This One Time, I Did the GAPS Diet, And then I Never Did it Again.

My blog post titles are beginning to look like a series of mom-friendly Underoath tracks C/O 2004.

Oh well. I was raised good.

A few months back, John and I decided to purge our gross-eating lifestyle and stick to a more healthier, gluten-free, sugar-free track. It went really well, for a week. The GAPS diet takes a lot of care, planning, attention, and diligence. It also takes the right kind of person to follow it. Find out more about what the GAPS Diet is, and a full one-week GAPS meal plan, here and here.

I think the GAPS diet is appropriate for families with gripping allergies, looking for options in regards to autism care, and with gastro-intestinal problems. We are not one of those families.

However, there are many good things we learned from the GAPS diet that we are going to continue living with. I wanted to share them with you, because I don't think the whole diet can be thrown out to the curb - but I'm not sure I need to live entirely GAPS either.

Homemade Beats Storebought, Every Time. (Especially with regards to yogurt.)

And it's really easy to make. Look forward to a post soon on how to make homemade yogurt, without a yogurt maker.

Unpasteurized Honey Beats Sugar, Every Time.

This is Tom. We get our honey from his farm.

The GAPS diet wants you to eat Organic, which you should be doing anyways, but you've never really been convinced of the awesomeness that is organic. That's OK. Start with honey.

Now, there ain't no such thang as organic honey - it's not possible for beekeepers to control where the bees pollenate - but local, unpasteurized honey is your next best bet. It's so sweet and so delicious and so untouched... it's so good. In tea, in yogurt, in... well, that's about all you can eat on GAPS...

Just kidding.


Probiotics Work

Part of the GAPS diet means taking probiotics, and John and I found that taking a good probiotic with breakfast is a great way to protect our tummies. We're going to continue doing that.

Bio-K literally stopped Candida in my system, which was good, because it was getting really tough to breastfeed.

Chicken Broth! It's So Healing!

I have a good friend whose life mantra goes something like this:
"Chicken broth... it's so healing!"

(Just kidding, T.)

But really, it is. I was slipping homemade chicken broth into soups and drinking it on its own, and I was noticing that my teeth were getting whiter and overall I felt as though I had more energy. I wasn't even really eating the chicken which accompanied the bones!

I made a Perpetual Chicken Broth by following these instructions and found that it was great. I'm going to keep this going in our home. Who doesn't want chicken broth on hand? At first I was pretty grossed out by the ordeal but now I'm a true Chicken Broth Convert.

And, because we're not raising The Caterpillar as vegetarian, I've found it very helpful to freeze the chicken meat and puree it with carrots or sweet potato a couple times a week.

The recipe from Nourished Kitchen was the best I could find.

Gluten-Free Is Better
Although I haven't nailed gluten-free baking, it IS better than baking with regular white or whole wheat flour. I found that using coconut flour and almond flour required a bit of a learning curve, but once I tried it a few times, I (again) was converted.

The benefit of coconut flour is the price - it's much more affordable than almond flour. The down side is that everything starts to taste slightly coconut-y after a while.

The benefit of almond flour is everything about it. The down side is that it's expensive.

There are other gluten-free flour options I haven't tried (chickpea flour, soya flour, buckwheat, etc.) but the GAPS diet wouldn't allow them considering their starchiness. I think that I'll follow suit and stick with coconut and almond flours when I decide to opt-out of white flour.

Almond flour: Low in carbs, high in protein, excellent for keeping you fuller longer.

Low-Starch/Sugar Eating = More Energy
Although I can't say I can live with a "no" starch & "no" sugar diet (as GAPS would have it), I do want to stick with a low starch / sugar diet for our family. John and I had a lot more energy by eating natural sugars instead of processed ones, and we realized how much starch we really do consume - whether via potatoes or beans - on a regular basis. We won't be cutting it all out, but monitoring what we do eat.

Overall...
I won't be staying GAPS-friendly for life, or even for a little while, but I will adapt these key principles in our daily dieting when possible.