Dieta GAPS - tratament autism

Este o dieta conceputa de Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, si cu ajutorul acestei diete, ea a tratat autismul fiului sau.


Dr. Campbell Natasha-McBride este medic în Regatul Unit unde tratează copiii şi adulţii cu autism, dificultăţi de învăţare, tulburări neurologice, tulburări psihice, tulburari ale sistemului imunitar, şi probleme digestive.

Dieta GAPS  este dieta folosita pentru tratarea bolilor psihiatrice si psihice cum ar fi: autism, hiperactivitate, deficit de atentie, dislexia, depresia, schizofrenia, epilepsie si multe altele 

Interviurile cu Dr. Natasha Campbell le gasiti aici

ALIMENTE RECOMANDATE

Migdale, inclusiv unt de migdale şi ulei de migdale
Mere
Caise, proaspete sau uscate
Anghinare, franceză
Asiago ( brânză)
Sparanghel
Vinete
Avocado, inclusiv ulei de avocado
Banane (coapte doar cu pete maro pe coaja)
Fasole, uscata alba, fasole verde şi Lima
Fasole pregătite corespunzător
Carne de vită, proaspeta sau congelata
Sfecla
Fructe de padure, toate tipurile
Piper negru, alb si rosu

Rdiche neagra
Brânză mucegăită
Bok Choy
Alune braziliene
brânză Brie
Brie brânză
Broccoli
Varză de Bruxelles
Unt
Varză
brânză Camembert
Conserve de peşte în ulei sau în apă
Capere
Morcovi
Nuci de caju, proaspete
Conopidă
Piper roşu
rădăcină de Ţelină
Ţelină
Celuloza în suplimentele
Brânză Cheddar
Cherimoya (cremă de mere sau sharifa)
Cireşe
Carne de pui, proaspeta sau congelata
Scorţişoară
Acid citric
Nucă de cocos, proaspeta sau uscata (maruntita), fără  aditivi
Lapte de cocos
Ulei de cocos
Cafea, slaba şi proaspăt făcuta, nu instantant
Varza
brânză Colby
Dovlecel (zucchini)
Coriandru, proaspat sau uscat
Castravete
Curmale, proaspete sau uscate, fără aditivi (nu înmuiate în sirop)
Mărar, proaspat sau uscat
Raţă, proaspata sau congelata
brânză Edam
Ouă, proaspete
Peşte, proaspat sau congelat, conservat în suc propriu sau ulei
Usturoi
Gin, ocazional
Radacina de ghimbir, în stare proaspătă
Gâscă, proaspata sau congelata
Brânză Gorgonzola
Brânză Gouda
Grapefruit
Struguri
Fasole verde, pregătite corespunzător
Brânză Havarti
Alune
Ceaiuri de plante
Ierburi, proaspete sau uscate, fără aditivi
Miere, naturală
Sucuri de fructe proaspăt stoarse şi de legume permise
Nap
Kiwi
Kumquats
Miel, proaspat sau congelat
Lămâi
Linte
Salată verde, toate tipurile
Fasole Lima (uscate şi proaspete)
brânză Limburg
Limete
Mango
Carne, proaspata sau congelata
Pepeni
Brânză Monterey (Jack)
Brânză  Muenster
Ciuperci
Seminţe de muştar, praf pur fără ingredientele nepermise
Nectarine
Alune de pamant

Nucşoară
Nuci, de toate tipurile, proaspat decojite, neprăjite, nesărate sau  acoperite cu diverse ingrediente (orice prăjire trebuie să se facă la domiciliu)
Ulei de măsline, virgin presat la rece
Măsline conservate fără adaos de zahăr sau orice ingredientele nepermise
Cepe
Portocale
Papaia
Parmezan
Pătrunjel
Piersici
Unt de arahide, fără aditivi
Arahide, în stare proaspătă sau prăjite în coajă lor
Pere
Mazăre, uscata şi proaspata (verde)
Nuci pecan
Ardei (verde, galben, roşu, portocaliu)
Fazan, proaspat sau congelat
Muraturi, fără adaos de zahăr sau de orice alte  ingrediente nepermise
Porumbel, în stare proaspătă sau congelată
Ananas, proaspăt
Carne de porc, proaspata sau congelata
Brânză Port du Salut
Păsări de curte, în stare proaspătă sau congelată
Prune uscate, uscate, fără aditivi sau în propriul lor  suc
Dovleac
Prepeliţe, proaspete sau congelate
Stafide
Rubarbă
Brânză Roquefort
Roquefort  Romano
Satsuma
Scotch, ocazional
Algele marine proaspete şi uscate, de îndată ce dieta Introductiva  a fost finalizată
Crustacee, în stare proaspătă sau congelată
Condimente, pure, fără aditivi
Spanac
Squash (de vară şi de iarnă)
Brânză Stilton
Fasole verde
Brânză elveţiană
Mandarine
Ceai, slab, proaspăt făcut,  nu  instantant
Bulion de roşii, pur, fără aditivi în afară  din sare
Suc de roşii, fără aditivi în afară de sare

Roşii
Curcan  în stare proaspătă sau congelată
Napi
Branza de vaci (nesmantanita)
Otet (cidru sau alb); asiguraţi-vă că nu există nici o  alergie
Vodka, foarte rar
Nuci
Nasturel
Fasole albă, pregătite corespunzător
Vin sec: roşu sau alb
Iaurt de casa

