GAPS Diet For The Poor?

[Strawberry-Jam]

hey there, peoples.

My stomach is feeling better of late but I thought that I should go ahead and go on the GAPS diet for a little while to heal up my digestive system for good, ya know?

Definitely need to do the intro diet. I was going to eat up the foods that I have around the house now till they're gone, then go out and get some meat and a thermos.

Most of the intro diet is easy for me, since I have a stock pot and that's all it takes. I also have access to organic eggs and duck eggs. Avocados, etc, all fine. not gonna chance any dairy, even ghee.

any suggestions for modifying the diet so that you don't need any electric kitchen tools? I live in a foreign country, have a tiny kitchen, won't be here forever, and cannot invest in kitchen equipment like that. the most expensive kitchen thing I got was an 8 euro kettle.

also, how long do you stay in the broth stage? I'm afraid of losing too much weight, since it's already hard for me to consume enough calories in a day to stay healthy. I guess I could just eat a lot of meat during stage one?

[Skylark]

I'm doing GAPS. I am not using anything unusual other than a crockpot for simmering broth. I would not be comfortable sleeping or leaving the house with the gas range turned on and it takes all day (or overnight) to get good broth. My food processor was handy for shredding carrots and cabbage to start my veggie ferments but you can use a knife and board.

GAPS intro is not simply broth. Did you get the GAPS diet book? You really need to read it. Intro is homemade meat and vegetable soup (there is a list of good starting veggies in the book) in the bone broth with probiotic foods.

[Strawberry-Jam]

er, is there any way I could get the book used or something?

yeah... I'm pretty poor...

[Skylark]

The GAPS books look to be selling for about the new price used. Any chance you could buy the book, read it, and resell?

Read these, and follow as many links as you can to get an idea of what GAPS is.

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Also read everything you can on its "parent" diet, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

Open Original Shared Link

And info on making bone broth.

Open Original Shared Link

If you're lucky, a butcher will give you soup bones and joints cheap. You can also use chicken necks and even feet for the healing broth.

Open Original Shared Link

[domesticactivist]

Yea for beating me to it, Skylark! As for stuff you need, a crock pot, pan, stock pot, knife, canning jars and lids, and cutting board should do it. We use our dehydrator a lot but you can make your own using a box fan and foil. We make our ferments in mason jars - just cover with a dish cloth or use a cabinet to make it dark.

We make our yogurt in the stoneware part of the crock pot. A freezer is great to have but there are ways around it. I'm not sure how to get around using a juicer for vegetables. We got ours for free by asking around. Turns out lots of people have tried juicing and not kept up with it. Making nut butter without a food processor or blender would be tough, but you can do gaps without eating nut butter.

[Skylark]

I'm not juicing. I prefer my fruit and veggies whole because they're more filling and the fiber really helps my GI system function smoothly. It's also too easy for me to drink a bunch of sugar if I let myself have fruit juice. Even homemade can be quite sweet.

As far as the dehydrator, it's dry where I live so I can dry seeds and nuts overnight on trays. You might try using the oven since it's NOT dry where you are. Some ovens will hold a reasonable 150F on the lowest setting if you prop the door open. I've also heard of using only the oven light to gently warm and dry the inside of the oven.

Unpasteurized fermented veggies and their juice are not optional but you can make them easily enough. Open Original Shared Link has some directions and a recipe for old-fashioned sauerkraut. I'm not eating dairy at all so I can't comment on how easy it is to make yogurt or kefir without any temperature control.

[Di2011]

A mortar and pestle might be handy for some of those jobs mentioned above. If you get one that isn't too small you could cut fruit and semi-juice in it. Great for pastes, herbs etc.

Here in Australia they are cheap at our Asian food shops.

There are some interesting websites for recipes that are specifically for mortar and pestle too.

