You have made the brave decision to do the GAPS diet. You have studied the book, Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell Mc-Bride. Now it is time it put it into practice. However, doing the GAPS diet is no mean feat.  

​The Gaps diet requires determination. It requires many new skills. It requires patience.

And so, as well as hopefully bringing healing to your body, it will take you on an adventure you will never forget. You will learn to ​do many things that you have never even considered doing - let about knowing were there to be done! It requires a fair bit of pluck, but most probably, like many of us, you have been driven to it by a pressing health need. This is the motivation you will need to get you through the next few weeks.

Before you start

If you have time, it is best if you can read as much as you can about the GAPs diet, as well as becoming as poficient as you can with the new cooking/food preparation techniques. Here are some ideas for reading:

​The GAPS guide by Baden Lashkov. 

For me, next to the Gut and Psychology Syndrome book, this is a must have. I wish I had had it earlier on in our GAPS journey. It answers so many of the little questions that inevitably will arise as soon as you start the diet, and takes away so much of the mystery and anxiety. This is now my go-to companion. There are no recipes in this book - just much handy advice.

GAPS, Stage by Stage with Recipes by Becky Plotner

The author is an experienced GAPs practitioner and again answers many questions - this time with cooking help too.

​​The Heal your Gut Cookbook by Hilary Boynton and Mary Brackett

These two authors share their experiences of the GAPS diet along with some helpful cooking tips and recipes. I haven't used all of the recipes, but many gave me inspiration by giving me ideas of what could be done.

Here are some helpful websites too with general GAPS help:
Health Home and Happiness
Body Wisdom Nutrition

GAPS cooking techniques

As well as the books above and other such ones, there is plenty of help on the web to get you up and running with cooking skills. The two main skills are making bone and meat broth and learning to ferment dairy and vegetables. Believe me - at first these seem to take so much time - but you will soon be doing them without thinking!
​
Here are some of my favourite sites:
GAPS Broth
Honest Body
​Health Home and Happiness

​GAPS ferments 
Milk Kefir and sour cream
Sauerkraut
​

There are so many gadgets about to fill our kitchens with - and you know, most of them end up unused at the bottom of the cupboard. They take too much time to set up, and then wash afterwards, that I end up not using  them. However, there are some that I use all the time and couldn't be without while cooking GAPS diet food. Here they are!

A slow cooker is a must for volumes of meat and bone broth. It seems to be on all the time! Get as big a one as you have room for and fill it up each time. I have two - a 5 litre one for everyday use and a 3.5 litre one to take away on holiday.

My cast iron frying pan is great for those early intro stage, squash pancakes, progressing on up to breakfast waffles on full GAPS.

My mini food processor is my third most used item of kitchen equipment. I can use it to make delicious coconut flour cakes - whizzed up in a jiffy, or coconut flour pastry, for quiches or pies.

My hand blender never gets put away as it always being used - mainly for blending soups, but also for mixing banana pancakes for breakfast and making avacado chocolate pudding (which I have to confess becomes more of an everyday staple, rather than a treat!)

​So that's my list! With these books and information I feel more confident and with these items of equipment I can easily knock up GAPS legal meals in a jiffy!

I wish you well on your GAPS journey!

​This article may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click the link and buy certain items, I will receive a small commission. The price is the same for you, though! Thank you for your support.

​We have bravely set our date! The 8th February 2016.
We are bravely getting ready. The cupboards are empty of all enticing goodies. The cupboard that was full of chocolate is slowly but reluctantly being emptied into our mouths, all dreading the 'last piece' ('But not for ever, eh Mum?')
I have my action plan - thanks to Cara of Health, Home and Happiness and her book 'What can I eat now 30 days on the GAPS introduction diet'.
The flour packets are all gone - but we are still feasting on Megan's wonderful chocolate cake! (See below)
The milk is going fast though we are allowing ourselves to drink raw milk until it runs out on Tuesday.
Oh how I missed my morning cup of hot milk and water today (silver tea)! Cold water just isn't the same. I didn't realise what a comfort drink it was.
Breakfast runs out tomorrow so we are going on to full gaps breakfasts as of then.
The lads and I have been reducing carbs all last week and eating more fat and soups. Husband has got to keep going to work this week, so he has reduced less so far.
​

I wanted to make sure that we had a gentle introduction so that I was able to make sure that I had all the equipment we needed to do intro and then full GAPS successfully.
Pivotal to success was a slow cooker so that I could make gallons of meat/bone broth.
I chose a 6.5 litre one. This one from Andrew James has lasted me well (updated a couple of years in).