Alimente de evitat

Acesulphame
Acidophilus lapte
Agar-agar
Sirop de Agave
Alge - poate agrava un sistem imunitar deja perturbat
Aloe Vera - vă rugăm să mergeţi la "Întrebări frecvente" pentru informaţii suplimentare cu privire la momentul in care  aceasta poate fi introdusa
Amaranth - este un substitut de cereale, conţine amidon
Suc de mere - de obicei, are adăugat zahăr în cursul prelucrarii
Aspartam
Astragalus
Drojdia de bere - conţine saccharamyces cerevisae
Praful de copt şi agenţi de afânare de tot felul - bicarbonat de sodiu poate fi utilizat pentru probleme medicale specifice, vă rugăm să vedea secţiunea "Întrebări frecvente"
Oţet balsamic - cel găsit în magazine are adăugat  zahăr
Orz
Polenul - iritant pentru un intestin deteriorat
Bere
Bicarbonat de sodiu
Cuburi de Bulion sau granule
Brandy
Hrişcă
Bulgur
Radacina de brusture - conţine FOS şi mucilagiu
Unt fasole
Lapte bătut
Conserve de legume şi fructe
Roşcove
Caragenanul – continut ridicat  în  polizaharide
Gumă de celuloză
Cereale, inclusiv toate cerealele pentru micul dejun
Brânzeturi
Castane şi făină de castane
Brânză Chevre
Guma de mestecat - conţin zaharuri sau inlocuitori de zahar
Năut
Rădăcină Cicoare- conţine cantităţi mari de FOS
Ciocolată
Pudră de cacao - vă rugăm să consultaţi "Întrebări frecvente" pentru mai multe informaţii
Cafea, instant şi înlocuitori de cafea
Uleiuri de gătit
Siropuri
Porumb
Amidon de porumb
Sirop de porumb
Brânză
Seminţe de bumbac
Cous-cous
Smantana - conţine lactoză
Crema de tartar
Brânză grasă
Dextroză - în produsele comerciale, nu este  forma pura
Sucuri
Fasole Faba
Brânză feta
Peşte, conservat, afumat, sărat, pane şi conserve  cu sosuri
Făină, făcuta din cereale
FOS (fructooligozaharide)
Fructoză - extrase din porumb şi are un amestec de alte trizaharide
Fructe, conserve sau conservate
fasole Garbanzo
Brânză Gjetost
Cereale, toate
Brânză Gruyere
Şuncă
Hot-dog
Inghetata, comerciala
Gemuri
Jeleuri
Trufă albă
Ketchup, disponibil în comerţ
Lactoză
Lichior
Margarina şi înlocuitori de unt
Carne, prelucrata, conservata, afumata şi sărata
Mei
Lapte de la orice animal, de soia, orez, conserve de lapte de cocos
Lapte praf
Melasă
Mozzarella
Brânză Neufchatel
Fructe cu coajă lemnoasă, sărate, prăjite şi pudrate
Ovăz
Păstârnac
Paste de orice fel
Pectină
Postum
Cartof alb
Cartof dulce
Brânză Primost
Quinoa - 60% amidon
Orez
Ricotta brânză
Secară
Zaharină
Sago
Cârnaţi, disponibil în comerţ
Griş
Sherry
Bauturi racoritoare -sucuri
Smantana, comerciala
Soia
Alac
Amidon
Zahăr sau de zaharoză de orice fel
Tapioca - amidon
Ceai, instant
Legume, conserve sau conservate
Grâu
Germeni de grâu
Zer, pudră sau lichid
Iaurt, comercial

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

The GAPS diet is based on the SCD (the Specific Carbohydrate Diet). SCD has been invented by a renowned American paediatrician 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 honoured for his pioneer work in the field of paediatrics. 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 diarrhoea. But the most dramatic and fast recoveries she reported in young children, who apart from digestive problems had serious behavioural abnormalities, such as autism, hyperactivity and night terrors. She devoted years of research into 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 in the diet appropriate for my patients with the neurological and psychiatric conditions. Through the years my patients named their dietary regime – the GAPS diet.

Implementing the GAPS Diet 

1. Introduction Diet
2. The Full GAPS Diet with the typical menu

Some of you will use the diet to treat yourselves, some of you are parents trying to help your child, some will use the diet to help a loved one or a friend. To cover all these cases, I use the term “your patient” in the text.

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 programme 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: diarrhoea, 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 diarrhoea, 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 from 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 in order to heal and seal their gut lining. The reason for allergies and food intolerances is 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 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 optimise 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 foods listed are allowed: you patient must not have anything else. On the First Stage the most drastic symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhoea and constipation will quickly subside. If, when you introduce a new food, your patient gets diarrhoea 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 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 bullion 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 a low heat for 2,5 - 3 hours. You can make fish stock the same way using a 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 pepper corns. 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 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 conventional stove (microwaves destroy food). It is very important for your patient 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 for 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 detail 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 yoghurt 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 yoghurt (dripping will remove many dairy proteins): start from 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 yoghurt (without dripping), gradually increasing the daily amount. After yoghurt introduce homemade kefir. Kefir is far more aggressive than yoghurt and usually creates a more pronounced “die-off reaction”. That is why I recommend introducing yoghurt first before starting on kefir. If your patient had no reaction to yoghurt, then you may be able to introduce kefir almost from the beginning. For those who clearly react to dairy, please look at p.95 in my book.

• Ginger tea, mint or camomile tea with a little honey between meals. Most people know how to make mint or camomile 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 diarrhoea exclude vegetables. Let your patient drink warm meat stock with probiotic foods (preferably whey or yoghurt), eat well-cooked gelatinous meats (which you made the stock with) and consider adding raw egg yolks gradually. Do not introduce vegetables until the diarrhoea starts settling down. When the gut wall is severely inflamed, no amount of fibre 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/yoghurt.

• 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 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 of 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 yoghurt 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 every 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 spoonfuls 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 yoghurt. 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 middle of 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) 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 from 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 from a few spoonfuls 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 apple. 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 the diarrhoea start clearing before moving to the next stage. You may have to introduce some foods later than in this programme 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.

The Full GAPS Diet

Your patient needs to carry on completely avoiding starches and sugar for two years at least. It means avoiding all grains, sugar, potatoes, parsnips, yams, sweet potato and anything made out of them. The flour in your cooking and baking can be replaced with ground almonds (or any other nuts or sunflower or pumpkin seeds ground into flour). In about 1 - 1.5 years you may be able to introduce new potatoes, fermented buckwheat, millet and quinoa, starting from very small amounts and observing any reaction. Wheat, sugar, processed foods and all additives will have to be out of the diet for much longer.

Slowly increase the amounts of fermented foods. You can ferment vegetables, fruit, milk and fish (please look in the recipe section). I would also recommend reading a wonderful book by Sally Fallon “Nourishing Traditions”, it will provide you with a lot of good recipes. Eating fermented foods with every meal will help your patient to digest the meal without using supplements of digestive enzymes. Make sure to introduce all new fermented foods into the diet very gradually starting from 1-2 teaspoons a day.

The best foods for the GAPS person are eggs, meats and fish (bought fresh or frozen, not smoked or canned, and cooked at home), shellfish, fresh vegetables and fruit, nuts and seeds, garlic and olive oil. As well as eating the vegetables cooked it is important to have them raw in the form of salads and sticks. In this form they will provide your patient with valuable enzymes and detoxifying substances, which will help in digesting meats. Raw fruit should be eaten on their own, not with meals, as they have a very different digestion pattern and can make the work harder for the stomach. At that stage let your patient to have fruit as a snack between meals. Remember, that about 85% of everything your patient eats on a daily basis should be savoury - made out of meats, fish, eggs, vegetables and natural fats. Sweet baking and fruit should be snacks between meals in limited amounts.

It is very important for a GAPS person to have plenty of natural fats in every meal from meats, butter, ghee, coconut and cold pressed olive oil. The fat content of the meal will regulate the blood sugar level and control cravings for carbohydrates.