BTW Bicarb soda is great (and cheap) for getting residue flavours etc so your fruit/nut paste doesn't taste of garlic/chilli

I'm not on GAPS but have a very restricted diet. Also poor. I buy bulk meat, potatoes, carrot etc and cook as often as possible in bulk. Saves a lot of money and time/effort. ((I HATE washing up)) If you keep the bulk cooking simple you can turn it into something else later. So a simple meat/potato/carrot stew can easily become shepherds pie or soup with whatever green veg etc I have on hand thrown in.

[domesticactivist]

I've got to say a couple things re: GAPS

- I agree that fruit juice it is too easy to just go crazy on sugar. However, the juicing you do on the GAPS diet is not fruit! You only add fruit in after you've been doing veggies, and then only to add sweet to vegetable juice, I'm not looking at the book, but it's something like under half of the juice can be fruit.

- The diet purposefully wants you eating the veggies low-fiber style at first. I was skeptical, as I had problems with constipation growing up, but surprisingly the low fiber diet actually helped things.

- The idea of using the oven instead of a dehydrator for the nuts is a good one. Eating nuts without soaking them and dehydrating them is not optional in my opinion. Nuts contain phytic acid which is hard to digest. Soaking them makes them far more digestible. It's exorbitant to buy presoaked nut products, but you can do it yourself without too much trouble... just a little planning. Here is a good post on how: Open Original Shared Link

- We also use the Wild Fermentation book for all sorts of ferments. It is awesome! We did not start out with a crock - just the jars, and it works fine. We have pictures on our blog of the sauerkraut process we got from him.

- Yogurt does care about the temperature control and not being disturbed once it starts. We wrap the stoneware from our crock in a heating pad and that usually does the trick. Kefir is a lot more forgiving.

[Skylark]

It's funny how we're all different. The fiber from all the whole fruit and veggies and coconut flour bread is doing wonders for my digestion. My stomach wasn't in that bad shape though. I'm looking for neuro and autoimmunity benefits.

[ncdave]

I did quiet a bit of reading on this diet, i hate yogart an sourkraut so i know i"d never be able to fully do this diet. I have been doing parts of it since i need to heal. My chicken came out great after simmering for 8 hours an the broth is delicious. I am adding 2 teaspoons of olive oil, garlic salt to my cooked spinich an it"s great also. I tried the ginger tea an didn"t do well at all with that. Might want to be careful with it. I threw mine in the trash!!! I was wondeing about the sensetive test? I have not tried it yet because i do not know if the food being tested gets into your blood through the skin an makes you sick? Has anyone tried yet

[domesticactivist]

Just curious - have you tried homemade sauerkraut that is crunchy and sour, or drained, homemade, full fat yogurt? I hated both sauerkraut and yogurt before trying the homemade versions. I still can't stand yogurt if it isn't just perfect. The flavor can vary greatly.

Another thing is, you can do the diet without sauerkraut. The important thing is to have some fermented vegetables (pickles!). Just about any vegetable works. She also allows for the diet without dairy.

[Strawberry-Jam]

anyone know where i can get this book for less than 30 quid? keep in mind I live in Ireland and shipping is wicked expensive too.

or is there a resource that will lemme do the diet without the book?

[Skylark]

I already linked you all the resources I have bookmarked.

It looks like the book is about 20 euro at the UK amazon. You really only need the one GAPS book with the yellow cover. You could always buy it, read it, xerox anything you need, and resell on eBay.ie to get some money back.

[Strawberry-Jam]

sigh... been eating too much rice lately (too lazy to cook anything else at the moment) and having an attack of gas & reflux, so I went and bought this book lightly used out of my savings for thirty bucks. I just signed a contract which increased my pay considerably over the next five months so, whatevs. Christmas present for myself or something.

I noticed I felt my best when I was eating, for roughly a week and a half, a cabbage soup I made from scratch with a ham hock, a swede, and some bean sprouts. I'm cool with eating lots of swedes and squashes, along with meats and fish.

