Filling in the GAPS

Well, we started the GAPS diet this week. That's right, after four years of strict adherence to vegetarianism (and twenty three years of my husband's vegetarianism), homemade chicken broth is now set to be a must-have with every meal for the next few months.

For those of you (most of you) who don't know, GAPS stands for Gut And Psychology Syndrome and it's essentially a detox diet which purges your body of all the garbage you (I) have been consuming for the last two and some decades and re-balances your gut flora, on which your whole body depends. It's been said to heal a variety of ailments from allergies to autism, and isn't so bad for weight loss either.

It's got 3 stages: 1) Introduction Diet, Stage 1 - 2) Introduction Diet, Stage 2 and 3) Full Diet. Read more about it on the GAPS website here.

GAPS hinges on consuming animal fats, non-starchy vegetables and probiotics (fermented foods and homemade yogurt / sour cream / kefir) and "cutting out" sugars and grains. It's a hefty job but after seeing the huge success one of my friends has had with it, and hours (and hours) of scouring the internet for a flaw, our family has decided to take the GAPS plunge. And it's not forever.

So, for the skeptics (myself a little bit included), please allow me to chronicle my GAPS journey, the flaws and the benefits. I introduce to you..

This new "segment" is by no means a how-to. My friend Tedra, she could write the how-to. As a matter of fact, my dozens of messages and calls asking her "what if" and "how do I" could really put together a good how-to GAPS intro book for you, and once she finally creates her amazing blog, I'll link you to it.  'Till then, watch and learn as I do.

Right now I'm entering Intro Diet Stage 1. I'm "allowed" the following foods:

• Drug free free range meat broth and meat from the broth
• Ginger tea and unpasteurized honey
• Filtered water
• Juice from fermented sauerkraut
• Non-starchy / non-fibrous vegetables, cooked for 25 - 30 minutes in the meat broth

So first, I had to make a chicken broth. On the common sense knowledge of trying to detox, we opted for a (super expensive) drug-free free-range chicken to make the broth with. Oh, by we, I mean just me: John's condition is that he will do GAPS if he doesn't have to touch, learn or hear about what he's eating and just eat it. So John, don't read this.

The chicken we purchased was about $3.80 per pound and I think we spent $15. I hauled it home, put it in the crock pot (frozen), covered it with water and waited - about 24 hours. My orginal plan was to create a perpetual broth and continually have the chicken cooking through the week, but already it was getting so squishy and kind of gross that I decided to take the bone broth route. Also gross.

De-boning a chicken is the most disgusting thing I've done since dissecting a pig in grade eleven. I'm still shuddering. Did you know that chickens still have their organs in them? EW. Frig, no wonder people don't want to know what's going in their bodies (and no wonder we're fat because of it).

My main question: HOW are chicken nuggets made? What nasty process must McDonalds go through just to make, gulp, a six-pack of nuggets? 'Cause there's not very much white meat on a 5 lb drug-free chicken - I think for $18, I could have made MAYBE 5 nuggets. Grosssss.

Anyway - so, I de-boned the chicken, threw out all the nasties (mostly it's nasty) and kept the white meat in a container in the fridge. If I want to eat it, I need to first boil it with the broth on the stove. Fair enough.

Next came sauerkraut. I always thought sauerkraut was lamb intestines. Don't ask me why. Thankfully for me, sauerkraut is basically pickled cabbage and making it is simple: chop the cabbage, salt it, squeeze all the juices out of it, and leave it for a few days in mason jars. The juice that rises to the top is full of probiotic goodness and is intended to be combined with your broth.

And finally, real people food: broccolli soup. At this stage of the diet, I'm not "allowed" to have any veggies that aren't super soft. All vegetables must be cooked, in the broth, for a minimum of 30 minutes. What that means is that your broth will half itself. Good to know. I made enough "soup" for John and I and ended up with enough "soup" for John. ("Soup", because this is not soup. This is mushy broccoli in broth.)

Of the soup and broth, John said "I'm sure someone who liked meat would tell you that this is good."

I'll take the compliment.

Thus ends day 1 of the GAPS diet. Let's hope this all improves.

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Here's a little update: Swiss Chalet for dinner. Veggie burgers. Let's call this "transitioning". I'm just bein' honest.