GAPS INTRODUCTION DIET (from https://www.gaps.me/gaps-diet.php)
The Introduction Diet is designed to heal and seal the gut lining quickly. It achieves this aim by providing three factors:
1. Large amounts of nourishing substances for the gut lining: amino acids, gelatine, glucosamine, collagen, fats, vitamins, minerals, etc. – all the substances, which your gut lining is made from. Your gut wall renews itself all the time by shedding off old and worn-out cells and giving birth to new cells. To produce healthy new cells, your gut lining needs very special nourishment, which this diet will provide in abundance. As a result, you will build a new healthy gut wall for yourself, made out of quality materials.
2. Many GAPS people have inflammation and ulcerations in their gut lining, which they may not be aware of. Your gut lining may be sore and very sensitive. GAPS Introduction Diet is very gentle; it removes fiber and any other substances, which may irritate or damage your gut and interfere with the healing process.
3. The cell regeneration process in the gut lining is ruled and orchestrated by the beneficial microbes, which normally live on its surface. Without their presence, there can be no healing! GAPS Introduction Diet provides probiotic microbes in the food form right from the start.
The very name Introduction Diet implies that we begin with this diet. It is helpful for most GAPS patients to go through the Introduction Diet at some stage in their healing because it gives them the best chance to optimize the healing process in the gut and the rest of the body. However, not everybody has to start with the Introduction Diet. This diet is very demanding and can be difficult to follow. Depending on your lifestyle and circumstances you may want to start from the Full GAPS Diet and do the Introduction Diet later. If you are a good cook, your kitchen is set up well and you have found a supply of all the necessary ingredients, you may be ready to do the Introduction Diet from the beginning. Unfortunately, many people are not in this group: they need to organize their lives and their kitchen to start doing a lot of cooking, find suppliers of the right food, take a break from a busy job, take their child out of school (or wait for a long school holiday), etc., etc.
Here are the usual situations when it is sensible to start from the Full GAPS Diet and plan to do the GAPS Introduction Diet later.
• If you are traveling and working away and are not set up to cook, it is easier to start from the Full GAPS Diet. You can eat out on the Full GAPS Diet and the choice of allowed foods is much wider. Later on, in about six months or a year, you may be able to get organized to follow the GAPS Introduction Diet.
• When we are trying to heal a person where compliance may be an issue, it is sensible to start from the Full GAPS Diet. About a year down the road a lot of healing will be achieved, and the person may be ready to go through the rigors of the GAPS Introduction Diet and comply with it.
• People with chronic constipation do better starting from the Full GAPS Diet. This group of people usually relies on fiber supplementation to pass any stool at all. In the Introduction Diet, we remove fiber, which is likely to make this person even more constipated. When constipation is resolved on the Full GAPS Diet, you can then attempt the GAPS Introduction Diet to achieve deeper healing.
• People without serious digestive symptoms can start from the Full GAPS Diet and, in some cases, they recover from their illnesses without having to go through the GAPS Introduction Diet at all. I had such patients with depression, ADHD, and autoimmune disease. However, this group is fairly small. The majority of people have to go through the GAPS Introduction Diet at some stage in their healing, and often not once.
Following the Introduction Diet fully is absolutely essential for people with serious digestive symptoms: chronic diarrhea, abdominal pain, bloating, reflux, blood or mucous in the stool, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, acute or chronic gastritis, acute or chronic enterocolitis, oesophagitis, and other serious digestive disorders. This diet will reduce the symptoms quickly and initiate the healing process in the digestive system. Even for healthy people, if you or your child gets a ‘tummy bug’ or any other form of diarrhea, following the 1 st or 2 nd stages of the GAPS Introduction Diet for a few days will clear the symptoms quickly and permanently, usually without needing any medication.
People with food allergies and intolerances should go through the GAPS Introduction Diet to heal and seal their gut lining. The reason for allergies and food intolerances is a so-called “leaky gut” when the gut lining is damaged by unhealthy microbial flora. Foods do not get the chance to be digested properly before they get absorbed through this damaged gut wall and cause the immune system to react to them. Many people try to identify which foods they react to. However, with damaged gut wall they are likely to absorb most of their foods partially digested, which may cause an immediate reaction or a delayed reaction (a day, a few days, or even a couple of weeks later). As these reactions overlap with each other, you can never be sure what exactly you are reacting to on any given day. Testing for food allergies is notoriously unreliable: if one had enough resources to test twice a day for two weeks, they would find that they are “allergic” to everything they eat. As long as the gut wall is damaged and stays damaged, you can be juggling your diet forever removing different foods and never getting anywhere. From my clinical experience, it is best to concentrate on healing the gut wall with the GAPS Introduction Diet. Once the gut wall is healed, the foods will be digested properly before being absorbed, which will remove most food intolerances and allergies. If there is a particular food you react strongly to, it makes sense to remove it while you are working on healing your gut wall with the Introduction Diet. Once the gut heals you may be able to re-introduce that food back into your diet.