Just wondering, is it possible to "cheat" from diet without ill effects? like, I bought some lara-bar like things with mixed nuts, puffed rice, and date syrup to put in my purse for situations where I would otherwise go hungry. I have been getting buckwheat, quinoa, and chestnut crackers instead of rice crackers but sometimes I use rice to fill out a skimpy meal for example. My stomach handles rice all right if I don't have it too often (been eating almost nothing BUT rice for the past 3 days and it's starting to bite me now).

also what about supplements? I've been told to supplement iron, vitamin D, and folic acid, and I also got some zinc/magnesium in a sale to try, and L-glutamine plus a probiotic in pill form and digestive enzymes.

[Skylark]

I'm glad you were able to afford the book. I bet you can resell it and get most of your money back.

I'd go off grains pretty strictly for a bit, to start to get your intestinal flora to shift. Once you read the book you'll understand the idea of the diet better. Nuts and apples are handy snacks to put in your purse.

I'd add B12 to the supplement list. We're so often short on it!

[Strawberry-Jam]

does buckwheat count as a grain? Because I make a buckwheat flatbread from scratch with buckwheat, water, and salt, sometimes an egg, and that also travels really well in a pinch and I can put nut or seed butters on it. It's also pretty cheap because one kilo bag of flour is about five euro and makes TONNES of flatbread whereas buckwheat or chestnut crackers are 3-4 euro for a small box

[Skylark]

You need to read the book. Buckwheat is not allowed, and you kind of have to abandon the whole idea of bread and crackers at first. (Points to p. 164 of the book. )

[Strawberry-Jam]

I know that *at first* in the introduction diet you're eating very little as far as variety goes.

I meant once you get to the full diet. Since buckwheat isn't actually a grain but a pseudocereal I was hoping it would be allowed.

like, soup does not travel well, aside from thermoses and even then you can't carry too much at once due to weight. There will be times in the near future where I will need something that packs small, light, and filling. ergo, I will have to either cheat on the diet or go hungry.

BUT I will do my best, once I do start, to stick very carefully to the introduction diet and avoid cheats as much as possible...

[tarnalberry]

I know that *at first* in the introduction diet you're eating very little as far as variety goes.

I meant once you get to the full diet. Since buckwheat isn't actually a grain but a pseudocereal I was hoping it would be allowed.

like, soup does not travel well, aside from thermoses and even then you can't carry too much at once due to weight. There will be times in the near future where I will need something that packs small, light, and filling. ergo, I will have to either cheat on the diet or go hungry.

BUT I will do my best, once I do start, to stick very carefully to the introduction diet and avoid cheats as much as possible...

Packing for what? Depending on your needs and supplies, you can dehydrate a lot of soups and rehydrate them with hot water and a little bit of time (10-20 minutes). If it's just for a day drip, I've done that often - carry 2-4 cups of soup, an apple, some nuts. I'm I'm home for dinner, it works out fine. (I'm not on the GAPS diet, myself.)

[Strawberry-Jam]

day or weekend trips on a bicycle. A week-long trip to northern ireland and the holy sites in may or so. also I want to do a trip around the perimeter of ireland by bike, two or three weeks in august.

[domesticactivist]

Like Skylark says, read the book, or the links that she posted. (My blog is one of them ) GAPS is doable, but it takes really wrapping your mind around a new way of approaching food. Even on the intro there is some variety, and on the full GAPS you don't eat grains or anything similar. In the GAPS book, quinoa and buckwheat are the first pseudo grains she recommends trying... but only after about 2 years on the full diet, and specially prepared.

If you want to incorporate some of the GAPS foods that's something else entirely, and I could see that being beneficial.

If you are set on eating grains, may want to look at the Weston A Price and Nourishing Traditions take on grains and similar foods. Like nuts, they have you sprouting them to make them more digestible.

