GAPS Intro Diet Stage 4 (Days 21-25)

Well this has been a busy and exciting week for us with GAPS. I feel the need to document a bit more this week, so I don't forget.


Menu/Protocol:
We are continuing to eat the same basics - the soups, vegetables, meats, fats that the girls like. I made a big batch of onion soup and a big batch of carrot ginger soup which have lasted us the week. We also ate peas, squash and some casserole-type meals this week. We tried the Taco Salad Casserole from Health, Home and Happiness.

I made an effort to drink more broth in addition to my soups and also offered some to the girls. Some times they actually drank it!

We upped our intake of fermented foods/juices and continue to try to maximize what we like. I really think the girls are doing well with GAPS, considering they are so young. But they are motivated to get to eat some other foods, so they want their bodies to heal and grow!

Detox baths continued as planned.

New Foods:
We introduced pumpkin seeds, fresh basil and parsley, cod liver oil, and freshly juiced carrot in small quantities. We introduced a small amount of egg white for N only, as L had a bit of a rash on the patch test we did on her arm overnight. It was very small, but I'm erring on the side of caution. We also baked our first farmer's market chicken with ghee and herbs rubbed under the skin and we all enjoyed it - even N who usually wants her chicken dry! :)


Reactions:
Everyone seems well this week. N has a small patch of eczema on the back edge of her knee. L sometimes has things that come and go. I've had a few headaches and some cranky moments. Overall, I think everyone's digestion has been fine, which I am taking as a sign that we can continue moving onward!

Other Thoughts
I started reading a bit more about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, on which GAPS is based. There is some very interesting information there. I want to read the book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle to learn more. The author devoted her life to researching this - 40+ years - and it seems well worth the read.

Some items of interest - bifidus is not used on SCD as many with strong bowel issues don't tolerate it well. Nuts, seeds and beans are considered very advanced foods, so are to be used cautiously. What else? Oh, fats - big difference here - not so many fats. More focus on getting out the starches that feed pathogens and on eating easily digested foods, fat for many with IBD/IBS/SIBO (look them up if you want) seem to be problematic at the beginning.

In summary:
Happy with the week and hopeful that egg whites sit well with N. Perhaps we will try with L at some point in a few weeks.

All the ghee and leaf lard is gone and duck fat is almost gone. Farmer's market tomorrow to resupply!

Coming up:
For the rest of this stage we will continue to increase fresh juice, introduce olive oil and our new probiotic when it gets here. Looking forward to it!

30 Days on GAPS Intro - Recap

This past Saturday was my 30th day on the GAPS diet.  It is hard to believe it has been an entire month  already on this diet - time goes quickly.  Although I can't say it has been an easy month, it honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I have just had to spend A LOT more time in the kitchen cooking and washing dishes than I did before and meal planning for the next day or days has been esstential. Just like transitioning to a gluten free diet, all special diets just take practice to master.  I remember being so overwhelmed at first with the idea of eliminating gluten because it seemed to be everywhere (a reality, actually) and in every one of my go-to meals and favorite cook book recipes. This diet has been even more challenging in that initially you are eliminating much more than just gluten, but also more simple in some ways since following such a limited diet narrows down your choices for meal options. Estentially, you always know what your next meal will be - soup! Just like the GF diet, as more time goes on it will continue to get easier.

Over all I am feeling pretty well.  I have not had any headaches recently, but still getting cramps in my calves - I woke up the other night standing on the floor beside my bed with my foot flat trying to prevent a charlie horse. Luckily my body moved faster than my brain did! I have noticed that my sweat smells a little funky and apparently so does my breath. I have had some nausea as well - mainly due to introducing food way too quickly and in too large a quanity. I have been introducing things like nut flour bread, larger quanities of fermented vegetables, cooked greens, eggs, avocado, fresh herbs, and olive oil. I have also tried lard, honey (organic, raw, somewhat local) and a little butternut squash. None of these items have really been sucessful.  Lard, I have discovered, makes me nauseous. I tried it on my nut flour bread and felt sick for over 12 hours. I related the sick feeling to the bread and made some cauliflower mashed 'potatoes' with some lard and felt sick after eating them. So no more lard.  Honey, I can eat in about a 1/4-1/2 teaspoon quanity.  I was a little over zealous and had about 1 tablespoon of honey in one sitting which led to some sugar induced asthma just like the old days. I was really hoping to be able to eat honey... maybe after a few more months of broth drinking...

I have also found that both honey and nuts trigger me to want more food even if I am full - it is the same insatiable feeling that I use to get all the time prior to doing this diet. I imagine as I add more foods back in I will find others that do the same thing.

One thing I haven't introduced yet is fresh juice.  The book recommends starting with a few tablespoons of carrot juice (carrots are tough for me) and moving on to lettuce, mint and celery.  I also don't have a juicer so that has been another reason I haven't tried it yet.

But so far, so good, and I am excited to see how it continues.

