Elaine writes:
To explain to your friend about absorption of sugars into the gut across the intestinal cell would take a long time. In my book, I mention the fact that some fruits and veggies contain a small amount of sucrose and even starch (legumes). There are many reasons why one could speculate as to why they are tolerated: (1) concentration (2) absorption due to the fact they are contained in WHOLE FOODS, rather than as an extracted form; (3) molecular forms of the starch remnants. The fact is that the diet works and if one were able to analayze every single food for carbohydrate, and then do it to the diet the person is currently ingesting like the standard American diet, you would be shocked at the difference. The diet works!
Please read the page in the Mom and Dad Brigade (at the very end of the book) by Daphne.

From Pecan Bread support group

Deana writes:
Yes, sucrose - when isolated from its source, refined, and super-concentrated (i.e. that crystalline white stuff) - is an illegal disaccharide. However, small amounts of naturally-occurring sucrose, in their natural state within complete plant cells containing all the other
natually-occuring nutrients - such as occurs in bananas, beets, etc - are digestible and therefore SCD-legal.

From Pecan Bread support group

Colleen writes:
Sucrose does occur naturally in some of our foods, but that is not the same thing as eating, for example, table sugar. Likewise, there are polysaccharides (starches) on the SCD that have been shown to be tolerated by folks like us with these types of problems - nuts, for example, or squash. XXXX *does* have sucrose intolerance - as I said, just like the rest of us (I always get a kick out of it when someone writes to the list saying they have "lactose intolerance." As Elaine says, that's just the tip of the iceberg.) - but all sucrose is not the same, just as all polysaccharides are not the same.

A lot of our legal foods contain di- and poly- saccharides. Squash and nuts, for example, contain starches. But there are some things which have been shown to be tolerated; and other things which are sometimes legal and sometimes not. Pectin, for example, which is present in foods like apples but not okay to consume in concentrated forms.

I understand your confusion, but if you try to analyze everything you will only make yourself crazy. The SCD, as someone once put it, is "evidence-based." It's been shown to work as it is. If you find you have trouble with a legal food, you may just have an individual sensitivity or you're just not ready for it. That's not at all uncommon.