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Below, I post the GAPS Introductory Diet from Gut and Psychology Syndrome, the famous yellow book. It may be for you to start with the Full GAPS Diet.
Therefore, depending on each individual’s health status, every part of this program may need to be tailored. In a severe case of GAPS, I strongly recommend you consult with a GAPS diet practitioner before starting.
Especially when a die-off reaction occurs, you may want to know a trusted practitioner to support your confidence and emotional balance.
By Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, MMedSci (neurology), MMedSci (nutrition)
GAPS diet – the diet for helping with learning disabilities, psychiatric disorders, and physical problems, such as autism, hyperactivity and attention deficit, dyslexia, dyspraxia, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, epilepsy, and more
This website has not been designed as a replacement for the GAPS book but as a source of additional information. Please, read the GAPS book first to understand how and why this particular diet works, why other diets are inappropriate for GAPS patients, and how to implement the appropriate diet correctly.
The GAPS diet is based on the SCD (the Specific Carbohydrate Diet). SCD has been invented by renowned American pediatrician Dr. Sidney Valentine Haas in the first half of the 20th century. Dr. Haas and his colleagues have spent many years researching the effects of diet on celiac disease and other digestive disorders. The results of this research were published in a comprehensive medical textbook “The Management of Celiac Disease”, written by Dr. Sidney V. Haas and Merrill P. Haas in 1951. The diet, described in the book, was accepted by the medical community all over the world as a cure for celiac disease, and Dr. Sidney V. Haas was honored for his pioneer work in the field of pediatrics. Unfortunately, when celiac disease was defined as a gluten intolerance or gluten enteropathy, the SCD got forgotten as outdated information. It was brought back to life by Elaine Gottschall. Following the success of the SCD with her daughter, Elaine Gottschall over the years helped thousands of people, suffering from Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, diverticulitis, and various types of chronic diarrhea. But the most dramatic and fast recoveries she reported were in young children, who apart from digestive problems had serious behavioral abnormalities, such as autism, hyperactivity, and night terrors. She devoted years of research into the biochemical and biological basis of the diet and published a book, called “Breaking the Vicious Cycle. Intestinal Health Trough Diet.”
I have been using SCD in my clinic for many years. Having accumulated valuable clinical experience I had to make several adjustments to the diet appropriate for my patients with neurological and psychiatric conditions. Through the years my patients named their dietary regime – the GAPS diet.
Introduction Diet
I recommend that most GAPS patients follow the Introduction Diet before going into the Full GAPS Diet. Depending on the severity of your patient’s condition he or she can move through this program as fast or as slow as his/her condition will permit for example you may move through the First Stage in one or two days and then spend longer on the Second Stage.
Following the Introduction Diet fully is essential for people with serious digestive symptoms: diarrhea, abdominal pain, bloating, some cases of constipation, etc. This diet will reduce the symptoms quickly and initiate the healing process in the digestive system. Even for healthy people, if you or your child gets a ‘tummy bug’ or any other form of diarrhea, following the Introduction Diet for a few days will clear the symptoms quickly and permanently usually without needing any medication.
In cases of stubborn constipation, introduce freshly pressed juices earlier in the diet, from stage 2: start with carrot juice first thing in the morning and take your cod liver oil at the same time. The juice will stimulate bile production as many cases of persistent constipation are due to poor bile production. When there is not enough bile, the fats in the food do not digest well; instead, they react with salts and form soap in the gut, causing constipation. Removing dairy may also help.
People with food allergies and intolerances should go through the Introduction Diet to heal and seal their gut lining. The reason for allergies and food intolerances is the so-called “leaky gut” when the gut lining is damaged by abnormal micro flora. Foods do not get the chance to be digested properly before they get absorbed through this damaged wall and cause the immune system to react to them. Many people try to identify, which foods they react to. However, with the damaged gut wall they are likely to absorb most of their foods partially digested, which may cause an immediate reaction or a delayed reaction (a day, a few days, or even a couple of weeks later). As these reactions overlap with each other, you can never be sure what exactly you are reacting to on any given day. Testing for food allergies is notoriously unreliable: if one had enough resources to test twice a day for two weeks, they would find that they are “allergic” to everything they eat. As long as the gut wall is damaged and stays damaged, you can be juggling your diet forever removing different foods, and never get anywhere. From my clinical experience, it is best to concentrate on healing the gut wall with the Introduction Diet. Once the gut wall is healed, the foods will be digested properly before being absorbed, which will remove most food intolerances and allergies.
