I don't know about SIgA levels and lectins... but I can tell you that the lectins found in different foods are different lectins. Almost all food has lectins. The trick is, trying to establish the difference between the lectins.

I thought the same as you at first, Claire... it's not a lectin reduced diet... Haas promoted the use of bananas and banana flour and carrots, etc.. However, I think they didn't specify the TYPE of lectin that is reduced in that diet. That diet is reduced in 'seed' lectins.

This is what I've come up with so far... It is reduced in anything that is a seed: grain, potato, beans (the original diet, I believe, did not allow beans back in at all... contrary to beans starting to be allowed now - according to pecanbread.com). My son's reactions backed up all this stuff. We'd try to add one of these foods back in and he'd react to all this 'high seed lectin' foods.

We couldn't feed him things from the lily family or the nightshade family. If you think about it... it's all seeds. Garlic, onion, eggplant, tomato.... Finally when I started seeding and skinning (again as per SCD intro. diet) them (after a long period of gut healing) he could handle them again. It's taken 4 years for him to be able to tolerate the lily family again... and then only in bit proportions.

I think that perhaps the 'complex sugar' explanation of SCD is simplified for the general public. I'm quite sure it's much more complex than that. The more I read about lectins and the more I see my son's reactions, the more I understand that diet.

I do, however, question the claim that Haas or Gottschall ever said that celiac could be cured... but I have read that it is the original celiac diet... that grains were not supposed to ever be introduced back into the diet. I don't remember reading that celiacs could go back to eating a 'normal' diet.

As you can tell, I'm very excited! I've been sitting on these thoughts for a year with nothing to feed and develop them... or new ideas to build on and roll around.

Lovely!