I found that I needed plenty of BPA free plastic containers and glass jars for storing food. I found glass jars easier to clean fat from, but they do break! One litre boxes are my go-to size to stack in the fridge with 1 litre jars too holding enough soup for four of us for one meal.
A ladle was going to be essential!
​

​As well as the slow cooker, I also make good use of my large 5 litre stainless steel saucpan. I can use it to empty the slow cooker of hot broth while I re-fill it, and then use the big saucpan to cook up gallons (well not quite, but that's how it feels!) of soup.
​

And our bodies are starting to groan! I keep feeling nauseas and have had diarrhoea, as has Son 2 and we have had headaches. Son1 feels very tired. It's hard to watch them groaning and feeling off colour. I did warn them it would happen.
'Is it going to be like this all the time on this diet?' says son 2. We joke that we get GAPS in our times of feeling nauseas.
Son 1 is very silent on the subject so far, but is enjoying having more cooked vegetables. He's never been a fan of raw anything.

We decided to take a week to wind down slowly rather than go cold turkey, but I can see we are still feeling the effects.

​We've been telling our family and friends what we are about to do.
Husband sees it as a wonderful joke that someone so addicted to chocolate could even contemplate such a thing. He loves rubbing in the 'We'll be eating loads and loads of BONE BROTH!'

'Well we've told them all - I suppose we'll have to go ahead and do it then?' was his last comment to me last night.

Fortunately family and friends have all been very supportive and we have been truly helped and encouraged by their support. They  are all looking forward to 'watching the experiment unfold before their very eyes', as husband puts it  - so nicely!
I used Jennifer Scribner's video explaining the GAPS diet to help to explain to folks and that has been very helpful. 
​

​Our typical diet to date has been:

Breakfast
Husband and I soaked muesli with cream, honey and grapes
Son 1: soaked buttermilk scones from 'Nourishing Traditions'
Son 2:  soaked oatmeal from Traditional Cooking School

Lunch
Husband: Two sandwiches (home-made soaked loaf in bread machine) usually with cheese and cake.
The rest of us more varied, soups or salad or baked spuds and cheese the boys having bread alongside. The boys had cake, I had fruit.

Tea
A nutritious home-cooked meal, but always with a pudding to follow! Of late it's mainly been stewed apple, or a quick cheesecake made from cream, soft cheese and frozen fruit and honey, or a custard tart, so more protein/fat foods than carbs and all served with cream!

​Meals this week are a fortaste! I'm already finding out that sandwiches can't be replaced with a bit of meat and veg. but rather another big meal as they are starving! Rather I'm cooking more at teatime to eat left-overs for lunch. Or making double batches of soup one day to last for the next. The sons are enjoying saying 'What's the snack Mum?' - only they seem to be saying it all the time!

Here's todays lunch offering (the light meal of the day!!). Seemed like a feast!

​I can't say we are looking forward to it! It's going to be very hard to start with I know. But we hope we will feel better for it eventually. We don't know what healing to expect, but I will share with you as we go along. My husband and I feel it is the way to go for us as a family at this time.

Bags packed, fridge stocked - Ready to Go!

​Days 1, 2 and 3 of the GAPS Intro diet

Having just had a couple of set backs in the family, I was reminded (again) about the importance of keeping a thorough food diary while doing a gut healing diet like GAPS.
A diary  allows you to track exactly what you have been eating and doing each day and helps to make identifying what might have caused a problem easier. Now don't be misled, it is very often not clear what has caused a set back. Sometimes you have to just keep pressing on and it's only when you look back a few months later that you see a pattern emerging (unless it's really obvious). In order for the diary to be of any use, though it must be detailed. So here I will run down what to include and why.

Do list what activities you have done each day. May be you have had a period of being more busy than you realised.
Do list the quality of sleep you had each night, as poor sleep can quickly leave you feeling out of sorts and can impact how you feel.
Do list the supplements you are taking. Always keep these to the minimum as the binders and fillers can sometimes cause more problems than the issue you were taking them for. Try and stick to good food as much as you can.
Do make note of any untoward symptoms - e.g. headaches, stomach/digestive troubles/ pain/reoccurrence of symptoms that had gone/extra tiredness.
Do list not only the meals, but each individual ingredient in them. This may seem laborious, but it is essential. You may be reacting to a tiny little thing you decided to throw into the meal, like mustard powder, or a herb, or a particular vegetable and if it is not listed you will never remember it was added in if you just write 'chicken casserole'.
Do list your stool quality each day. This is big indicator of how well your body is utilising the food you feed into it. Check the Bristol Stool chart for an indication of what you should be aiming for.