Those without serious digestive problems and food intolerances can move through the Introduction Diet quite quickly. However, please do not be tempted to skip the Introduction Diet and go straight into the Full GAPS Diet, because the Introduction Diet will give your patient the best chance to optimize the healing process in the gut and the rest of the body. I see cases where skipping the Introduction Diet leads to long-term lingering problems, difficult to deal with.
If you have decided to go straight into the Full GAPS Diet, keep in mind that about 85% of everything your patient eats daily should be made out of meats, fish, eggs, fermented dairy, and vegetables (some well-cooked, some fermented, and some raw). Baking and fruit should be kept out of the diet for a few weeks, and then be limited to snacks between meals and should not replace the main meals. Homemade meat stock, soups, stews, and natural fats are not optional – they should be your patient’s staples.
Start the day with a cup of still mineral or filtered water. Give your patient the probiotic. Make sure that the water is warm or room temperature, not cold, as cold will aggravate his or her condition. Only the foods listed are allowed: your patient must not have anything else. In the First Stage, the most drastic symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, and constipation will quickly subside. If, when you introduce a new food, your patient gets diarrhea back, pain, or any other digestive symptoms then he/she is not ready for that food to be introduced. Wait for a week and try again.
If you suspect a real allergy (which can be dangerous) to any particular food, before introducing it do the Sensitivity Test. Take a drop of the food in question (if the food is solid, mash and mix it with a bit of water) and place it on the inside of the wrist of the patient. Do it at bedtime. Let the drop dry on the skin, then let your patient go to sleep. In the morning check the spot: if there is an angry red reaction, then avoid that food for a few weeks, and then try again. If there is no reaction, then go ahead and introduce it gradually starting from a small amount.
First stage:
• Homemade meat or fish stock. Meat and fish stocks provide building blocks for the rapidly growing cells of the gut lining, and they have a soothing effect on any areas of inflammation in the gut. That is why they aid digestion and have been known for centuries as healing folk remedies for the digestive tract. Do not use commercially available soup stock granules or bouillon cubes, they are highly processed and are full of detrimental ingredients. Chicken stock is particularly gentle on the stomach and is very good to start from. To make good meat stock you need joints, bones, a piece of meat on the bone, a whole chicken, giblets from chicken, goose or duck, whole pigeons, pheasants, or other inexpensive meats. It is essential to use bones and joints, as they provide the healing substances, not so much the muscle meats. Ask the butcher to cut in half the large tubular bones, so you can get the bone marrow out of them after cooking. Put the bones, joints, and meats into a large pan and fill it up with water, add natural unprocessed salt to your taste at the beginning of cooking, and about a teaspoon of black peppercorns, roughly crushed. Bring to boil, cover and simmer on low heat for 2.5 – 3 hours. You can make fish stock the same way using whole fish or fish fins, bones, and heads. After cooking take the bones and meats out and sieve the stock to remove small bones and peppercorns. Strip off all the soft tissues from the bones as best as you can to later add to soups or encourage your patient to eat all the soft tissues on the bones. Extract the bone marrow out of large tubular bones while they are still warm: to do that bang the bone on a thick wooden chopping board. The gelatinous soft tissues around the bones and the bone marrow provide some of the best healing remedies for the gut lining and the immune system; your patient needs to consume them with every meal. Take off all the soft tissues from fish bones and heads and reserve them for adding to soups later. The meat or fish stock will keep well in the fridge for at least 7 days, or it can be frozen. Keep giving your patient warm meat stock as a drink all day with his meals and between meals. Do not use microwaves for warming up the stock, use a conventional stove (microwaves destroy food). Your patient needs to consume all the fat in the stock and off the bones, as these fats are essential for the healing process. Add some probiotic food into every cup of stock (the details about introducing probiotic foods follow).
