This is a guest post from my friend, Cara, of Health, Home, and Happiness! She writes about GAPS and has used the GAPS Diet in her own family to help her daughter with developmental delays with awesome success. It was so successful, in fact, that they no longer are on the diet!
No longer on the GAPS Diet?! What?!
Yes, that's right. The goal of GAPS is to actually get off the diet eventually! While that doesn't happen for all people, it does for most. Let's take a closer look at the GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) diet, and then below I'll give you some resources to help you get started.
What is the GAPS diet?
GAPS stands for Gut And Psychology Syndrome, a phenomenon that's been known, believe it or not, for decades, but is just becoming more well known in recent years.
The GAPS diet is a specific gut healing diet that is designed to:
- Eliminate inflammation caused by gluten and other grains, which can inflame the gut
- Eliminate complex carbohydrates, which can feed pathogenic bacteria low in the gut
- Include gut and body-nourishing bone broth to repair a “leaky gut” and rebuild the gut wall
- Include beneficial probiotics in food and in supplements to kill off the pathogenic bacteria and reestablish gut flora with healthy ones
- In starving the pathogenic bacteria that may have invaded your gut, GAPS lessens or alleviates psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, and ADHD.
- In healing the gut, GAPS lessens or alleviates digestive trouble such as diarrhea and constipation.
- In healing the gut, which houses a large portion of the immune system, immune-related symptoms are reduced or alleviated such as allergies (food and environmental), asthma, auto-immune diseases, arthritis, and eczema.
Click here to read one child's shocking comment after a week on GAPS!
What you can eat on GAPS:
- Meat, specifically grassfed sustainably raised meat — click here for where to find safe, healthy meat online if you don't have a good local source.
- Non-starchy vegetables
- Ripe fruit
- Nuts, in small quantities, crispy nuts are best
- Sea salt, pepper, and other herbs and spices
- raw honey
- Eggs, pastured eggs are best
- Cultured dairy, such as yogurt or dairy kefir
What are GAPS symptoms? What is the gut-brain connection?
GAPS symptoms are a variety of chronic health problems, many of which are much more common today than they were before the advent of commercial food preparation and antibiotic over-use. Many families will all display GAPS symptoms, but mainstream doctors don't make the connection because they can come in so many different forms – from eczema to autism to depression.
The gut-brain connection is the most fascinating part of GAPS.
When we have pathogenic bacteria take root in our guts, from generations of unhealthy diets, antibiotics clearing out our healthy gut flora that keeps the bad guys in check, or even heavy metal toxicity, the pathogenic (bad) bacteria actually send out chemicals into our blood stream that go through the blood-brain barrier and affect our brains!
The GAPS diet works to starve these pathogenic bacteria so they stop sending out these chemicals, and replace them with good bacteria that help us absorb nutrients from our food, plug up a ”leaky gut', and help us process stress.
What is the Intro diet?
The introduction part of the GAPS diet is a very strict and deliberate protocol for those experiencing severe symptoms of GAPS, or who just want to have accelerated healing. You can get the GAPS Intro Kit here. It is more strict, but is very effective!
How do you get your family to actually eat this food?
It is a change from our ‘Have it Your Way!' culture to actively say ‘no' to the thousands of foods (or food-like substances) available to us at the supermarket. With GAPS, you even need to say no to properly fermented wheat bread as found in traditional cultures, at least until enough healing has taken place that you can digest it again.
To get your family to follow the GAPS diet, lots of dedication to cooking and setting firm limits is a must. Many families have done it, though, so if you feel like you need to, there is hope!
I recommend starting it during a school break, or a time where you don't have outside commitments that involve food. Once you're used to it, and used to how much better you feel, it's much easier to stay on the diet. But the first couple weeks are tough for most families.
This sounds overwhelming, I need help!
Since GAPS started gaining popularity in 2009, many helpful materials have come out and provide huge support for you on this journey.
Find help here:
- Click here for the GAPS Diet book by Natasha Campbell McBride
- Click here for the strong recommended probiotics
- Click here for the where to buy cod liver oil
- Click here for Grain free meal plans
- Click here for a GAPS Starter Kit
- Click here for cultured food starters to make your own probiotic foods
- Click here for What Can I Eat Now? 30 Days on the GAPS Intro Diet
- More on the GAPS Diet
- What can damage our gut flora?
Here's Cara explaining more about what the GAPS Diet is like:
Thanks Cara for this great info/refresher on the GAPS Diet!!
Rina Hohage Reyna says
Hi. I want to open the link and it doesn’t want to open
Any idea why ?
Kelly the Kitchen Kop says
Rina Hohage Reyna — sometimes if you try another browser that works. For example, if you’re in Safari now, try Chrome or Firefox, or vice versa.