If your patient gets a tummy bug or any other form of diarrhoea go back to the low fibre diet for a few days: remove all nuts, raw vegetables and raw fruit out of the diet; go back to meats cooked in water and meat stock, fish, eggs, fermented dairy and cooked vegetables (skinned, de-seeded and well cooked with meats as soups and stews) until diarrhoea completely clears. After the stools stay normal for a week introduce raw vegetables slowly, one at a time and starting from small amounts. When vegetables are introduced, try to introduce nuts, seeds and fruit gradually.

It is important for your GAPS patient to balance the meals so that his or her body pH stays normal. All protein foods, such as meats, fish, eggs and cheese leave an acid ash in the body, which may aggravate his or her condition. Vegetables are alkalising, so you need to combine meats, fish and eggs with good amount of vegetables cooked and/or raw. Raw fruit, vegetables and greens have particularly strong alkalising ability. Apple cider vinegar is very alkalising, it is good to have it every day: just add one teaspoon of cider vinegar into every glass of water your patient drinks. Hot water with cider vinegar will makes an excellent warming and alkalising drink. Fermented foods are also alkalising.

It is very important to avoid processed foods (any packet or tinned foods). They are stripped from most nutrients that were present in the fresh ingredients used for making these foods. They are a hard work for the digestive system and they damage the healthy gut flora balance. On top of that they usually contain a lot of artificial chemicals, detrimental to health, like preservatives, colorants, E-numbers, etc. Try to buy foods in the form that nature made them, as fresh as possible.

Do not use a microwave oven, as it destroys food. Cook and warm up food using conventional oven and stove.

Foods to avoid:

• Sugar and anything that contains it.
• Molasses, maple syrup, corn syrup, any other syrup.
• Aspartame in any form, it is a potent neurotoxin (brain toxin).
• Sweets, cakes, biscuits, chocolates, ice – creams.
• All alcoholic beverages. An adult can have good quality wine with meals occasionally but not beer or spirits.
• Tinned and processed foods, always read the ingredients label, beware of sugar, lactose, maltose, starch, corn flour, preservatives, flavourings, colours, yeast. It is best not to buy processed foods at all.
• Grains: rice, corn, rye, oats, wheat and anything made of wheat flour (breads, pasta, biscuits, cakes and anything from the bakery, anything with bread crumbs or batter), buckwheat, quinoa, millet, couscous, spelt, semolina, tapioca, etc. After about 1 – 1.5 years you may be able to slowly re-introduce buckwheat, millet and quinoa (fermented to start with), but not wheat, rye or rice.
• Breakfast cereals are highly processed products with virtually no nutritional value, they are full of sugar, salt, trans-fatty acids and other harmful substances. They should be out of the diet forever.
• Starchy vegetables and anything made out of them: potato, parsnips, yams, Jerusalem artichoke and sweet potato. In about 1 - 1.5 years you may be able to introduce new potatoes.
• Milk should be out at this stage. However, the GAPS person can have soured milk products, such as natural hard cheese, live natural yoghurt and kefir, crème fresh or soured cream, butter and ghee. There are many substances in milk, which could cause trouble, such as milk sugar lactose, casein, immune complexes, etc. Soured milk products do not contain lactose and are pre-digested by the fermenting microbes, which makes fermented milk products very easy to digest for us. I would recommend using only organic milk products and introduce them one at a time, starting from small amounts. If you were not able to introduce any dairy in the Introduction Diet, then please look at page 95 in the GAPS book, it will explain how to introduce dairy safely. If you have introduced homemade yoghurt, kefir and ghee as a part of the Introduction Diet, then gradually introduce fermented cream and butter. When that is well tolerated try natural mature cheeses. You may want to try goat’s or sheep’s milk products first as they are often better tolerated by the GAPS people, than cow’s. In about 1,5 -2,5 years and when all fermented dairy products are introduced, your patient may be able to drink raw unpasteurised organic milk. Introduce it gradually starting from 1-2 teaspoons a day. A GAPS person must never have pasteurised milk!
• Fruit juices apart from freshly pressed. Unfortunately fruit juices (not freshly pressed by you) are a source of processed sugars and can contain a lot of fungi and moulds in them, which your GAPS patient might react to.
• Beans and pulses are generally hard to digest. The two varieties that your patient can have are white (navy) beans also called haricot beans, fermented and cooked at home, and fresh green beans. Commercially available baked beans have almost 40% sugar and should be avoided. You can make your own baked beans at home (please, look in the recipe section).
• Coffee is a strong irritant for the digestive tract, try to avoid it. Strong tea is not advisable either. Natural herbal teas (no flavourings added) and ginger tea are fine. Ginger tea is a well-known folk remedy for digestive problems.
• Soft drinks are not allowed at all, they are full of sugar and various chemicals, which are very damaging for GAPS people.
• Anything with colours, preservatives, flavourings and other chemicals.
• Soya and anything made out of it. It interferes with thyroid function in the body and negatively affects hormonal balance, as it contains oestrogen – like compounds. It is important to avoid all synthetic oestogens, such as from soya, contraceptive pill, many other drugs, domestic cleaning chemicals, laundry detergents, toiletries, etc.

Recommended foods:

