GAPS Diet Support Thread

[IndigoBell]

Anybody doing, or trying to do, or thinking about doing the GAPS diet is welcome to post here.......

has anyone tried baking with nut flours? it's on my to-do list, but i fear it will be christmas/ the cows will come home before it happens. curious if anyone else has got there yet?

I've done bits and pieces, but not much...

have substituted flours sometimes, or topped up with a nut flour if I don't have enough of another flour etc.

but i haven't done enough of it.

I really want ot get goign on this, tbh - and cut out the gf bread, and gf substitutes we use as I don;t think they do dd1 any good...

did you buy your nut flour silverfrog? or make your own?

oh, bought it. most definitely. make my own

actually, I do have a friend who made her own, and nut butters, and nut milks.

life's too short, I say.

I buy from goodness direct, or dietary needs direct, but prob no good for you overseas.

wholefoods (do they exist in your neck of the woods?) very good. and I seem to recall Trader Jacks too, but that is wrong country, deffo.

we've got 'nutters' locally which seems v good. will have to investigate the flour aisle...

there's a lot of making your own in that book.... i'm not even going to speculate on how one would make your own nut milks though... i've got enough on my plate without disappearing into 1952 and lashing myself to the aga. (not that i've got an aga, you understand...)

what's the taste/ texture when it's all baked up then? is it worth the hassle?

I have the aga, but not the pinny...

Taste is ok - unsurprisingly a bit nutty

Used coconut flour in some biscuits, and have used Brazil nut flour in some bread before now. Biscuits were coconutty, but not overbearing so - my dss ate some, and he normally detest anything coconut... the bread worked well - was only a bit in there though, as didn't have enough gf bread flour, but made it a bit more savour and nutty, but again not overporweringly so. Nut fours can be quite dry (like all gf baking...) so a touch more liquid might be needed, although not too much, otherwise goes soggy.

the only thing I make with ground nut/seeds is pancakes, hopeless at baking :(
I know you can make awesome walnut cake w/o grain flour, tasted it but never made it myself

He does eat pancakes with egg, yes Can you remember the name of the sachets of PB by any chance nightcat ??

Has a very limited diet - albeit I always thought a quite healthy one Ds1 doesnt eat any chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks etc and never has. He also doesnt eat meat except for chicken fingers/chicken breats in breadcrumbs or fish fingers. I put a spoon of minced beef in his pasta and he HATES it but I make him eat it

We will see how he is off the milk...how long should a + change take do you think????

Becaroo, the sachets link is in this thread, a few brands listed.

Yesterday we cut out gluten free bread for DS, and he had cold finger foods for school lunch instead.

Well, for the first time ever he came out of school smiling :) He said he just had a good day.

Of course this may just be coincidence...

hmm. so ds1 seems to be displaying more quirks, the more gluten/ processed stuff we remove. given that i still can't find my GAPS book, is this likely to be a short term thing? or indicative that we might be barking up the wrong tree? or maybe we're just noticing it more because we're looking for signs... or maybe it's his way of expressing concern that we're messing with his diet. urgh.

on the bright side - just skid marks so far this week (i know y'all really wanted to know that), no actual soiling. so pros and cons, pros and cons. might just be hangover from the enemas, but i'm quietly optimistic.

wow on the school day, indigo. that's fantastic! coincidence or not, make the most of it and do the same tomorrow! ds is refusing to eat lunch currently.

how long has it been, madwoman? yes, quirks etc can increase in the withdrawal period. we saw an awful increase with dd1 (not that we were GPS-ing, but when we went gf/cf).

I think it's a bit like the day after a Chinese takeaway (did you know there is a recognised "chinese takeaway syndrome" - following too much stodge and MSG ) - it gets worse before it gets better, iyswim?

that sounds quite hopeful, then! phew. i thought i remembered that it might get worse before getting better, but wondered if it was wishful thinking!

nearly two weeks, so not long really. we're not making huge changes, which is why it was a bit worrying - and so hard to tell causation etc. he had a complete meltdown in a store the other day (but then later i realised he'd not eaten anything since breakfast, so put it down to needing to eat, primarily) and then has been much worse at inference/ working out what people really mean, which usually he can do without too much bother. has been getting worse over the last week though - much more literal.

