We're one week out from starting the GAPS intro diet. I still haven't explained to the kids exactly what it means. I've told them a lot about the full diet, but I've only hinted at the limitations in the intro diet.

In preparation, I want to have a list of recipes available so that I can focus on making the food and not on finding good ways to prepare it. I want to maximize the variety that will be available to the kids as soon as possible. (My son may move slower through these stages than the rest of us. But he knows that the goal is to heal his body so that his arms are no longer bumpy and red and his nose is no longer running like a freight train. I'm also hoping the diet will help keep his head clear and his moods level. The gluten free / casein free diet he's been on has helped a lot with that, but I can see there's still room for improvement.)

Disclaimer: I'm kind of guessing where these recipes fit within the stages. If you disagree, feel free to explain why in the comments section. You very well could be right. I might move stuff around as we get into the diet and I start to grok it a little better. Just because I put something in a particular place doesn't mean that's absolutely positively where it belongs.

All of the links for these recipes will lead off to other blogs. I'll only rewrite recipes here to this blog if I've changed them up a bit to better suit our family (or my cooking style). So if you click away to another site, I'd encourage you to look around a bit while you're there. You'll likely find something yummy or interesting in the process.

While looking for recipes, I also found this list of die-off symptoms that might be experienced when starting the diet. My son has been complaining about some of these things and now I think it makes sense. We've gradually been GAPS-ifying our diet. So while we're not on either the intro or the full diet, we're still doing replacing more of our regular meals with GAPS-ified meals and it's possible that's having an effect on my son's digestion already.

Stage One - The beginning of the broth

Fish soup - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Mushroom soup - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Summer Garden Soup with Turkey Meatballs - This is probably fancier than most stage one soups, but I don't see anything in it that's not allowed at this point. This recipe is by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog.
Creme Fraiche - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Yogurt, Kefir, etc. starter culture from Cultures for Health - local health food stores often carry these cultures as well.
Fall Pumpkin Soup - by Cheese Slave
Roasted Pumpkin Soup - by Nurture My Gut
Creamy Zucchini Leek Soup - by Lauren of Empowered Sustenance

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Bubbies Sauerkraut - In stage one, you can only use the juice. If you take out juice and there's cabbage leaves exposed, add a little water until those leaves are covered up again. Otherwise they'll go bad.
Bubbies Kosher Dills - These are naturally fermented.
Single serving packets of Artisana Raw Coconut Butter - Handy when you're out and about.
Old Chatham Plain Sheep's Milk Yogurt - Old Chatham Sheepherding Company makes a plain yogurt without sweeteners of any sort and without pectin or other additives. All it contains is sheep milk and 4 types of probiotics.

Other Recipe Lists (I'm obviously not the only person who's thought of doing something like this.)

Afterthoughts Blog - Stage 1 recipes

Stage Two - The broth continues

Basic stew - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe)
Spaghetti Squash Bolognese with Fennel - Could this be called a casserole? OK, probably not, but it's close enough for me so I'm sticking it in stage two. All of the ingredients are allowed at this point.
Cauliflower Soup - by Grass Fed Girl
Paleo Potatoes - from the Real Food Forager. These "potatoes" are made from celeriac root.
How to Poach an Egg - a video by the Food Network. Granted, Dr. Natasha says "soft boiled" not poached, but they sure seem similar enough to me that I think this can be thrown down under stage two.

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog - Stage 2 recipes

Stage Three - Broth plus

Pumpkin pancakes - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe)
Fermented Salsa - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Chicken and Veg with Dijon Herb Sauce - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog
Butternut Pudding - posted by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog, from Rachel Ray Magazine
Diane's Beet Fennel Salad - by Vitamin Cottage. This might be OK in stage two, except that it seems like the stews should still be brothy whereas this is a salad and therefore broth-less. But you could pour lots of butter or olive oil on top.

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Bubbies Kosher Dill Relish - You wouldn't use this in an earlier stage just because it would be harder to pull out just the juice. But by stage three you want to start eating the veggies as well.
Coconut Water - This has become one of my favorite drinks. I buy it in bulk when it's on sale at the grocery store. I decided not to put it until day three to emphasize that broth is the drink of choice in the intro diet. But as a vegetarian that's not looking forward to the meatiness of all this GAPS stuff, I feel like the coconut water needs to get allowed by this point or I think I'll lose it.)