• Buy fresh or frozen meats, fish and shellfish. Make sure that they are not smoked, salted or preserved in any other way. Your patient needs to have gelatinous meats every single day (meats around bones and joints, skin and brown meats on the poultry). It is important for him or her to have all the fats on the meat, eating lean muscle meats will not be good for GAPS.
• Liver and other organ meats should be eaten on a regular basis. They can be cooked any way you like. It is very nourishing and is the best remedy for many nutritional deficiencies.
• Eggs - the yolk is best eaten raw, the white should be slightly cooked, like for example in soft boiled or fried eggs. Make sure that you find good quality eggs, free-range organic eggs are the best. Your patient should have minimum 2-3 eggs a day as they are particularly good for restoring neurological functions.
• Fresh vegetables – all types of vegetables are recommended, apart from starchy vegetables, like potatoes, parsnips, sweet potato, Jerusalem artichokes and yams. You can cook vegetables by steaming them, stewing, roasting, grilling or stir-frying. It is particularly good to eat them as a homemade soup or stew with plenty of garlic, added at the end of cooking. Your patient should have plenty of cooked vegetables with every meal, as they are better digested than raw vegetables and are more nourishing. It is also important to have fermented and raw vegetables with every meal in a form of salads with olive oil and fresh lemon juice or as a snack. Raw and fermented vegetables will help in digesting proteins and detoxifying. However if your patient gets diarrhoea then cook all vegetables until diarrhoea clears.
• Fresh fruit. It is important that the fruit should be ripe. After completing the Introduction Diet introduce local seasonal ripe fruit gradually. At that stage start your patient’s day from a bit of fruit and offer some fruit between meals. He or she should not have fruit if there is diarrhoea. When the diarrhoea has cleared he or she can start from having cooked fruit (peeled, de-seeded and well cooked with a good dollop of butter, ghee or coconut oil) and then raw, introduced slowly.
• Avocado is a wonderfully nutritious fruit. Make sure it is ripe and serve it with meats, fish, shellfish and salads.
• Butter is better than any so-called healthy substitutes. You can cook with it or add it into ready dishes. Butter should be bought organic and unsalted, because non-organic butter contains a lot of pesticides and antibiotics, which the cows consume. Cold pressed virgin olive oil is very good for your patient, use it in salads and ready dishes liberally. It is not a good idea to cook with olive oil because it changes its chemical structure when heated. Frying is best done with animal fats: pork dripping, lard, lamb fat, goose fat, duck fat, ghee and butter. Coconut oil and palm oil are two plant oils, very good to use for cooking. These fats do not alter their structure during cooking. They can even be re-used. Collect your own fats after roasting meats. Avoid all common vegetable cooking oils, margarines and other processed fats: they are very harmful to health.
C for 3-24 hours (keep checking them as different nuts take different time to dry). Your patient can also eat nuts and seeds straight after soaking without drying them. Once they are dried keep them in an airtight container or well-sealed plastic bag. They become nice and crunchy and make an excellent snack food together with dried fruit. You can grind nuts and seeds (sunflower and pumpkin) into flour consistency to make bread, pancakes and even cakes at home. My book will provide you with recipes. Ground almonds or almond flour is available in health food shops.°• Nuts and seeds are a wonderful source of very good nutrients. Nuts should be bought just shelled – not salted, roasted, coated or processed in any other way. This way they are an excellent source of essential fatty acids and many nutrients. However, nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors, which may make them difficult to digest for some people. If you feel that it is a problem for your patient, as soon as you bought nuts to remove the enzyme inhibitors try to do the following: soak the nuts in salty water over night (1 tablespoon of sea salt per litre of water), in the morning drain them, rinse the salt off and dry in your oven at the temperature 50
• If your child would like to have a milk-like drink, nut/seed milk can replace all other milk while you are gradually introducing dairy. You can use almonds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and pine nuts to make milk. Blanched almonds make the best milk. You can add a teaspoon of flax seeds to make the milk thicker. Soak a cup of almonds in water for 12 - 24 hours, drain. Blend in a food processor with water: for 1 cup of nuts/seeds add 1-2 cups of water. A good juicer will crash the nuts/seeds well, making a paste, which you would blend with water. Mix well and strain through cheesecloth or a fine strainer and you have got milk. You can add some soaked dates or raisins, when blending, they will make the milk sweet. If you find that the milk is too rich, just add more water. You can add some of freshly pressed apple juice or carrot juice into it to make a very tasty and nourishing drink for your child. You can “milk” the same cup of almonds a few times. Just keep the paste covered with water in the refrigerator.
• You can also make coconut milk. Bring to boil (but do not boil) 1 cup of unsweetened shredded dried coconut and 1 cup of water. Cool down and blend well in your food processor. Strain through cheesecloth or a fine strainer.
• It is better to replace the table salt in your patient’s diet with unprocessed salt. The salt, which is sold in shops has been processed to remove all natural minerals apart from the NaCl. The human body needs all those minerals, that is why we must consume natural unprocessed salt. You can get very good quality sea salt called Celtic Salt or a Himalayan Crystal Salt.
• Garlic is very important to eat every day. It will help to normalise your patient’s gut flora and stimulate the immune system. It is important to have it raw with meats or cooked as a part of the meal. Work on using a whole head of garlic every day (not just a few cloves).
• Unprocessed honey is the only sweetener allowed (in baking it is better to use dried fruit as a sweetener). Locally produced honey is usually the most reliable.

For a full alphabetic list of foods to avoid and recommended foods, please look in the GAPS book.

A typical menu:

Start the day with a glass of still mineral or filtered water with a slice of lemon. It can be warm or cool to personal preference. Have half a cup of homemade yoghurt or kefir.
Instead of drinking water and yoghurt/kefir separately, you can make a refreshing drink: mix well half a cup of yoghurt/kefir and half a cup water and drink first thing in he morning.

If you have a juicer your patient can start the day with a glass of freshly pressed fruit/vegetable juice diluted with water.
You can make all sorts of juice mixes, but generally try to have 50% of therapeutic ingredients: carrot, small amount of beetroot (no more than 5% of the juice mixture), celery, cabbage, lettuce, greens (spinach, parsley, dill, basil, fresh nettle leaves, beet tops, carrot tops), white and red cabbage, and 50% of some tasty ingredients to disguise the taste of therapeutic ingredients: pineapple, apple, orange, grapefruit, grapes, mango, etc. Your patient can have these juices as they are, with some yoghurt/kefir or diluted with water.

Every day our bodies go through a 24 hour cycle of activity and rest, feeding and cleaning up (detoxifying). From about 4am till about 10am the body is in the cleaning up or detoxification mode. That is why many of us do not feel hungry first thing in the morning. Drinking water, yoghurt/kefir and freshly pressed juices will assist in this process. Loading the body with food at that time interferes with the detoxification. It is better to have breakfast around 10am when your body has completed the detox stage and is ready for feeding. At that stage we usually start feeling hungry, which is the body’s way of letting you know that the detoxification is finished. Children may be ready for their breakfast much earlier than adults.

Breakfast choices

• A variation of English breakfast: eggs cooked to personal liking and served with sausages and vegetables, some cooked, some fresh as a salad (tomato, cucumber, onions, celery, any fresh salad greens, etc.) and/or avocado and/or meat. The yolks are best uncooked and the whites - cooked. Use plenty of cold pressed olive oil as a dressing on the salad and eggs. Mix a tablespoon of pre-soaked or sprouted sunflower and/or sesame and/or pumpkin seeds with the salad. Sausages (full fat) should be made of pure minced meat (full fat!) with only salt and pepper added (any fresh vegetables or herbs also can be added to the mixture). Make sure that there are no commercial seasoning or MSG (Monosodium Glutamate) in the sausages. I recommend finding a local butcher, who would make pure meat sausages for you on order.
• Avocado with meat leftovers, fish or shellfish, vegetables raw and cooked, lemon and cold pressed olive oil. Serve a cup of warm meat stock as a drink with food. Don’t forget to add some probiotic food.
• Pancakes made with nuts ground into flour are nice to have on the weekends, when you have more time for cooking in the morning. These pancakes are delicious with some butter, sour cream with honey, or as a savoury snack. If you blend some fresh of defrosted berries with honey, it will make a delicious jam to have with pancakes. Weak tea with lemon, ginger tea or mint tea.