Jill-David Boman says
Actually I know a gal who was having a lot of peri-menopausal hormonal woes and had been eating a vegan diet thinking it would help. After a period of time (when I first talked to her) she was frustrated because it wasn’t helping at all. I told her about GAPS (I can’t remember why exactly I thought of GAPS–it could be that she or her daughter had a lot of allergies or gut issues as well) and she said she’d look into it. When I saw her months later she was really excited to tell me about the great results she and her daughter both were having on GAPS–her hormones leveled out, she had way more energy, and just felt like a new person! So GAPS can be fantastic for hormonal problems, but I do think it’s important to be careful that you don’t accidentally get *too* low on carbs on GAPS (which can cause fatigue after a while). So you have to incorporate a lot of winter squash some ripe fruit.
Maureen Doherty O'Shay says
It’s not the same but we had down serious withdrawal issues and aggravated symptoms on Zyrtec. Big pharma just makes more problems!
Shelly Elaine Theimer says
Gut issues caused by vaccines.
Cottage Bliss says
My youngest daughter is bi-polar. She just turned 39 and it has been a living hell for me. I have stood by her and got her all the help I could, but she is vicious, vindictive, I took the “Journey of Hope” classes offered to family members of the mentally ill. I did everything I could. I was a good mother and she has treated me horribly. She even called me “dead to her”. I will no longer have anything to do with her. Her sister and my ex support my decision. They said she has been horrible. I tell people now that I have one daughter (not two), and it has been tearing me apart.
Corinne Spanelewski says
I have a sister that is bipolar and all the medication she has taken over the years has done nothing but harm her. Dr .now believes that it has caused damage to the brain. She is in many ways much worse than she was to begin with. Sad part is she don’t even realize what its doing to her.
Corinne Spanelewski says
I have tried to get her to do diet changes but she craves sweets and lives on cake. She wont cook. Everything is quick microwavable stuff that’s all processed. Her collection of cookware is way better than mine and its all new never been used and most likely never will be either.
Corinne Spanelewski says
I really think she needs to live where someone helps her over see her daily needs including medications. I don’t believe she takes them properly. Sleep is what her days consist of mostly but you cant force someone to help themselves if they don’t want to. She looks for that pill that makes it all better and don’t see she has got worse. She cant see what she has become and how she treats people.
Kelly the Kitchen Kop says
Corinne Spanelewski Her cravings sound very typical of someone with gut dysbiosis, and it really becomes a vicious cycle. Sounds like a difficult situation.
Corinne Spanelewski says
In the last couple of years I look at food and everything we put into our bodies very differently. I am even more careful what I allow my pets to have or even use on them now. Its hard to get some people to listen or see that things are actually hurting us and not helping like they think.
Kelly the Kitchen Kop says
So sorry to hear that, Corinne Spanelewski. Do you think she might be open to exploring the GAPS dietary protocol to heal leaky gut and dysbiosis? Interestingly head injuries are also known to damage gut health, so restoring a healthy gut can make a huge difference even for people with head injuries.
Jennifer Zint says
Tori Majors -gut issues??
Rhiannon says
I love GAPS! It’s one of the diets we have to know about in our Naturopath’s training. (I think, I’m only in year 1!) Absolutely fascinating, and makes perfect sense!
Amy Renee Guenst says
Is it a sudden onset?
Tiffani Beckman-McNeil says
The brain supplement EHT may help too, I can send info to her if she wants to message me.
Elizabeth Novax Murphy says
Has she looked into heavy metal chelation? Tell her to join this group and ask about it. Andy Cutler Chelation Think Tank
Jill-David Boman says
A commenter on this page actually mentioned stuttering resolved in two family members after being on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (GAPS is an upgraded version of SCD): https://naturalfertilityandwellness.com/gluten-grains-and-children-with-developmental-issues/
Kelly the Kitchen Kop says
He’s 8yo by the way.
Doreen Stirling says
Thank you for caring for the general population
[email protected] says
My entire family has been on the GAPS diet as we helped heal our son (now four) from the autistic symptoms he started showing at a year and a half. The diet worked miracles for us, despite how hard it was to get started. Now, my son is able to tolerate some dairy here and there and some gluten infractions, though we are so used to eating this way, that those infractions don’t come up that often. My daughter is still very sensitive. She doesn’t show autistic symptoms but does break out in a rash or get constipated if she cheats. But she is only two and we are hoping that in a few years she will also be able to tolerate more. Either way, I can’t speak enough about how a good clean diet is imperative in helping all of us heal our guts and lower inflammation. Only good has come out of it for us!
KitchenKop says
What a great testimony Andrea, thank you for sharing it with us to give others hope!
Kel
[email protected] says
My pleasure. I wish there had been more info out there when I was first starting out changing my family’s diet. There is nothing like clean eating, but I didn’t really realize that until my own children were sick. Now I can’t believe we haven’t always eaten like this.
jmr says
A couple years ago, I did GAPS and was completely overwhelmed. Cara’s ebook on what to eat during intro was extremely helpful. Great information to walk someone through how to do this and what to eat.