I started out with just a notebook, but I was tempted to record skimpily. I now have a proper diary with a page to a day so I can have plenty of room to record the necessary details for all four of us.

When you hit a problem then first and foremost, DON'T PANIC. There is an excellent article on the subject here, but basically check for an obvious connection, like eating  a new food for up to three days before. Remember that foods can affect you for up to three days after eating them. Consider STRESS as it plays a bigger part in our health than many of us like to acknowledge. If the issue continues, then start to look back. Is there any link between what you were eating/doing this time the symptoms previous time/s it has happened (if it has!). This can take quite a bit of detective work, but persevere. Keep going back to the diary  check. you might have to keep mulling it over for a few days. See if the symptoms go and monitor the situation.
(I don't like the language on the SCD site referenced above, but it seems to be the only one that deals with such an important subject well.)
If you know you have been eating certain foods without symptoms then you can consider them to be safe. Keep a list of foods you know that you don't react to. If you need to, then cut anything not on the list out of your diet for a few days to return to a better state and then introduce ingredients you are not sure about slowly and only one every three days watching for reactions. I this way you can build your safe list and that will reduce the number of things you can suspect of causing problems.
Once you have a safe list, you could reduce to just listing new things, but I have to say that experience has shown me that once I relax my guard I miss things.

Personally, in our family the things that have caused problems have been cider vinegar, cheese (we introduced it too soon), too much fruit, especially strawberries and too much chocolate (now there's a surprise!) The chocolate caused terrible cramping and urgent trips to the bathroom at midnight several times before we finally identified the problem.  After all, we reasoned, chocolate is safe, we've been having it for ages. Out came the food diary - only to find that on each occasion this strange manifestation occurred it had been an unusual day and we had consumed more chocolate than usual.
It sure is a relief when you get to the bottom of an issue, but it is  a learning curve and we can now move on having made progress as we have identified the problem. It is easy to get stressed just trying to figure it out, but try and hang on in there and stay relaxed. Eventually it will become obvious. Just go back to those safe foods and DON'T PANIC - Oh and keep a thorough diary!

I'm off to keep mine up to date as I've already fallen foul of my own good advice. Hence I've found out the hard way the need to be detailed!


Disclaimer:  I am not a doctor. A member of the medical profession  should be consulted about all matters relating to your health. This information is for advice only.

The GAPS diet is all about healing the gut which is said to be 'leaky' and thus responsible for the unpleasant symptoms the patient is experiencing, from Autism, to autoimmune diseases of which there are many. It is said by natural health experts that many things can cause damage to the gut wall, from a poor diet and lack of nutrients and over-reliance on carbohydrates, to having had lots of courses of antibiotics and chronic stress. You may even have been born with a compromised gut, depending on the health of your parents at the time of conception and birth. If you are wondering if you are affected look at these web-sites:

https://draxe.com/7-signs-symptoms-you-have-leaky-gut/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/05/12/dr-campbell-mcbride-on-gaps.aspx
http://www.gaps.me/

If you have a leaky gut, then as Dr. NCB explains, the body cannot handle toxins (amongst other things) effectively and so they pass through the gut wall, into the blood stream and cause problems elsewhere in the body. Even if you do not have a leaky gut, then toxic overload is not a good idea as it can cause a leaky gut! So this is not a diet just about what you eat. It is also about removing the toxic strain on the body. The actual food part is mainly to heal the gut wall and so stop it from 'leaking', while the probiotics and fermented foods and the juicing help to remove toxins and repopulate the  gut with beneficial bacteria.

This ultimately, though means a change in lifestyle too. We are surrounded by so many chemicals, from personal care products, to cleaning products, garden chemicals, etc. If you stop and think about the chemicals you have stored in your cupboards, garage, shed, bathroom cabinet et cetera they all add up and if you use them regularly, to clean, wash clothes/dishes/floors et cetera, than you see how easily it would be to become very toxic.