Lunch

• Homemade vegetable soup or stew in a homemade meat stock.
• Avocado with meat, fish, shellfish and raw or/and cooked vegetables. Use olive oil with some lemon squeezed over it as a dressing. Serve a cup of warm homemade meat stock as a drink with some yoghurt/kefir.
• Any meat/fish dish with vegetables.

Dinner

One of the dishes from the lunch or breakfast choice.
After dinner half a cup of yoghurt or kefir.

Coming off the GAPS diet

The strict GAPS diet should be adhered to for at least 1.5 – 2 years. Depending on the severity of the condition, some people recover quicker, others take much longer. Your patient needs to have at least 6 months of normal digestion before you start introducing foods not allowed on the GAPS diet. Do not rush with this step.
The first foods you will be able to introduce are new potatoes and fermented gluten-free grains (buckwheat, millet and quinoa). The recipe section will explain how to ferment grains.

Introduce one food at a time and always start from a small amount: give your patient a small portion of the new food and watch for any reaction for 2-3 days. If there are no digestive problems returning, or any other typical for your patient symptoms, then in a few days try another portion. If there are no reactions, gradually increase the amount of the food. These are starchy foods, so do not forget to serve them with good amounts of fat (butter, olive oil, any animal fat, coconut oil, etc.) to slow down the digestion of starch. Do not rush with the introduction of these new foods, it may take several months to do it properly.

Once new potatoes and fermented grains are introduced, try to make sourdough with good quality wheat or rye flour. You can make pancakes or bread with the sourdough. I would recommend a wonderful book by Sally Fallon “Nourishing Traditions” for a wealth of recipes. Once sourdough is well-tolerated you may be able to buy commercially available good quality sourdough breads.
At that stage you may find that your patient can digest buckwheat, millet and quinoa without fermenting them prior to cooking. Gradually you will find that you can introduce various starchy vegetables, grains and beans.

YOUR PATIENT WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO GO BACK TO THE TYPICAL MODERN DIET FULL OF SUGAR, ARTIFICIAL AND PROCESSED INGREDIENTS AND OTHER HARMFUL FOODS. USE THE YEARS OF FOLLOWING GAPS NUTRITIONAL PROTOCOL FOR DEVELOPING HEALTHY EATING HABITS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE !

In conclusion:

At the first glance the GAPS diet appears to be very hard work. However, it is a very wholesome and healthy diet and will allow your patient to heal and seal the gut lining and lay a strong foundation for good health for the rest of his or her life. It means that majority of GAPS people do not have to adhere to a special diet for the rest of their lives: once the digestive system starts functioning normally, they can gradually introduce most wholesome foods commonly eaten around the world. Some people achieve this target in 2 years, some take longer – it depends on the severity of the condition and the age of the person: children generally recover quicker than adults.
Once introduced, the GAPS diet is no more difficult than any normal cooking and feeding the family. And shopping is very simple: just buy everything fresh and unprocessed. Reading the GAPS book will provide you with essential information and many recipes.

Good luck!

Fermented foods

Fermented foods are essential to introduce, as they provide probiotic microbes in the best possible form. Supplements of probiotics settle in the upper parts of the digestive system and generally do not make it all away down to the bowel, while fermented foods will carry probiotic microbes all away down to the end of the digestive system. Fermentation predigests the food, making it easy for our digestive systems to handle, that is why fermented foods are easily digested by people with damaged gut. Fermentation releases nutrients from the food, making them more bio-available for the body: for example sauerkraut contains 20 times more bio-available vitamin C than fresh cabbage.

You can ferment any food. Here I will put a few recipes for you to consider (you do not have to introduce them all). Try to experiment and make your own recipes. You can ferment by adding kefir or yoghurt culture to food or using traditional methods, such as the one for making sauerkraut.

Fermented foods should always be introduced gradually: they are teaming with probiotic bacteria and live enzymes which may cause a “die-off reaction”. You’ll meet people who will tell you that they “cannot tolerate” fermented foods: the reason is that they suddenly had a sizeable helping of a fermented food and got a serious “die-off reaction”. Never start from more than 1 teaspoon of any probiotic food per day. Depending on the severity of the condition, different people can introduce fermented foods quicker or slower. If on 1 teaspoon per day your patient gets a “die-off reaction”, let him or her settle for a few days or longer, then increase the amount to 2 teaspoons per day. Once 2 teaspoons are well tolerated, add another teaspoon. Continue increasing the daily amount of the fermented food gradually keeping the “die-off reaction” under control. It is a good idea to introduce no more than 1 or 2 fermented foods at a time. I usually recommend to start from homemade yoghurt and juice from homemade sauerkraut, which in many cases can be introduced at the same time.

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is an ancient digestive and detoxifying food, very popular in Eastern Europe. You have to make it at home as commercially available sauerkraut may have been pasteurised or processed in some other way, which will make it much less potent. Initially just add juice from the sauerkraut into your patient’s meals; then gradually introduce the cabbage itself. Sauerkraut stimulates stomach acid production and is a great ally in digesting meats. Majority of GAPS patients have low stomach acid production, which starts the whole digestive process from the wrong foot. Regular consumption of sauerkraut over time will help your patient to restore normal stomach acid production. Please follow the instructions for making sauerkraut in the recipe section of the GAPS book. Sauerkraut does not require adding any fermenting bacteria to it, as cabbage and other fresh vegetables have these bacteria naturally living on their surface. Do not forget to add natural unprocessed salt before kneading the cabbage: the salt will stifle any putrefactive microbes until the good bacteria produce enough lactic acid to kill them. Another important point is to knead the mixture very well in a large bowl using your hands; you may want to ask somebody with strong hands to do that for you. Knead until the cabbage and carrots release a lot of juice (salt in the mixture will hep to do that), so when you leave it to ferment, the cabbage is completely drowned in its own juice. If for whatever reason there is not enough juice in the cabbage, add some water to the mixture. Fermentation is an anaerobic process: if the cabbage is exposed to air, it will rot instead of fermenting. Having made the sauerkraut once you will see just how easy it is to do and how little time it takes to make this wonderful healing remedy.

Homemade yoghurt and kefir

You can get a commercial starter in a sachet or use some live commercial natural yoghurt or kefir as a starter. Please follow the instructions for making yoghurt in the GAPS book. You can make kefir following the same instructions using the kefir starter or commercial natural kefir. From your first batch of yoghurt and kefir you can make many more, just leave about a cup to use as a starter for the next batch. If you make yoghurt or kefir from organic unpasteurised (raw) milk, then do not heat it, just add the starter and ferment. Only pasteurised milk needs heating, as pasteurisation makes milk vulnerable to contamination by pathogenic microbes. Raw milk is usually well protected by its own probiotic bacteria and other factors.

