GAPS

OK. We're going to do it. We're going to put the whole family on the GAPS diet. My plan had been to put just Nate and me on the diet (and probably "partial participation" for the other two children), but last night Jon said he would do it with us too. I am actually very excited... and nervous too. So for the past couple of weeks, I've been gathering ingredients and supplies that I don't already have, making and storing various dishes (sauerkraut, homemade chicken stock and meat stock), and researching sources for organic ingredients. I think it'll take me a couple more weeks before I'm ready to start, so I'm shooting for a February 1 start date.

Rewind for a minute: have I mentioned the GAPS diet on this blog yet? I might not have! Basically, I've been reading up on it a lot and am finding that gluten-free, casein-free, soy-free might just have been partially/indirectly dealing with Nate's "internal" issues and not fully addressing the real issue. The GAPS diet works in stages, with the introduction/first stage being quite restrictive; you add in more and more foods with each stage until you reach the "full GAPS" diet, which you maintain for a while (think 2 years). Eventually, you introduce dairy (also in stages), but the GAPS diet does remain gluten- and soy free. The staples of the diet are organic/unprocessed meats and broth, lots of fats, soup, cooked vegetables, eggs, naturally probiotic foods (like sauerkraut), and NO grains, starches, or sugar. After the couple of years on full GAPS, the gut should be healed and you can start coming off of the diet and eating other foods (while still eating healthy and making good choices). Basically, it is not a life sentence and has as its primary goal healing of the gut/digestive system so that all foods can again be tolerated.