he was utterly unable to grasp his teacher's h/w instructions last night, because she said they didn't 'have' to do the second worksheet, which he heard as they weren't to. so he was only listenign to 'have to' and 'don't have to', and understood 'don't have to' as 'must not do'. it was a bit unexpected, but it struck me that he has been getting quirkier than normal. and he ended up sobbing and incapable of working out why she might have given out the second worksheet if they weren't allowed to do it. and arguing that he wasn't allowed to answer the actual questions on the worksheet, but just had to write the equations/ working out. (because it asked for the equations to be shown, but didn't specify -'and write down your answer!') unusual for him - he can normally do the deduction thing and work out what people want him to do (whether he does it or not is something else, lol)

hopefully it's just a blip though... how long did it take dd to start to improve? how long does the withdrawal thing usually take? (tempted to just go for it if just small changes have this much effect - no point dragging it out!)

i just started a thread asking re how to explain the h/w thing and inference, but then it struck me that it has coincided with changing his diet - so maybe i oughtn't to panic about it after all... talk about chicken and egg!

well, dragging it out does have the effect of peaks and troughs - highs where the 'wrong' foods are eaten, and reacted to (bacterial overgrowth, the potential for the opiate side effects etc), and then the crash afterwards as the high is not maintained... can also have the effect of making dc crave other foods even more, as they know they will get a high from them (bit like the cola/e number small child sugar rush - mania, then hell, on rinse and repeat)

dd improved within a month. withdrawal was hell, though. 24/7 screaming horror, she was , and took to biting for the first time ever. mind you, she was probably in a lot of pain/discomfort herself, and could not express herself any other way, poor little mite.

I think the closest NT people get to the kind of thing they are going through (whole body system trying very hard to detox and flush through, bacterial imbalance causing all sorts of food cravings, probable discomfort in bowels, possible headaches and general 'bleurgh' feeling (bowels very closely linked to overall wellbeing)) is the recovery from an almighty bender, tbh . if I think back to my uni days (or perhaps even my wedding day, tbh ), I would not want ot be trying to work out the world, and have full expectations form school etc, when in that kind of permanent brain fug, with no expectation that it will lift after a can of Irn Bru and a packet of Cheesey Doritos

i think you might be right. it seemed much easier in my head to do it slowly... but it makes sense that it might be 'harder' over a longer period. ugh, i need to find my copy today - i've been half looking for it but need to get on with it.

irn bru and doritos? blee. coke and a bacon sandwich.

must have been really hard to convince yourself to keep going with dd.

oh, wedding day was accidental

was up far too late the night before, having an accidental hen night (no, really). so had about 2 hours sleep.

remembered at 9 in the morning I needed to buy dh a present (we lived overseas at the time, only in the UK for a few days), so hotfooted into central london (only Harrods will do, darling ) with my mate, thus missing essential hangover cure breakfast. arrived back at pub to find hairdresser waiting for me (oops), and small bridesmaids tucking into lunch, so obv they couldn't go first.

thus missed lunch.

got married, and went straight on to reception where I proceeded to get so drunk (on about 3 glasses of champagne ) that I was barely able to eat my dinner. determined not to miss out on the party i had wasted seconds ages planning, I htought 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and carried on drinking.

next day had to go to posh birthday party for a friend of dh's at stupid country house in the sticks, meaning we had to get up at 7am. Not a pretty sight, I can tell you. had to endure lunch with dh's ex - oh what fun we had

erm, yes was difficult with dd. but her reaction proved that it was a worthwhile experiment, iyswim. so we soldiered on. and at the end of the month she had a much improved pain response, and was already speaking much more clearly. so that meant we carried on, and dd carried on improving (and having reactions if she got glutened) so we carried on.

I'm thinking about starting this but how will it fit in with a hubby who prefers procesed meats and won't touch veg and a dd who hates veg and only eats the crispy coating on chicken

there are a few of us who've got kids with different food restrictions trying to work through it, debs. chicken is a good place to start... does dh eat stews or anything? (he sounds like my dsis's dh who is a pita ) def easier if you are doing it as a whole family thing. can add in an extra accompaniment for someone who can't live without pasta etc?

i find it easier to look at what they will eat, see where that fits in, and go from there. some of us are trying some minor changes (although suspect this isn't really going to work out so well) to make improvements, not everyone is going the whole hog.

'accidental' hanging-one-on is always so much more fun than anything planned...