Remember, that kefir contains more potent probiotic microbes than yoghurt, as a result kefir will produce a more pronounced “die-off reaction”. That is why I recommend to introduce yoghurt first, then start introducing kefir. Both should be introduced slowly and gradually controlling the “die-off”. Kefir, apart from probiotic bacteria, contains beneficial yeasts. That is why it is essential to introduce for people with yeast overgrowth. A healthy human gut contains plenty of beneficial yeasts, as well as beneficial bacteria and other microbes. In order to get rid of the “bad” yeast, we need to replace it with the “good” yeast.

By dripping your yoghurt or kefir through cheesecloth you can separate it into cottage cheese and whey. Pour the whey into a clean glass jar with a tight lid and keep it in the refrigerator to use as a starter for fermenting different foods, such as vegetables, fish, beans and grains (when your patient is ready to have them). The cottage cheese is delicious with some honey, fruit, soups or as a savoury snack.

Fermenting vegetables with whey

With whey (or the commercial starter for yoghurt or kefir) you can ferment vegetables. Take some cabbage (white, red or any other variety), beetroot, garlic, cauliflower and carrot, slice them into nice mouth size pieces or shred them roughly, add some salt to taste and pack loosely into a wide-mouth glass jar. Take 1/2 litre of cold water and dissolve the contents of yoghurt or kefir sachet in it. Alternatively add 4-5 tablespoons of your homemade whey into the water. Add this water to the jar until it completely covers the vegetables (if the vegetables are not quite covered, just top it up with more water). Close the jar and leave to ferment at a room temperature for 7-10 days. The vegetables will become soft and tangy to taste. Introduce the juice from these vegetables as soon as they are ready. Start from one teaspoon of the juice added to soups and stews. Gradually increase the amount of the liquid and start introducing the vegetables themselves again starting from a small amount. These vegetables and the liquid are an excellent probiotic food and will assist digestion.

Vegetable medley

This simple recipe will provide you with delicious fermented vegetables and a wonderful beverage to drink. In a 2-3 litre wide-mouth glass jar put half a cabbage roughly cut, a medium size beetroot sliced, a handful of peeled garlic cloves and some dill seeds or fresh dill. The vegetables should fill no more than 2/3 of the jar. Add 1-2 tablespoons of Celtic salt, a cup of whey and top up with water until the jar is full. Float a small dish on top of the brine to keep the vegetables submerged in the brine. Leave to ferment for 1-2 weeks at a room temperature. When ready the vegetables will be soft and tangy. At that stage move the jar into the refrigerator. Drink the brine diluted with water with your meals or between the meals and eat the vegetables with the meats. When the brine and the vegetables will start getting low, add fresh cabbage, beetroot and garlic, some salt, top up with water and ferment at a room temperature again. You can also add a few rosettes of cauliflower, sliced carrot, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. You can have this vegetable medley going forever as long as you keep feeding it with more fresh vegetables.

Beetroot kvass

Using a knife slice medium size beetroot finely (don’t grate it in a food processor as that destroys the beetroot and will make it ferment too quickly producing alcohol). Put the beetroot into a two-litre jar, add 1-2 tablespoons of Celtic Salt, 1 cup of whey, 5 cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of dill seeds and fill up with water. Let it ferment for 2-5 days in a warm place. After that keep in the refrigerator. Drink diluted with water. Keep topping the water up in the jar so your kvass will be going for a long time. When it stars getting pale then the beetroot is spent, so make a new one.

Kvass

You can make kvass from any combination of fruit, berries and vegetables; try to experiment. A good recipe is apple/ginger and raspberry kvass. Slice a whole apple including the core, grate ginger root (about a teaspoonful) and get a handful of fresh raspberries. Put them all into a one-litre jar, add ½ cup of whey and top up with water. Let it brew for a few days at a room temperature, then keep in the refrigerator. Drink diluted with water. Keep topping up your brew with water until the fruit is spent, then start again.

Probiotic tomato juice

Blend well 1 cup of whey, 1-2 tablespoons of tomato pure, 1 cup of water and some salt to taste. Chill and serve.

Fermented fish

You can use homemade kefir or whey as a starter. For a one-litre jar you need 3-4 fresh herrings or mackerel. Skin the fish and remove the bones, cut into mouth size pieces. Put the pieces of the fish into the jar mixing with slightly crushed peppercorns, a few slices of white onion (optional), coriander seeds, bay leaves and dill seeds or dill herb. In a separate jug in ½ litre of water dissolve 1 tablespoon of sea salt and 3-4 tablespoons of your homemade whey. Pour this brine into the jar with the fish until the fish is completely covered; if the fish is not covered just add more water. Close the jar tightly and leave to ferment for 3-5 days at a room temperature, then store in the fridge. This fish does not keep long, so consume in the next few days. Serve with avocado and onions.

Another way to ferment fish: buy some fresh sardines (also works for herring and mackerel), de-scale the fish, cut the heads off and clean the belly out. Put into a suitable size glass jar or a stainless steel pan. Add 1-2 cups of whey, 1-2 tablespoons of salt (per 1 litre), a teaspoon of black pepper corns (freshly crushed), 10 bay leaves and ½ a teaspoon of coriander seeds (freshly crushed). Top up with water so the fish is completely covered with water, you may want to float a small plate on top of the fish to keep it submerged in the brine. Cover the pan or put the lead on the jar and let it ferment for 3-5 days at a room temperature. When the fish is ready take the meat off the bones, cut into bite-size pieces and serve with avocado, fresh dill and some chopped red onion.

Fermented grains

When you are ready to introduce some grain, first try them fermented. To ferment grains such as buckwheat, millet and quinoa wash them, cover with water and add ½ cup of whey. Leave to ferment at a room temperature for a few days: quinoa for 1-2 days, buckwheat for 2-3 days, millet for 4-5 days. When the fermentation is complete, drain the liquid out and cook the grain in your homemade meat stock or water with some salt (for 1 cup of grain 2 cups of meat stock or water). When it is cooked all the liquid should be completely absorbed and the grain should be soft and fluffy. Have it with meats and vegetables or bake with it using it instead of flour. Introduce gradually, starting from 1-2 spoonfuls a day and watching for any reaction. Do not forget to serve grains with plenty of natural fat: butter, ghee, olive oil, coconut oil or any animal fat; the fats will slow down the digestion of the grains and help to control the blood sugar level.

Baked beans

Baked beans, which are produced commercially, are full of sugar and should be avoided. You can make your own baked beans at home. 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.