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog - Stage 3 recipes

Stage Four - Broth and stuff you can serve on a plate

Gluten Free Nuts from Nuts.com - Nuts don't contain gluten, but sometimes they're cross contaminated because of where they're packaged.
Baked Lemon Herb Chicken - by Erin from the Plan to Eat blog (scroll to the end of the post for the recipe)
Kim's Baked Chicken and Veggies with Cashew Artichoke Topping - from Vitamin Cottage. If you buy canned artichoke hearts, make sure there's nothing added that's not GAPS friendly.
Tim's Liver and Onions - by Vitamin Cottage
Carrot Pancakes - by Jolene of Yummy Inspirations. Scroll to about the middle of the post for the recipe.
Almond Squash Bread - by the Liberated Kitchen
Tuna Sandwich and Mayonnaise - by Healing Through GAPS

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Applegate Organic Turkey Burgers
Applegate Organic Beef Burgers
Whole Foods Smoked Salmon is apparently completely legal and makes a handy protein snack.
Canned Tuna - Just make sure the can is BPA free. My husband swears that Wild Planet is better than any other brand out there, but I usually buy Crown Prince brand.
Grass Fed Jerky Chews - grass fed, gluten free. It looks like the Chipotle Raisin varieties contain sugar, though, so avoid those.

Other Recipe Lists

GAPS in our Gut - stage 4 recipes
Afterthoughts Blog - stage 4 recipes

Stage Five - Broth and more stuff you can serve on a plate

Fall Vegetable and Sausage Stew - from Vitamin Cottage. You'll have to modify this recipe a little. Parsnips are a no-no in the GAPS diet, so leave those out. Make sure you use sausages that are GAPS-friendly, such as the Applegate Chicken & Apple Sausages listed below in the cheats section. And don't forget to use your own homemade chicken stock.
Hazelnut Pancakes with Sautéed Apples - by Vitamin Cottage

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal.)

Applegate Chicken and Apple Breakfast Sausages (The other two kinds of breakfast sausage that they carry aren't GAPS legit because one contains maple syrup and the other cane syrup.) Their regular Chicken & Apple sausages look alright also (except for maybe the sodium lactate. But hey! It's from beets and beets are allowed, right?)  :-}
Beelers Italian Sausages - These are gluten free. Several of the other types of Beelers sausages contain Turbinado sugar, so you'll want to avoid those.

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog - stage 5 recipes

Stage Six - Still not done with the broth...
even when we move into the Full GAPS diet

Coconut Date Balls - by K Miller of K Miller Photographs (thanks to Erin from Plan to Eat for the link).
Banana "Ice Cream" with Coconut and Cacao - by Erin of Plan to Eat
Coconut Muffins - by KitchenStewardship.com. Although it seems to me like everything in this recipe is OK by stage four, I put it in the stage six category because that's where the bready things that you can make without throwing some squash in there get mentioned.
Coconut Milk - from the Real Food Forager. I don't know why this is stage six, but that's where I found it in another list.

Cheats (Premade stuff you can buy at the store that's legal)

Dried fruit - make sure it's organic with no added preservatives or sugars.

Full Diet - There are some recipes that might fit fine under one of the intro stages, but I can't decide where to put them. So I'm just gonna stick them here and let you decide. :-)

Karen's Sausage Breakfast Pie - from Vitamin Cottage. I don't think the Beelers breakfast sausage is GAPS friendly. It contains turbinado sugar. So use Applegate Chicken & breakfast sausages instead.
Sassy Water - by Vitamin Cottage. I don't know where in the stages citrus is allowed. But I see lemon on the allowed list for the full diet. So I'm putting this recipe here. You could probably make it in an earlier stage sans lemon.
Raw Carrot Cake - by Vitamin Cottage
Chai Peach Soufflé - by Vitamin Cottage. Switch out the maple syrup for honey.
Primal Hot Cereal - by Vitamin Cottage. I was wondering if it were possible to do something like this. I'm glad to see that someone else has already tried it. I wonder if you can eat it cold with almond milk. I'm in love with Udi's original granola. But it's full of oats. Maybe this will be a close second.
Pumpkin Soup - by Real Food Media. I'd like to think this soup would be fine at stage one, but the fact that it has curry and cayenne probably boots it right out of that stage. So I'd say fit this in when your tummy can handle it. Since we're doing the diet mostly to deal with moods and skin issues, I don't think spices are going to be a problem for us. But anyone with tummy issues will want to take care.