• Homemade soup with your homemade meat or fish stock. Please look for some recipe ideas in the recipe section. Here we will go through some details, specific to the Introduction Diet. Bring some of the meat stock to boil, add chopped or sliced vegetables: onions, carrots, broccoli, leeks, cauliflower, courgettes, marrow, squash, pumpkin, etc., and simmer for 25-35 minutes. You can choose any combination of available vegetables avoiding very fibrous ones, such as all varieties of cabbage and celery. All particularly fibrous parts of vegetables need to be removed, such as skin and seeds on pumpkins, marrows, and squashes, stock of broccoli and cauliflower, and any other parts that look too fibrous. Cook the vegetables well, so they are really soft. When vegetables are well cooked, add 1-2 tablespoons of chopped garlic, bring to boil, and turn the heat off. Give your patient this soup with the bone marrow and meats and other soft tissues, which you cut off the bones. You can blend the soup using a soup blender or serve it as it is. Add some probiotic food into every bowl of soup (the details about introducing probiotic foods follow). Your patient should eat these soups with boiled meat and other soft tissues off the bones as often as he/she wants to all day.
• Probiotic foods are essential to introduce right from the beginning. These can be dairy-based or vegetable-based. To avoid any reactions introduce probiotic foods gradually, starting from 1-2 teaspoons a day for 2-5 days, then 3-4 teaspoons a day for 2-5 days, and so on until you can add a few teaspoons of the probiotic food into every cup of meat stock and every bowl of soup. Start adding juice from your homemade sauerkraut, fermented vegetables, or vegetable medley (please look in the recipe section) into cups of meat stock (do not add the vegetables themselves yet, as they are too fibrous). These juices will help to restore normal stomach acid production. Make sure that the food is not too hot when adding the probiotic foods, as the heat would destroy the beneficial probiotic bacteria. In my experience, a large percentage of GAPS people can tolerate well-fermented homemade whey and yogurt right from the beginning. However, some cannot. So, before introducing dairy, do the sensitivity test. If there is no reaction on the sensitivity test, then try to introduce some whey from dripping your homemade yogurt (dripping will remove many dairy proteins): start with 1 teaspoon of whey added to the soup or meat stock. After 3-5 days on 1 teaspoon of whey per day, increase to 2 teaspoons a day and so on, until your patient is having ½ a cup of whey per day with meals. At this stage try to add 1 teaspoon per day of homemade yogurt (without dripping), gradually increasing the daily amount. After yogurt introduces homemade kefir. Kefir is far more aggressive than yogurt and usually creates a more pronounced “die-off reaction”. That is why I recommend introducing yogurt first before starting on kefir. If your patient did not react to yogurt, then you may be able to introduce kefir almost from the beginning. For those who react to dairy, please look at p.95 in my book.
• Ginger tea, mint, or chamomile tea with a little honey between meals. Most people know how to make mint or chamomile tea. To make ginger tea, grate some fresh ginger root (about a teaspoonful) into your teapot and pour some boiling water over it, cover, and leave for 3 – 5 min. Pour through a small sieve.
In extreme cases of profuse watery diarrhea exclude vegetables. Let your patient drink warm meat stock with probiotic foods (preferably whey or yogurt), eat well-cooked gelatinous meats (which you made the stock with), and consider adding raw egg yolks gradually. Do not introduce vegetables until the diarrhea starts settling down. When the gut wall is severely inflamed, no amount of fiber can be tolerated. That is why you do not rush to introduce vegetables (even very well-cooked).
Second stage:
• Keep giving your patient the soups with bone marrow, boiled meats or fish, and other soft tissues off the bones (particularly gelatinous and fatty parts). He or she should keep drinking the meat stock and ginger tea. Keep adding some probiotic food into every cup of meat stock and every bowl of soup: juices from sauerkraut, juices from fermented vegetables or vegetable medley, and/or homemade whey/yogurt.
• Add raw organic egg yolks. It is best to have egg yolks raw added to every bowl of soup and every cup of meat stock. Start from 1 egg yolk a day and gradually increase until your patient has an egg yolk with every bowl of soup. When egg yolks are well tolerated add soft-boiled eggs to the soups (the whites cooked and the yolks still runny). If you have any concerns about egg allergy, do the sensitivity test first. There is no need to limit the number of egg yolks per day, as they absorb quickly almost without needing any digestion and will provide your patient with wonderful and most needed nutrition. Get your eggs from the source you trust fresh, free-range, and organic.
• Add stews and casseroles made with meats and vegetables. Avoid spices at this stage, just make the stew with salt and fresh herbs (look for a recipe for Italian Casserole in the recipe section). The fat content of these meals must be quite high: the more fresh animal fats your patient consumes, the quicker he or she will recover. Add some probiotic food into every serving.
• Increase the daily amount of homemade yogurt or kefir, if introduced. Increase the amount of juice from sauerkraut, fermented vegetables, or vegetable medley.
• Introduce fermented fish, starting from one piece a day and gradually increasing. Look for the recipes in the recipe section.