Feeding your baby

I cannot emphasise strongly enough, how important it is to breastfeed your baby! Particularly in those first few days, when colostrum is produced.
If you cannot do it yourself, try to find a wet nurse or a breast milk donor: a good place to start looking for one is in your maternity ward before giving birth (if you arrived to the hospital in a planned fashion) or straight after giving birth. In order to insure good supply of breast milk for your baby, it is practical to look for 2-4 wet nurses or breast milk donors. Look for healthy women who live not too far away from you. Even in the case of formula feeding supplementing your baby’s diet with some breast milk (even occasional) will do wonders for your baby’s development and overall health. No commercial formula will ever get close to the quality of breast milk!
If you have no alternative but to feed your baby formula (even supplemented occasionally with breast milk), add good quality probiotics into every bottle feed right from the start.

Mastitis 

Mastitis is an integral part of breastfeeding. Most breastfeeding women get it and not once. If the mother gets mastitis – the last thing she should do is to stop breastfeeding! Carry on feeding your baby with the inflamed breast as it will bring benefits for both you and the baby. 
For you: emptying the breast regularly is an essential treatment for mastitis; you must not allow milk to stagnate in your breast. 
For your baby: the infection from you breast is one of the fist nature’s ways of maturing your baby’s immune system. Babies are born with an immature immune system, which requires education. The environment educates your baby’s immune system by exposing it to common pathogens. Mastitis is a safe way to introduce common microbes into your baby’s body to train her immune system: the milk from the inflamed breast will supply these microbes in a complex with antibodies and many other immune factors, which will interact with your baby’s immune system and teach it the right response.

Mastitis creates very high temperature in the body: this is essential though can be hard to cope with! The high temperature allows the body to dissolve blockages in the milk ducts in the breast. Your baby suckling will remove those blockages. A qualified homeopath can help you with both the temperature and the mastitis. Freshly brewed willow tea or plain aspirin will also help you to cope with the high temperature.

Antibiotics are usually prescribed for mastitis. However, there is no consensus amongst medics if antibiotics really help: the important thing is to open up the blocked milk ducts, and your baby can do that for you very effectively. If you have to take antibiotics, carry on breastfeeding. Yes, your baby will be exposed to those antibiotics, but in a mixture with many protective immune factors in your milk. As the mastitis gets resolved your milk will restore normal balance in your baby’s digestive system.

Introducing solids

For a bottle bed baby introduce solids from the age of 4 months. A breast fed baby can often wait till 6 months of age, unless it is a very hungry baby and you have to introduce solids earlier.
Solids should be introduced gradually, starting from just one very small meal a day. The rest of the meals should be breast milk or formula with some probiotic added.

First week:

• Start from meat stock. To make good meat stock, simmer a piece of meat on the bone (whole or half a chicken) for 2 - 3 hours without adding salt or anything else to the water. You can make fish stock the same way using a whole fish or fish fins, bones and heads. Take the bones and meat out and sieve the stock. It can be frozen or it will keep well in the fridge for a week. Start from warm homemade meat stock mixed with homemade yoghurt. Make sure to give breast only as a reward/top up after your infant had some meat stock with homemade yoghurt from a bottle, a spoon or a beaker. Start from 1-2 teaspoons of the stock with ½ a teaspoon of homemade yoghurt (mixed together) before every beast feed. As your baby accepts that amount, gradually increase it. Do not use commercially available soup stock granules or bullion cubes, they are highly processed and are full or detrimental ingredients. Chicken stock is particularly gentle on the stomach. Do not take fat out of the stock; it is important for your baby to have fat with it.

• Give your baby one or two teaspoons of freshly pressed vegetable juice (mainly carrot with a dash of cabbage, celery or lettuce) mixed with some warm water between meals. Do not give her any commercially available vegetable or fruit juices; she can only have juices freshly pressed by you at home. These juices do not keep: they need to be consumed within half an hour after pressing.

Second week:

• Carry on with the previous.

• Start making vegetable soup or pure from peeled, de-seeded and well-cooked vegetables. Cook them in your homemade meat stock without adding salt or anything else. Use non – starch vegetables (no potato, sweet potato, yams or parsnips). Suitable vegetables are carrots, marrows, squashes, leeks, onions, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, and courgettes (peel and de-seed marrows, squashes and courgettes). Cook the vegetables well, until very soft, cool them down to warm and puree with a little of natural fat, choosing from: a teaspoon of organic coconut oil, a teaspoon of cold pressed olive oil, 5 drops of cod liver oil, a teaspoon of ghee (made by you from unsalted organic butter) or a teaspoon of raw organic butter (unsalted!). Give your baby different fats and oils on different days. When the vegetable pure cooled down to body temperature (test by putting a little on your wrist) add one teaspoon of homemade organic yoghurt. Start from 2-4 teaspoons of this pure a day and gradually increase the amount. Start from quite a liquid pure and gradually increase its thickness.

Third week:

• Carry on with the previous.

• Start adding boiled meats (cooked for a long time in water and then pureed) into your baby’s vegetable soups and puree. Start from a small bit of organic chicken, gradually increase: make sure to put meat and skin from wings, legs and carcass as well as from the breast of the chicken (skin, brown meats and all the fatty bits are the most valuable for your baby). After organic chicken introduce other meats (preferably gelatinous around bones and joints) well cooked in water. The most suitable meats are the ones you used for making the meat stock: well-cooked and gelatinous.

• Keep replacing her formula milk with the soups and vegetable pure. If breast feeding, carry on topping up with breast milk after every feed.

• Increase the amount of homemade yoghurt to 1-2 teaspoons with every meal.

• Introduce ripe avocado starting from a teaspoon added to her vegetable pure. Gradually increase the amount.

• Increase her intake of freshly pressed vegetable juice (mixed with water), particularly lettuce and cabbage juice added to the carrot.

Weeks 4 and 5:

• Carry on with the previous.

• Start adding raw organic egg yolk into her vegetable pure. Start from ¼ teaspoon of raw egg yolk a day. Watch for any reaction. If there is none gradually increase the amount of raw egg yolk and start adding it to every bowl of soup or vegetable pure.

• 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 butter, coconut oil or ghee to it. This apple pure will keep very well in the fridge for at least a week or it can be frozen. Warm it up to body temperature (or at least room temperature) before giving it to your baby. Start from a few teaspoonfuls a day. Watch for any reaction such as loose stool. If there is none gradually increase the amount. Do not use microwave ovens for warming up or cooking, as microwaves destroy food. Use conventional stove or oven for warming up; an apple puree you can warm up by standing the dish in some hot water.

• Use more organic raw unsalted butter in your baby’s meals instead of ghee.

Weeks 6 and 7:

• Carry on with the previous.

• Increase the amount of homemade yoghurt to 3 teaspoons with every meal. You can start adding it to your baby’s juice and water in her bottle.

• Gradually increase raw egg yolks to 2 a day added to your baby’s soup or cups of meat stock. Increase the meat intake, particularly gelatinous meats around joints and bones (well cooked in water).