Other Recipe Lists

Afterthoughts Blog on Pinterest - full GAPS diet recipes
Afterthoughts Blog on Pinterest - full GAPS snacks

Supplements

Green Pasture Fermented Cod Liver Oil

An article by James Hamblin just came out in yesterday's Atlantic Monthly entitled What We Eat Affects Everything. In it, Hamblin interviews Robynne Chutkan M.D. Chutkan doesn't seem to espouse any particular diet, but she does recommend an 80/20 principal (that I've also seen mentioned by the Conscious Cleanse gals) in which 80% of the food you eat should be unprocessed and healthy. The other 20% can be splurge food.

Chutkan claims that for many people 80% of what they eat is highly processed, sugary foods that are low in nutritional value and the other 20% are meats, vegetables, whole grains, etc. By flipping that percentage around, we'll spend less time toxifying our bodies and more time detoxing.

One of the most interesting parts of the article, in my opinion, is Chutkan's answer to Hamblin's question, "What are some differences in the way you approach female patients as opposed to men? In my mind, at least, the digestive tract isn’t something commonly thought of as a gendered part of the body." The answers all make a lot of sense once you read them, though you might not have thought of them before now. I'd encourage you to read the article for yourself. If you're only interested in hearing the answer to the gender differences question, scroll down to just past the image of the virtual colonoscopy. (Woot! Now doesn't that get you excited to click through and read?!!)  ;-)

The GAPS Diet comes in two main stages: Intro and Full. It's assumed that when you're starting out, your gut is a total mess. You could be eating the most healthful food in the world, but if your gut is so screwed up that it can't absorb that nutrition, then it's not doing you any good. In order to heal the gut enough to start absorbing foods properly, the introductory diet takes you through 6 stages that focus primarily on broth, soups, and some fermented foods in the beginning and slowly widens out to a greater selection of foods. There's a constant animal fat focus (from meat and dairy) because these fats contain important pieces of nutrition that a GAPS person is often lacking, and they're easily absorbed into the body. (Dr. Natasha goes into detail about why fats aren't the horrible, evil heart killers that people think they are. If you're interested, she focused on that topic in her book, Put Your Heart in Your Mouth. She also briefly covers it in the GAPS book.)

I've been having a hard time getting my head around what exactly you're allowed to eat during each stage of the introductory diet. So I thought I'd reread through the book and type it up in list form. I'm also not clear on when you move from one stage to the other. So I'll make notes on that as well.

Stage One
• Homemade meat or fish stock. (Do not use bouillon cubes!) Include joints and bones when making.
• Unprocessed salt (such as Real Salt from Utah)
• Peppercorns (roughly crushed into soup but later removed)
• Homemade soups using that homemade meat or fish stock.
• Veggies: Onions, carrots, broccoli, leeks, cauliflower, zucchini, squash, pumpkin, etc. Avoid fibrous vegetables such as cabbage and celery. Also to avoid fiber remove skin and seeds from squash and don't include stalks of broccoli and cauliflower. Cook vegetables well until they're very soft.
• Garlic (cooked for much less time than the veggies)
• Probiotic foods: in this stage, only include the juice from homemade sauerkraut, fermented vegetables or vegetable medley. Don't include the vegetables themselves yet. Only add probiotic juice after food has cooled slightly so you don't kill off the good bacteria.
• If there is no reaction to dairy then include whey, sour cream, yoghurt and kefir (all should be homemade so the probiotics haven't been pasteurized out), especially for those suffering from diarrhea. Caution should be taken, however, with people suffering from constipation. They should focus on the probiotic vegetable juices and avoid the dairy sourced probiotics.
• Ginger tea, mint or camomile tea with a little honey between meals. Use fresh or frozen ginger root.