• Introduce homemade ghee, starting from 1 teaspoon a day and gradually increasing.
Third stage:
• Carry on with the previous foods.
• Add ripe avocado mashed into soups, starting from 1-3 teaspoons and gradually increasing the amount.
• Add pancakes, starting from one pancake a day and gradually increasing the amount. Make these pancakes with three ingredients: 1) organic nut butter (almond, walnut, peanut, etc.); 2) eggs; 3) a piece of fresh winter squash, marrow, or courgette (peeled, de-seeded, and well blended in a food processor). Gently fry small thin pancakes using ghee, goose fat, or duck fat, make sure not to burn them.
• Egg gently fried or scrambled with plenty of ghee, goose fat, or duck fat. Serve it with avocado (if well tolerated) and cooked vegetables. Cooked onion is particularly good for the digestive system and the immune system: melt 3 tablespoons of duck fat or ghee in the pan, add sliced large white onion, cover and cook for 20-30 minutes on low heat until soft, sweet, and translucent.
• Introduce the sauerkraut and your fermented vegetables (your patient has been drinking the juices from them for a while now). Start from a small amount, gradually increasing to 1-2 tablespoons of sauerkraut or fermented vegetables per meal.
Fourth stage:
• Carry on with the previous foods.
• Gradually add meats cooked by roasting and grilling (but not barbecued or fried yet). Avoid bits, which are burned or too brown. Let your patient eat the meat with cooked vegetables and sauerkraut (or other fermented vegetables).
• Start adding cold-pressed olive oil to the meals, starting from a few drops per meal and gradually increasing the amount to 1-2 tablespoons per meal.
• Introduce freshly pressed juices, starting from a few spoonsful of carrot juice. Make sure that the juice is clear, filter it well. Let your patient drink it slowly or diluted with warm water or mixed with some homemade yogurt. If well tolerated gradually increase to a full cup a day. When a full cup of carrot juice is well tolerated try to add to it juice from celery, lettuce, and fresh mint leaves. Your patient should drink the juice on an empty stomach, so first thing in the morning and the middle of the afternoon are good times.
• Try to bake bread with ground almonds or any other nuts and seeds ground into flour. The recipe (please look in the recipe section) requires only four ingredients: 1) nut flour; 2) eggs; 3) a piece of fresh winter squash, marrow, or courgette (peeled, de-seeded and finely sliced); 4) some natural fat (ghee, butter, goose or duck fat) and some salt to taste. Your patient should start with a small piece of bread per day and gradually increase the amount.
Fifth stage:
• If all the previous foods are well tolerated try to add cooked apple as an apple pure: peel and core ripe cooking apples and stew them with a bit of water until soft. When cooked add some ghee to it and mash with a potato masher. If ghee has not been introduced yet add duck or goose fat. Start with a few spoonsful a day. Watch for any reaction. If there is none gradually increase the amount.
• Add raw vegetables starting from softer parts of lettuce and peeled cucumber. Watch your patient’s stool. Again start from a small amount and gradually increase if well tolerated. After those two vegetables are well tolerated gradually add other raw vegetables: carrot, tomato, onion, cabbage, etc.
• If the juice made from carrot, celery, lettuce, and mint is well tolerated, start adding fruit to it: apple, pineapple, and mango. Avoid citrus fruit at this stage.
Sixth stage:
• If all the introduced foods are well tolerated try some peeled raw apples. Gradually introduce raw fruit and more honey.
• Gradually introduce baking cakes and other sweet things allowed on the diet. Use dried fruit as a sweetener in the baking.
As I mentioned before, your patient may be able to move through the Introduction Diet faster or slower depending on the stool changes: let diarrhea start clearing before moving to the next stage. You may have to introduce some foods later than in this program depending on his/her sensitivities. Make sure that you carry on with the soups and meat stock after your patient completed the Introduction Diet at least once a day.
After the Introduction Diet is completed and when your patient has more, or less normal stools move into the Full GAPS Diet.
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This Posture Balance approach and education are based on how to support the body, based on recognized doctrine which is focused on how God made us function well, for you to be well through education of commonly accepted ways of improving health. This site does not promote, use, or practice medicine(s) in any way. All services are educational in format, practice, and intent. Makiko Oka holds an M.A. in Dance and Movement in Higher Education from NYU and is an AANC-certified Nutritional Consultant, CGP(Certified GAPS Diet practitioner), GCFP(Guild Certified Feldenkrais Method Practitioner), Certified Jeremy Klaus Approach for Special Need Children Practitioner),and Reiki Master. She only provides services to members.
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