during the conference. I met so many new people. And best of all I got to spend some time with the good friends I made at the last conference. I got some much needed girl time with Linda, and we ran around Safeway on Friday night with Jan. (that’s what happens when we are turned loose). I haven’t had in-person time with Miriam since the pandemic. (We were doing the DFW SCD Meet Up group together). And a shout out to sweet Stella, the service dog, who is trained to sniff out starches and corn syrup in food. Lucky for us, the US Navy Blue Angels happened to be performing both days. We had a great view from the conference windows.
The Blue Angels performed both afternoons.
Walking in the park with friends.
A slide from Dr. Christine Bowen’s presentation.
I learned big lesson from my SCDROCKS trip in 2019. I made the mistake of leaving directly from the conference to the airport. It was too much for one day and I wound up in a two week fatigue flare. This time I booked my flight for the next evening. I had the day after the conference to sleep in, have some time to sight see, and plenty of time to make my way to the airport. No rushing. However, my plane did get in past my bedtime, so there was some trade-off.
Linda and I visited a Seattle coffee shop and took in a few pocket parks which are scattered all over Seattle, before she left. I walked around Chinatown a bit: sitting at a park, wandering an Asian grocery store, and Christmas shopping at a Japanese bookstore, then took the train to the airport. It was so nice to take it all in, before returning to the bite of the Texas sun.
If you are ever considering a SCDROCKS conference, it’s a great experience. There is a video library from the two previous conferences here.
The Foggy Noggin' Diner 