• Stop the milk formula completely. If breast-fed, then carry on.

Weeks 8 and 9:

• Carry on with the previous.

• Add pancakes made with nut butter (almond butter or hazelnut butter), courgette or squash (peeled and blended) and eggs, starting from one small pancake a day and gradually increasing the amount. Fry them gently using ghee, coconut oil or any animal fat (which you rendered yourself from fresh meats).

• Increase the amount of freshly pressed juices. Add some yoghurt to the juice. Try to add some fresh apple to the vegetable mixture.

• Add raw vegetables starting from lettuce and peeled cucumber (blended in a food processor and added to soup or vegetable pure). Again start from a tiny amount and gradually increase if well tolerated. After those two vegetables are well tolerated gradually add other raw vegetables: carrot, celery, soft cabbage, etc., finely blended.

• Introduce juice from your homemade sauerkraut, starting from one teaspoon of juice per day, squeezed from the sauerkraut and added to your baby’s soups and vegetable puree. Gradually increase the amount of juice per day to one teaspoon with every meal.

Week 10 and onwards:

• Carry on with the previous.

• Try to give your baby a little bit of egg gently scrambled (or an omelette) with a generous amount of raw butter, coconut oil, ghee or any animal fat, which you rendered yourself. Serve it with avocado and raw or cooked vegetables.

• Try some ripe raw apple without the skin. Try some ripe banana (yellow with brown spots on the skin). Fruit should be given to your baby between meals, not with meats.

• Introduce your homemade cottage cheese (made from your homemade yoghurt) starting from a tiny amount and gradually increasing. To make cottage cheese from your yoghurt stand the pan with the yoghurt in a large bowl with hot water until yoghurt separates into curds and whey. Line a large bowl with cheese cloth, pour the yoghurt into it, tie the corners of the cheese cloth together and hang it for about 8 hours to drip (over night works well). You can add this cottage cheese into your baby’s meals or give it to her as a dessert with a little of cold expressed honey. When this homemade cottage cheese is fully introduced, try some raw milk.

• Try to bake bread using recipes in my book. Start from a tiny piece of bread and gradually increase the amount.

You may have to introduce some foods later than in this programme depending on your baby’s sensitivities. The best indication is your baby’s stool: if she gets loose stool or constipation, take it as an indication, that she is not ready for the newly introduced food. Remove it from the diet, wait for a few weeks, then try to introduce it again. Another common reaction is any new skin rash or an eczema flare-up. If there is a serious reaction to your homemade yoghurt, try to drip it and collect whey (the yellow liquid which drips out). Whey has less dairy proteins and is more easily tolerated; start from a few drops of whey a day and gradually increase the amount. When about half a cup of whey is well-tolerated introduce yoghurt.

When weaning your baby, be confident and relaxed, as babies are like barometers: they sense our anxiety without words and will react accordingly. If your baby has refused a particular food now, try an hour later or tomorrow. Choose times when you are not in a hurry and can be happy and relaxed. From the beginning embrace the wonderful mess of baby feeding: put a plastic sheet on the floor under your baby’s chair and don’t worry about where the food may fly. Always have two spoons: give one spoon to your baby and let her do with this spoon whatever she wants. Hold the second spoon yourself and use it for feeding. Over time your baby will learn to use her spoon appropriately.

The stage of baby weaning is so short: enjoy it while you can!

Apart from feeding

Apart from good food your baby needs your loving attention, daily walks in the fresh air and good sleep. Nothing else! No vaccinations, no injections, no tests, no unnecessary visits to doctors and no man-made chemicals.

About vaccinations please read the relevant chapter in the GAPS book. Babies in GAPS families must not be vaccinated until they have developed strong immune systems and good physical and communication skills: this means no vaccines until the child is 4-5 years of age. Even then, if you have to vaccinate, make sure that your child is absolutely healthy and well at the time of the vaccination. Ask to see the ingredients list of the vaccine and demand that they are explained to you. Try to avoid combined vaccines, look for single alternatives.

Avoid all man-made chemicals in your baby’s care! No personal care products, even those that are claimed to be natural. Babies do not need to be washed with any soap or shampoo. Clean warm water is all they need. Soaps wash off protective oils from the baby’s skin and expose it to drying out and invasion by pathogens. Use coconut oil, olive oil and your homemade yoghurt and kefir on nappy area or any dry skin.

Make sure that your home is as chemical free as possible: use water and vinegar to clean your house, natural bio-degradable laundry detergents and wash your baby’s dishes by hand (rinsing the soap off thoroughly). In the first year of your baby’s life try not to re-decorate your house or buy new furniture, new kitchen, etc. These things bring a plethora of toxic chemicals into the house which may effect your baby’s development. Avoid taking your baby to toxic places, such as chlorinated swimming pools, shopping centres and hospitals. Do not allow anybody to smoke around your baby or use excessive amounts of perfume.

Use natural bedding for your baby. Wrap your baby’s mattress in a plastic sheet: if urine gets into some modern mattresses (particularly an old mattress left from your previous child), it may react with microbes and chemical ingredients in the mattress and release toxic gases (the cause of cot death!).

On the whole, think what man-made chemicals, radiation or any other environmental dangers your baby may be exposed to and avoid them.

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·         THE FULL GAPS DIET

·         For many GAPS patients, the diet should be followed for two years at least.  The book Gut & Psychology Syndrome will provide recipes and more explanation about the diet.  

The best foods are eggs (if tolerated), fresh meats (not preserved), fish, shellfish, fresh vegetables and fruit, nuts and seeds, garlic and olive oil.  Apart from eating vegetables cooked, it is important to have some raw vegetables with meals, as they contain vital enzymes to assist digestion of the meats.  Fruit should be eaten on their own, not with meals, as they have a very different digestion pattern and can make the work harder for the stomach.  Fruit should be given as a snack between meals.

It is very important to have plenty of natural fats in every meal from meats, butter, ghee, coconut (if tolerated) and cold pressed olive oil.  Animal fats on meats are particularly valuable.  Fermented foods (sauerkraut, yogurt, and kefir) are also a very important part of this diet in addition to homemade meat or fish stock.  It is recommended to take a cup of warm meat or fish stock with every meal as a drink as well as soups and stews made with the meat or fish stock.  The stock, kefir and fermented vegetables will over time restore the stomach acid production, which will improve digestion.

·         It is best to avoid processed foods (any packet or tinned foods).  They are stripped from most nutrients that were present in the fresh ingredients used for making these foods.  They are a hard work for the digestive system and they damage the healthy gut flora balance.  On top of that they usually contain a lot of artificial chemicals, detrimental to health, like preservatives, colorants, etc.  Try to buy foods in the form that nature made them, as fresh as possible.