Then there are all the medicines we ingest, and the lotions and potions we coat ourselves in. These are all the things we have control over - without mentioning the things we don't like air pollution.
Now, thankfully when God made our bodies he made them to be efficient at filtering out harmful substances to keep us alive, and our bodies have inbuilt detoxifying solutions. However in our industrialised society we are bombarded with far more man-made toxic chemicals then ever before, added to which much of it is on the food we eat from pesticides etc... as man battles to produce more for less price. Our lifestyle choices have detrimented our health and for some people, it has damaged their gut. Our bodies do naturally repair themselves, but in order to do so, they need the right nutrients and few of us eat well enough, or enough nutrient dense foods to enable that repair work to take place fast enough to keep up with the damage being caused  and so their bodies can no longer deal effectively with the toxins. So they begin to breakout into symptoms, from pain to rashes. A nutrient diet as we have already seen is one with plentiful fats, protein from good quality meat and vegetables and keeping carbohydrates to the minimum. 
So it behoves us all to try and reduce our dependence on man-made chemicals, including many drugs, for which there are natural alternatives. There is a place for drugs. Many are life-saving, but it is too easy to go and buy something to relieve symptoms quickly rather than get to the root of the problem. For many, eating a more nutrient diet and restricting carbohydrates helps to take away many unpleasant symptoms and reduce others. Some, like us, go the step further to try and heal our gut wall. Our family is finding many benefits from doing this. We can all benefit by becoming more natural in our outlook on life. I don't mean go 'Green' and make it a religion, but try to reduce our reliance on things that might actually and probably are adding to the problem of our ill health, rather than resolving it, just for short term relief.

So your project this week, is just to look in your cupboards and start to be aware of the chemicals you use every day. Look in the kitchen - the washing powder, washing up liquid, dishwashing solutions, household cleaning lotions, bleaches, et cetera, the bathroom with it's deodorant, body sprays, soaps, perfumes, powders and bear in mind what Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride says, that unless you can eat it, don't put it on your skin! That's a tall order.... but more is possible than you think. Next week I will be sharing with you some natural remedies I have found to our families health needs over the last seven or so years. Of course, the GAPs diet is now a large part of that for us, but there are lots of other small things you can do which work and will make all the difference, especially to your wallet!

After having spent at least a month moving carefully through the introduction diet it can come as a wonderful relief to have reached Stage 6 and be ready to move onto the Full GAPs diet. But let me share with you some things we have learnt by experience.

Firstly, do not think the healing is all over by the end of the intro. You may have seen big improvements and hopefully you will have done, but more is yet to come! Your stomach at this stage is extremely sensitive to anything it doesn't like or can't digest well. It just isn't the same stomach you had before you started. It is all too easy to be tempted to jump into full GAPS with both feet and find your stomach reeling, or symptoms returning.
It really is a case of continuing the intro diet mentality, of one small change at a time, and introduce just a little, watch and see, then increase the amount. It's just that now you have more freedom over what you introduce!
Do continue to keep a diary. Record every ingredient that is new, not just the general food. E.g. it's easy to write 'banana muffin', but does that have nuts or coconut flour, or eggs, honey/dates. Be specific.
Also record what you did that day and how well you slept, so you can gauge what might be making you tired. Any stomach discomfort should be recorded and when it occurred, along with bowel movement type using the Bristol Stool scale. Armed with this sort of detailed information it will make it easier to try and identify which food is causing problems. I say easier, as it is not always easy and it's sometimes only after a few weeks you begin to see a pattern emerging. It took us about two months of occasionally having avocado chocolate pudding to work out that avocados gave Son 1 an upset stomach. We made more progress once we removed it from his diet and his bowels have become more regular, he has less stomach discomfort and his skin and eczema have improved dramatically. Similarly I had been consuming fruit for weeks, and wondering why sometimes my stomach was as a calm as anything and at other times it was bloated and uncomfortable. I eventually twigged that is was too much fruit that caused it. Before I reached that stage I had taken out nuts and fruit to calm my stomach down completely and keep it like that for a few days. Then I tried nuts and they didn't produce a reaction, so I brought fruit back in, but being who I am, I am not good at regulating things. I suddenly decide I'd fancy some raisins, so gobble a handful while I'm cooking tea (not a good habit!). I have now reduced all fruit to only a small amount per day and I seem to tolerate that well, but  I have yet to try banana as when I started joining Son 2 with banana pancake every day I felt bloated. Whether that was because it took me over my daily fruit threshold, or whether banana per se is the problem I am working towards discovering. One remembers that Dr. NCB says that any discomfort after a meal is caused by foods previously eaten, not the meal you have just had.
Similarly Husband hasn't had any major noticeable problems until I hit on the fact that he often has a lot of wind especially after red meat meals, which indicated that he probably isn't digesting them well. So now we are taking steps to increase his stomach acid before the main meal - taking sauerkraut and bone broth and keeping non-acidic fruits away from the meal, as Dr. NCB advised. We have sauerkraut with each meal but had gone to not having bone-broth with the main meal, only with the other two meals. This is working so far!
So you see, this takes patience and determination and lots of observation. You have to remember that it is not just a diet that you eat these foods for two years and come out the other end. It's a healing process and healing takes time after years of abuse. Learn to listen to your body and work with it.