[Nadia2009]

If gaps is a sort of paleo diet with probiotics, can I just add probiotics to my paleo diet with the same benefits? I am not able to do all the work of making my own nut better dry seeds and ferment food right now. On the paleo diet, beans are not allowed and I am a bit sorry for myself, I like to incorporate some beans and wondering if it would help to ferment my beans or sprout them?

Anyway, I just started reading on the gap diet and still learning. Some of the foods in the first gaps diet are no no for me... Broccoli cabage saurkraut.

[Skylark]

It depends on what you're trying to do. GAPS is a gut-healing diet. Paleo is for general health in people who have a GI system in decent shape. If you are still suffering from IBS you would want to do the GAPS introduction with the bone broth and fermented foods. You should read the GAPS book. It will help you understand how GAPS heals.

As far as ferments, you can ferment beets and carrots or make lacto-fermented pickles.

If you are still having GI issues I would stay away from the beans. GAPS only allows lentils, split peas, and one other bean, only overnight soaked, and only when your gut is feeling much better. Beans are hard to digest and the lectins are really problematic for some people.

[domesticactivist]

Skylark beat me to it, and is right on. We introduced navy beans and lima beans (allowed on GAPS full diet - AFTER intro) first. The rest of the family was fine... I had trouble. You can ferment beans. Here is how from the Open Original Shared Link site:

Please, do not rush with introducing beans and pulses, as they are generally hard to digest.

Soak 500g of white navy beans (haricot beans) in water for 12-24 hours, drain. Rinse well in cold water, drain. Soaking and rinsing removes some harmful substances from the beans (lectins and some starches). Cover the beans with water again and add 4-5 tablespoons of your homemade kefir, yoghurt or whey. Leave to ferment for a week at a room temperature. After rinsing your beans are ready to be cooked.

In a large pan put 1,5 litres of water, 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sea salt, 4 tablespoons of tomato puree, a pinch of cayenne pepper, a pinch of black pepper, 5-6 bay leaves, a sprig of rosemary, a bit of thyme, couple of cloves and 100g of butter. Cover the pan with a lid and put it into an oven. Cook at 120 0 C for 4-5 hours. Stir occasionally. If the water evaporates before the beans are ready, add some more. If at the end of cooking there is too much water left, just take the lid off and leave the pan in the oven for 15-20 minutes at a higher temperature (150-180 0 C).

Serve hot or cold. These baked beans will keep in the fridge for a long time.

You can make a variation of this dish by adding a whole chicken or duck, cut into pieces, sausages, pieces of lamb, beef or pork, chopped onion, carrot and garlic before putting the pan into the oven. This variation makes an excellent meal.

On the blog linked from my profile I have a breakdown of how to do each GAPS stage that you might find interesting.

[Nadia2009]

It depends on what you're trying to do. GAPS is a gut-healing diet. Paleo is for general health in people who have a GI system in decent shape. If you are still suffering from IBS you would want to do the GAPS introduction with the bone broth and fermented foods. You should read the GAPS book. It will help you understand how GAPS heals.

As far as ferments, you can ferment beets and carrots or make lacto-fermented pickles.

If you are still having GI issues I would stay away from the beans. GAPS only allows lentils, split peas, and one other bean, only overnight soaked, and only when your gut is feeling much better. Beans are hard to digest and the lectins are really problematic for some people.

Thanks for your reply. I am notorious for forgetting posts if I don't reply the next few days. But I am glad I am reading now actually. Because now I can not only read but understand what healing the gut means. My gut needs healing big time my IgG showed many things and today after checking the grocery store, I had one thing in mind where are the healing foods. I remember from Eat 4 your type Dr D'Adamo talks about healing food and others.

Lentils are the only legumes I can have for now and beans are harsh for my gut (I didn't any test for that).

I have to read this book now. Two days ago, I was saying the Gaps diet must be so boring with bones and meat...but I guess I have no choice. Anyway, when I see all the removed foods I can only eat a poor poor GAPS in a wheel chair until my system gets better.