Posts on Probiotics

I came across this great blog today, Elder & Sage. The writer is a Naturopathic Doctor and has also been certified as a GAPS Practitioner. I like her posts on probiotics, which I'm linking above, as well as lots of other information she provides.

Her explanation about GUTPro was very helpful as well as the details on probiotics, like Prescript Assist, that contain soil based microorganisms.

I also like how she spells her name!

MMR Vaccine Debate After Award Over Child with Autism

I'm not trying to start a debate about vaccination. I simply strongly believe that all parents need to thoroughly and independently review the information about vaccines - not just what is provided at the doctor's office but a complete review - before making the choice that is right for their family.

Information on vaccines can be obtained from the CDC, NVIC.org, and many books and journal articles. I especially liked Aviva Jill Romm's book Vaccinations a Thoughtful Parents Guide.


Here is a link to an article about a court case in Italy ruling in favor of the parents of an autistic child who suffered vaccine damage resulting in autism after receiving the MMR vaccine. It also highlights information about the GAPS protocol.

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. 

Preparing for GAPS - Essentials for Intro

Preparing for the GAPS diet took a lot of time - mainly searching the Internet, researching products, and rereading blog posts over and over again trying to figure out what to eat and what I needed to buy.

Here are some of the things that made the first 30 days of GAPS a little bit easier-

Kitchen essentials:
Immersion Blender - when all you are eating is soup every meal this thing is a big time saver. I also use it to blend chicken 'pate' to be added into soups later.

Crock Pot - in my opinion (and for the hot summer months) the crock pot is the best for making stocks, roasting chickens, other types of meats and vegetables without heating up the house. A big bonus is that unlike the stove, you can leave it on when you are out of the house.

Cast Iron Enameled Skillet - no non-stick pans should live in your kitchen anymore... this company is suppose to be great and is also very cost efficient.

Stock Pot - Used for making enormous quantities of soup at one time or for stock.


Mason Jars - I use the quart size for freezing soup and stock and have pint size for future yogurt making.

Food Processor - I use it for slicing vegetables when you are making bulk soup or ferments, grinding soaked/dehydrated nuts into flour and making frozen banana ice cream (eventually!)

Pickl-it - Great for making raw lacto-fermented vegetables. You can also make kefir water, yogurt, and many other things you wouldn't even think of like spiced eggs, relishes, salsa, hot sauce, the list goes on... read the benefits here


Food Dehydrator - I have used it to dehydrate nuts and will use it in the future for kale and zucchini chips, sun dried tomatoes, dried fruit, beef jerky, and homemade yogurt... oh and maybe cookies too.

Thermoses - Don't even fool yourself into thinking there is any food you can eat that was prepared outside of your house while on the intro diet. Thermoses are a must for transporting soups to work especially since food can not be microwaved. When prepped properly and filled with very hot food, I have had these keep soup warm for 8-10 hours.

Teakettle - I bought this cheerful red one - good for boiling water to heat thermoses and making tea obviously!

Strainer - For the gallons of broth you will be straining.

Sharp knives - If you don't have good knives now, get one and keep it sharp, you'll be using it a lot and you don't want to end up butchering your fingers like I did. These are the ones I have and they are very nice.

Juicer/Vitamix - I haven't purchased one of these yet, but juicing is big part of intro and the ongoing diet.

Other GAPS diet essentials:
- Shower filter - You don't want to take your 'detox' baths in a pool full of chlorine do you?

- Epsom Salt/Baking Soda/Apple Cider Vinegar - can be used in rotation for your detox baths

- Peppermint oil - since over the counter pain killers aren't really allowed on this diet, you'll need
something to combat those detox headaches. A little peppermint oil works amazingly well.

- Magnesium flakes - for making magnesium oil or for adding to the bath.

- Hand Sanitizer - I live in NYC so this is a necessity, especially since the chemical based alcohol ones are not suppose to be used.

Supplements:
Fermented Cod Liver Oil - This brand is suppose to be the best. Read more about FCLO here.

Probiotics - Biokult is recommeded, but I am sure there are others out there that are just as good if not better.

Egg Yolks!

Welcome to a beautiful golden summer! We celebrated solstice yesterday with a lovely suncake made with ground sunflower seeds (soaked and dehydrated), butternut squash and egg yolks. N and L scraped their plates!

Which brings me to eggs....so right now I should be playing, cleaning, fermenting or rendering (but at least some soup is made, so is dinner and the pumpkin and sunflower seeds are soaking!), but I'm going to post a brief note about our consumption of egg yolks this week. We, a family of four, are on track to easily consume 5 dozen eggs (mostly in the yolk format), this week. The girls and I are eating 2-3 yolks each per day. We are making up for lost time with eggs! 

I came across this great analysis of egg yolks versus the whites - look at how much better the yolks are for you! At this point I don't even worry if we can someday eat the whites. So happy to have all the golden goodness - yum!