GAPS Intro Diet - Stage 3 (Days 13 - 20)

Wow- our time on the "deep healing" (as we call it) is flying by! Things overall are going very well and we could be moving more quickly, but we have so much to introduce because of all the foods we've been avoiding in the last two years that it seems to make sense to take it slowly and allow for deeper healing to unfold.


Menu/Protocol:
This past week, we continued to eat soups with egg yolks at least twice a day, with more casseroles or crock pot stews for dinners. The girls love drinking ferment juices and eating the vegetables, so that is easy and always a part of each of our meals and are also good snacks. They invented pickle sticks this week, which is a pickle speared on on a chopstick - good to have fun with food! 

Soups the girls really liked this week - slow cooker onion, ginger carrot and butternut squash. Soups not liked - cauliflower meatball - made with too much beef tallow!

We missed a few detox baths but chose sleep over baths, so I am ok with that! 

New Foods:
We introduced beef products - tallow, broth, marrow (uh-huh) and meat. sunflower seeds, artichokes and fresh avocado as well as tried N's fermented diakon radish this week. Yes, my girl made her very first ferment all by herself - just followed my directions. She loved it!

Neither of the girls were too sold on the tallow or the way I prepared the ground beef, but at least it has been introduced with no reactions. They both ate soups with the beef broth and I made squash, yolk, herb and marrow (surprise ingredient!) pancakes that they gobbled up.

I made a sunflower seed cake - recipe to follow - that they loved and have asked to have as their birthday cakes! It is an intro friendly recipe with zero sweetener.

They were happy to see avocado mixed in with peas Sunday morning - L's favorite breakfast. Of course the peas now come with ghee and egg yolk but still.

Reactions:
Everyone seemed well this week, though something irritated L's face at dinner Sunday night (sauerkraut, lemon juice or tomato sauce?) so I'll have to figure that out.

I think the fermented radish was really powerful because N and I tried it, liked it, and ate a few slices and then our stomachs hurt at bit. Go slowly with this one!


Sometimes after eating I felt v e r y tired and I would lay down and it passed. I think I can attribute it to the ghee, but not 100% sure. I have also been sleeping better at night which is great.  

Both girls are still enjoying hearty appetites and loving the new fats in our diets, as well as the meats. We might not be quite ready for sunflower seeds in quantity, but it was a treat to enjoy them again.

Other Thoughts:
After last week, I decided I will drink the broth and if the girls want some it will be provided (modeling!). In fact, L drank half of mine the other night at dinner! I will make soup and casseroles the girls like and they will get broth that way. 


I decided after some deep reflection that I need to continue to honor the attachment parenting principle of "Feeding with Love and Respect" at our house and decided to focus on the phrase "the more animal fats your patient consumes the more quickly he or she will recover," so liberality add fat to their foods and encourage them to add more as they wish.


To me food and the way we prepare it and feed it to our families and friends is a gesture of love. In my concerns for my children's health I was finding that I was not also showing love through my behavior. No one wants to be cajoled, bribed or otherwise "made" to eat something. I just need to trust that their bodies will open to the healing foods (broth in particular) and they will take in what is right for them. Meal times need to be about connection. 


I realize that other families do need to handle this differently because their child's health is in crisis and my heart goes out to those who are walking that challenging path.

In summary:
It was a good week for us. I am happy to be moving through intro and successfully introducing lots of new foods. It is very freeing!

I made a new soup every day and tried to keep the fridge stocked and ready. Meal planning is important to say the least.

We also restocked our soaked and dehydrated seeds, broth/stock supply and C made two new batches of his famously delish ginger carrot sticks. I decanted our first kraut into the fridge for long term curing - tasting to start Aug 7! We are going to have to keep a fermentation calendar.

Rendered leaf lard, beef fat and made ghee this week. Got a new order of duck fat, which is my favorite because it is already ready to eat when you get it!

Coming up:
This week we will try fish oil, egg whites - this one is really touchy for us, fresh, uncooked herbs, pumpkin seeds, olive oil and we get to start juicing! And yes - we can finally roast one of those expensive farmer's market chickens and see if they are juicy. Kimchi is on the list for this upcoming week's ferment recipe and mayo too! I am ordering this probiotic as we wanted to avoid all fillers and we'll start that as soon as we get it. At some point, we may transition to Prescript Assist.