(isn't going to work out so well in our case) can't speak for anyone else...

yes, we are a bit half hearted about it because DS is a bit of a food restricter and I don't want to push our luck with that. However, I want to get some good habits in place should we decide to do the whole hog at a later date.

my latest victory is - curry! seems to like spicy food. toned it down with probiotic yog which I think is allowed by GAPS.

my latest failure is fish. he used to eat prawns and fish fingers and occasionally fish pie. unfortunately that is all out now. With DS things seem to go on and off the 'acceptable' list for no apparent reason.

Good luck to everyone. we are going into hearty soup season which is good from a GAPs point of view

Debs - just start with what you can do.

If your DH won't support you, then you'll just have to make 2 separate meals ( or one that he won't eat )

Start with making one change. Either cut out one thing, or introduce one thing.

When that's embedded make the next change......

We started with cutting out DSs breakfast milk...... But have amazingly progressed very quickly. I didn't think we would.....

I've found the best probiotics ever: - these.

They are absolutely tiny. About the size of a dressmakers pinhead. So anyone can swallow them :)

Right just read my GAPS book, well more of a skim read followed by moments of 'oh my god how will we do this?'

Has anyone any luck with getting raw/live milk?

Is stock easy, and cheap to make?

How on earth do you ferment your own milk and make yogurt?

Are schools accomodating the diet or do you have to send in packed lunch?

Did you go through paeds for any testing before you started the diets?

Am a bit scared at the thought of stopping a lot of DS's favourite foods. He is very food orientated and can sniff food out. He is malnourished and his BMI is under what it should be even though he eats like a horse. His dr, teacher, social worker all say it is because he is active but I think it is because he doesn't absorb the nutrients and it all comes out the other end. He has always had poo troubles, often upto 190 times a day. At his multi agency meeting when he was 3 the paed said it was just 'toddler diarrhea' He is 12 now so it must be something else.

He loves weetos cereal for breakfast but equally likes pancakes, bacon, beans, sausages
Dinners at home are wraps with cheese and meat in them. At school it is usually meat and veg
Tea can be curry, spag bol, roasts, fajitas, sausage and chips.
He does like a lot of different food but it is the wrong food. I cook a lot and we don't do ready meals so it shouldn't be too hard to make more from scratch

Hi Indigo,

just found this thread - great idea. Haven't read the whole thread as need to go to bed but just write something quick.

I am doing GAPS for me for 10 months now but think my 2 girls would benefit but initially it was enough just getting to grips with it myself.
I have found that I have managed to get more and more of their meals GAPS legal. I still cook them potatoes but more and more now I given them meat and veg and leave out the potato and increase the veg.

There are 2 types of stocks. Meat and bone stocks. The meat stock is cooked for less time (for chicken its about 2 hours) and is nicer to drink on it's own. Honest! I really like drinking a mug of it. The bone stock is better cooked for much longer in a slow cooker you could just let it go for 24hrs.
I take a chicken cut off the wings, breast meat and legs and chuck it all in a pot of water with some (natural not table) salt. Gently simmer for 2 hours - really easy promise. I then take the meat off to eat as cold chicken seive off the meat stock and freeze the carcass to use for bone stock later.

You can also get stock into them by reducing it for sauces or use beef stock in with mince reduce it down and then it's just a bolognese sauce. Admittedly with out the pasta. Some alternatives are cauliflower rice or courgette noodles.

To add an egg yolk into the meat stock to drink I mix a few drops on the yolk seperately and slowly add more stock mixing all the time. If you drop yolk straight in warm stock it will just cook and be stringy.

I would say a big NO to any soya product that hasn't been fermented the traditional way of the far east. It's not legal on GAPS but also you only have to google it to find out the ways it is harmful, not least in it oestrogen mimicing ways so really not good for children.

Dairy has to be fermented for 24 hours to remove the lactose, as the bacteria grow they feed on the lactose. It's honestly easier to make than it sounds.
Honey is allowed so I am slowly getting my daughters to eat my homemade yogurt. One daughter is happy to eat it with no honey the other not so sure.

It does take time but eventually it becomes much easier and just the normal way you cook and eat. But any step towards GAPS is going to help.

Will try to read more tomorrow.

Don't know if it's been posted already but here is a lecture on GAPS by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride that really explain it well.
vimeo.com/10507542