Transition point: As best I can tell, the transition point from stage one to stage two is when diarrhea or constipation is gone. So I'm not sure what that means for the person going into stage one without either problem. I did read in one blog that you shouldn't stay in stage one for longer than a week. It sounds like many people spend less time than that in stage one.

Stage Two - Anything that you were able to eat in stage one, plus the following...
• Raw organic egg  yolks carefully separated from the egg white. Start with one a day and eventually add to every bowl of soup and every cup of meat stock. Once raw egg yolk is well tolerated, add soft boiled eggs to soups (whites cooked, yolks runny).
• Stews and casseroles made with meats and vegetables.
• Fresh herbs
• Keep increasing amounts of probiotics (sauerkraut juice, whey, etc.) daily
• Introduce fermented fish (Swedish gravlax) starting with one small piece a day.
• Introduce homemade ghee (or use Purity Farms Organic Ghee which can be bought in stores). Even if you are unable to tolerate other dairy at this point, it is likely that ghee will be tolerated.

Transition point: I guess it's whenever you feel like you're ready to move on - that your digestive system is doing OK with what you've eaten so far and it feels OK to try some new things.

Stage Three - Anything that you were able to eat in stages one and two, plus the following...
• Ripe avocado - starting with a small amount and increasing as it's well tolerated
• Pancakes (Do a little dance of joy at this point! No more soup for breakfast!) Start with one pancake a day and gradually increase the number. The pancakes should be made with organic nut butters, eggs, and squash (with seeds removed). There's a recipe for this type of pancakes at the end of this post by Erin, of Plan to Eat, on stage three of the GAPS diet (which was her fourth week of the intro diet).
• Eggs scrambled with plenty of ghee or goose or pork or duck fat. Serve with avocado and cooked veggies.
• Cooked onion cooked in ghee or animal fat. Cook for 20-30 minutes on very low heat until translucent.
• Sauerkraut and fermented veggies. Start small and increase amounts.

Stage Four - Anything that you were able to eat in stages one, two, and three, plus the following...
• Roasted or grilled meats. (Remember that everything before this point has been boiled in soup or broth.) This does not mean BBQ'd or deep fried. Avoid burned or overly browned bits.
• Cold pressed olive oil added to every meal. Start with a few drops per meal and work your way up to 1 - 2 tablespoons per meal. Don't cook with the olive oil. Just sprinkle it right on top of your food.
• Freshly pressed juices. Start with a few spoonfuls of carrot juice, filtered and diluted with warm water. Gradually increase to a cup a day. Once a full cup of carrot juice is well tolerated, begin to add celery, cabbage, lettuce and fresh mint leaves. Juice should be drunk on an empty stomach.
• Bread made from ground almonds or any other ground nuts and/or seeds. The recipe should include nut flour, eggs, squash (deseeded) and some natural fat (ghee, animal fat or coconut oil) and salt to taste. Start with a small piece a day and gradually increase.

Stage Five - You know the routine. All the old stuff plus this new stuff...
• Cooked apple - pureed. Peal first. Add ghee or animal fat. As always, start slow and gradually increase amounts. If the apples are too sour, you can add a bit of honey.
• Add raw veggies starting with the soft bits of lettuce and peeled cucumber. If those go well, add carrots, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, etc. If diarrhea returns, you're not ready for this step.
• Fruit juice - if the veggie juice is being tolerated, try a bit of apple, pineapple or mango juice. Avoid citrus.

Stage Six - This is the transition stage where you move into the Full GAPS diet.
• Peeled raw apple. Gradually introduce raw fruit and more honey.
• Gradually introduce baked cakes and other sweet things that are allowed on the full diet. Use dried fruit as a sweetener when baking.

Transition Information - Ah ha! After the 6th stage Dr. Natasha gives a better sense of when to transition from one stage to another. She says, "Most indicative are abdominal pain and the stool changes: let the pain and diarrhoea start clearing before moving to the next stage." I guess that means that as long as you don't have abdominal pain and poopy issues, you're ready to level up. She also warns that people with constipation problems may actually get worse on this diet without fiber, so she recommends "regular enemas or colonic irrigation." ... I think if I suggest to one of my teenagers that they receive an enema or colonic irrigation, they'll run away from home. We might just want to run through the diet a little faster in order to get back to fiber-land.

