Transparency
Recipe Disclosure
How we source, adapt, and verify every recipe in our library.
We want to be upfront about how the recipes on this site come together. Daniel follows the No Starch Diet (NSD) as part of managing his health. This recipe library is a living record of what we actually cook, and we think it's important you understand exactly how each recipe ends up here and what our NSD Safe badge really means.
Where our recipes come from
Our recipes come from three places:
- Original recipes. Meals we've developed ourselves from scratch in our own kitchen.
- Adapted recipes. Meals inspired by or based on recipes from other cooks, food bloggers, or the NSD community, which we have modified (sometimes significantly) to remove starch-containing ingredients and make them NSD-compatible.
- Community recipes. Meals shared within NSD communities that we have personally tested and recorded here for our own reference.
Where a recipe is based on someone else's work, we have changed it enough that we consider it our own adaptation. We are not reproducing anyone's original recipe verbatim. That said, we acknowledge the broader NSD and food communities whose ideas inspire everything we cook.
What the NSD Safe badge means
A recipe marked NSD Safe means that, to the best of our knowledge and assessment, every ingredient in that recipe is free from starches as understood by the No Starch Diet protocol.
This assessment is based on:
- Known starch-containing ingredients (grains, legumes, nightshades with high starch content, etc.)
- The iodine test, where relevant
- Community knowledge from the NSD community and resources like Breaking the Vicious Cycle
- AI-assisted ingredient auditing (see below)
Recipes without the badge are ones we enjoy but haven't fully verified, or that contain ingredients we're uncertain about. They may still be largely low-starch, but we haven't confirmed every element to our own standard.
Our AI audit process
Each recipe that we intend to badge as NSD Safe is reviewed by an AI model (currently Claude by Anthropic) which cross-checks every ingredient against known starch-containing foods. The AI is prompted to flag anything ambiguous, identify hidden starches (such as starch-based thickeners in sauces or processed foods), and suggest substitutions where needed.
We then review the AI's output ourselves before awarding the badge. The AI audit is a tool to help us catch things we might miss. It is not a substitute for our own judgement, and it is not infallible.
AI models can make mistakes. An ingredient may be incorrectly assessed, or new information about a food's starch content may emerge after we've published a recipe. We will update recipes when we become aware of errors.
Recipes evolve
Our understanding of the NSD improves over time, and so do our recipes. A recipe's NSD Safe status may change if we discover an ingredient we previously considered safe contains starch, or if we find a better substitution. We recommend checking back periodically if you rely on a specific recipe, and always applying your own judgement, particularly if your condition is sensitive.
Not medical advice
Nothing on this site is medical advice. The No Starch Diet is a dietary approach that some people with Ankylosing Spondylitis and related conditions find helpful, but it is not a medically proven treatment and results vary significantly between individuals. We are sharing our personal experience, not prescribing a course of action.
Please consult your doctor, rheumatologist, or a qualified dietitian before making significant changes to your diet, particularly if you have a diagnosed condition.
Questions or corrections
If you spot an ingredient we've incorrectly classified, or have a question about how we've assessed a specific recipe, please get in touch. We genuinely want to get this right.