Soups and meat stocks should be happening every day throughout the introductory diet and even once you're into the full diet, there's supposed to be at least one serving a day. (Oh yay. ...says my vegetarian self who is very much not looking forward to such a meatful diet. *sigh*)

According to pages like this one in Journey to Food that Gives Life, tomatoes, mushrooms, and honey are legal from the beginning. I don't see that in the part of Natasha's book that describes the introductory diet, but perhaps it's been gleaned from other parts of the book that I haven't gotten to yet.

(The photo at the top is of veggies that my father-in-law is fermenting.)

I've found another helpful list of what you can eat when on the GAPS Intro diet from the Well Fed Homestead. 

I got this recipe from Mommypotamus. It was originally a chocolate chip cookie recipe, but when I tried replacing chocolate with raisins in one batch and the kids loved it, I decided I'd rather lean towards the dried fruit. I also added a little coconut flour to make them a wee bit more chewy. And I removed the vanilla (mostly because I rarely use vanilla. It's expensive and doesn't add enough flavor boost, in my opinion, to warrant addition. I think people are just used to desserts containing the stuff so they add it as part of a cooking tradition. If you like adding vanilla to your cookies, by all means, throw a teaspoon in to the mix.)

This recipe will make about 2 dozen cookies. Because there are no eggs, you can feel free to nibble on the dough.


Ingredients:

1 ½ almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
¼ cup honey
¼ cup butter or coconut oil (softened)
½ tsp unrefined sea salt (I use Real Salt from Utah. That way it doesn't have to use as much gasoline to get to my house. I often hear folks recommending Celtic Sea Salt, but the Celts are pretty darn far away from where I live in Colorado.)
½ tsp baking soda
¾ cup raisins (I used golden raisins.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together excepting the raisins. Once the butter or coconut oil is well mixed in, add the raisins.

I used a small OXO cookie scoop to make my cookies. Cookie scoops are really handy. But you could use your hands and roll the dough into small balls, or flattened cookies shapes, or whatever you want, just as well. Packing the dough together in some way helps keep the cookies all together, so do something that involves some smooshing one way or another.  

Bake for 7 minutes. Once you see a bit of brown along the bottom edge, the cookies are done. If you wait till they're brown on top as well, the bottoms will probably be burnt. 

Although my sister had been using some of Dr. Natasha's principals and had told me about them, I hadn't heard of Dr. Natasha herself until my son's doctor sent us the link to this video.

I'm a systems person. That means I'm not very good at taking in or processing data in a vacuum. It makes much more sense to me, and fits together better in my head, when data comes with a context. That's what I feel Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride provides in this video. She doesn't just explain the connection between gut health and psychological health (which is brilliant in its own right) but backs the story even further out to explain how our guts got into the state they're currently in, going back several generations.

I feel like many nutrition discussions devolve into X causes Y. As we started to face health issues in our family, the chief comment I got from people was, it must be gluten because gluten causes such and such. But there seemed to be a wider range of issues we were facing (including runny nose, hives, trouble sleeping, and depression) and X causes Y didn't seem to capture our story. What Dr. Natasha brings out is that there are many factors - antibiotics, GMOs, processed foods, high carb diets, yeast overgrowths, generational dysbiosis, etc - and they all played a part. And the outcomes weren't the same for everyone. Just as there wasn't just one X, there's also not just one Y. Symptoms manifested differently, not just in different people, but in the same person it seems like they change over time, probably based on the health of the gut at that point in time and what pathogens and toxins are escaping out to the rest of the body.

I had studied a lot about allergies, yeast overgrowths, anorexia, autism, and several other issues, but nothing tied all the pieces together as neatly as Natasha's description in this video. It's long, but it's worth the listen. 

This is a story that begins in medias res. It comes after several dramas, a hospital stay, several trips to the vice-principal's office, and many, many tears and frustrations. It comes after reading through websites, magazines, and books trying to find solutions. It starts at what I hope is the beginning of the end. We've tried the spotty approach. Now we're gearing up to try a long haul effort at fighting back at the bad guys in our tummies by strengthening the good guys. We're in pursuit of healthy gut flora.

(I got this great photo from Green Mom.)