Hopefully this will give you insight as to what the diet involves, how carefully you need to introduce new foods, the sort of records you need to keep and why and how you are really watching, watching watching all the time.

You will notice that on the GAPS diet we are not allowed dairy products that have not been fermented for 24 hrs. We are allowed to try and introduce raw milk only when we are tolerating cheese well.
A traditional diet encourages the consumption of mainly raw and/or fermented dairy and an avoidance of pasteurised and/or homogenised dairy.

Here I will try and answer four questions that you might ask about milk and dairy products.

What is raw milk?
What is the difference between raw milk and store bought milk.
Why is raw milk better?
Is raw milk safe?

To answer the first question, raw milk is, simply put, raw milk. Milk that has not undergone any treatment, straight from the cow. It has not been pasteurised or homogenised.

So this also answers the second question: store bought milk has by law to be pasteurised and the vast majority of it is now also homogenised. That means that the fat is distributed evenly throughout the milk and you don't get the cream rising to the top like you did in the 'old days' (you can see I'm not young!) Only the farmer who produces the raw milk from his cows can sell it and then only directly to the public, not through a third party. So you will never find raw milk on the supermarket shelves. You might funnily enough find raw goats milk in a health food shop or organic farm shop as the law is different concerning goats milk.

So that brings us to consider why raw/fermented dairy is better than store-bought dairy.

Being so used to milk in the form we know it well, it may surprise you to know that it has relatively only recently been drunk in this way. If you go back before 1750, you would have found Europeans taking their milk  as yoghurt, curds and whey (hence the nursery rhyme, 'Eating his curds and whey') et cetera.
Unless you put dairy in the fridge, or pasteurise it, it will naturally separate into curds and whey. I see this daily with my milk kefir on the kitchen worktop. This seperation is caused by the act of lacto-fermentation.  This is the process by which the lactic acid producing bacteria eat  the milk sugar (which is called lactose) and the milk protein (casein). These are friendly bacteria of which we hear so much talk these days, which produce lactic acid which effectively  renders the milk free from bad bacteria that would make it 'go off'. Once the process is complete the dairy can be kept without refrigeration for several days. In addition it is usually well tolerated even by folk who cannot consume fresh milk.

There are several issues with the way milk is produced these days. These centre around the methods used to increase milk yields, animal feeds, and the problems caused by pasteurisation and homogenisation. Fortunately, here in the UK it is still a common sight to see pastured cattle enjoying the green vegetation in the fields, at least in Summer. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly rare, especially in countries such as America,  as farmers try to increase their yield at minimum cost and seem to be moving towards keeping their herds in enormous sheds and feeding them cheap food stuffs such as soy. Obviously how a cow lives and eats is going to affect the milk quality, not just the quantity, and that will be passed onto us as we drink it for good or for bad. The best milk, as Weston Price found when he studied peoples from all over the world and their diets, comes from pastured animals - as God designed it so to be. 
 
Pasteurisation is of course something we have all learnt about at school - and taught that it was a good thing and no doubt it was at the time - to solve a problem. That being that with industrialisation, more and more folk were moving from the countryside into towns which grew into cities and they had to be fed. Food had to be produced in bulk, stored and transported long distances in order to feed the masses. Whereas drinking raw milk was safe when folk produced their own for their own families, suddenly the hygiene wasn't there to mass produce it and transport it and disease was rife.
Pasteurisation involves heating the milk to a high temperature. Whereas this destroys the harmful bacteria, it destroys the good too - the enzymes needed to help us properly digest the milk, especially calcium. This makes consuming pasteurised milk taxing on the body as it tries to digest something without the necessary enzymes to do so. In time, given genetic weaknesses et cetera, in susceptible folk this can lead to allergies and/or other chronic diseases. None of us know if we are susceptible until we notice symptoms. On the other hand, drinking raw milk brings much relief from symptoms for many folk.
Homogenisation  further damages the milk. If you are interested, you can read about it here:

http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/homogenization_T3.html

So why is raw milk better? We have seen that since it hasn't been pasteurised it therefore has it's enzymes in tact, and so is easier for the human body to digest, but there are many other benefits as shown by these articles:

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/splendor-from-the-grass/
http://www.hookandson.co.uk/RawMilk/index.html
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_health_benefits.html

It is also probiotic, which means that every time you drink it, you are filling your gut with friendly bacteria, which could produce a die-off effect. Because of this, should you be in a position to try it and would like to, it would be wise to start with a small amount and build up slowly.

So finally is raw milk safe. YES! In our modern age with the resources to have good hygiene.Sally Fallon says:

There is a good article here too:

http://farmersalmanac.com/health/2011/02/07/is-raw-milk-safe-to-drink/

Where can you find raw milk?
Here in the UK you can look on the Natural Food Finder website for a map of raw milk farms. You may find raw goat's milk is easier to find.
http://www.naturalfoodfinder.co.uk/unpasteurised-raw-milk-uk

If you can't or don't want to drink raw milk, then what is next best? Milk from organic, grass-fed cows that has preferably not been homogenised. We get ours from Abel and Cole, but you could try another organic delivery service. Waitrose sell 'Duchy Organic milk' that is not homogenised. Or you can buy Yeo Valley milk in supermarkets but this tends to be more pricey.
Again see this table:

http://www.naturalfoodfinder.co.uk/dairy-eggs

If you would like to try fermenting milk/cream, it is really very easy. See my pages here.
Start with the best milk you can afford. The fermenting process will put some goodness back into the milk.

If you would like to try milk kefir, please ask before you buy as I might have some I can post to you, with instructions.

 If I were starting out again on the GAPs diet intro, there are a few things I would like to have known, or at least have thought about in advance. So I'm going to tell them to you, so that if you are thinking of doing the GAPS intro diet, or even starting the full diet you will be prepared.

1. Make sure you have a large enough saucepan/crockpot/slow cooker to cook enough meat broth in for one whole day if not more. A slow cooker (or equivalent) is a very economical way to cook meat broth. Do some practice runs in the weeks before.

2. Make at least two 1 litre jars of Sauerkraut before you start, (that's for four adult sized portions - we have two strapping lads to feed). You only take the juices until stage three, but it starts to disappear fast after that and I unfortunately ran out as I was so busy trying to cope with the new routine and couldn't find an organic cabbage in time! If you make it before hand, it will keep and you'll be spared a job!

3. Buy enough storage containers to store the broth/yoghurt/sour cream/soup in the fridge. Glass is best. One litre size is best to fit in the fridge easily.

4. Have a selection of soups written down that you can rotate. You won't have time to keep reinventing the wheel. Some ideas: Pea (use frozen peas - quick and easy), carrot, spinach, tomato (organic Passat is a life saver - use straight from the bottle for a speedy soup they will all love), watercress, leek and onion. Always use onion as a base and vary the meat broths.

5. Think about the meats you will use to make meat broth. You will need a variety, or else after a few days you'll be sick of boiled chicken/beef! Also, once you get to stage 4 you might all decide you really want as little boiled meat as possible, but you've got to keep making it to get meat broth. So consider where you can buy bones with lots of meat on. Low cost cuts of chicken are ideal - quarters/wings for making meat broth without leaving you with lots of boiled meat to use up.

6. Start with some sort of menu plan, if you haven't got one from elsewhere (like http://www.healthhomeandhappiness.com/grain-free-2/30-days-on-gaps-intro-e-book.) It really will make your life a lot easier and ensure you defrost the right meat and bones at the right time and don't end up with nothing for tea!

7. Read up about food intolerances and 'die-off'. Judging by the number of questions on the  web-site, this is an area many are confused about. We were too and I spent a long time trying to find answers as to whether our symptoms were food reactions or die-off. I concluded in the end that most were die-off. We did have a couple of times when it was obvious we needed to hold back on a food for a week or so and try again. I'm not GAPS trained, or a doctor, but especially in the first week, expect die-off and keep going. If the symptoms don't calm down, then look to food, but stay on Stage 1 or 2 until you have normalish stools. We only spent 2 days on stage 1, but our-die off didn't start until we were on stage 2, so we stayed there until we were comfortable.

8. Think how you will introduce your probiotics. Probiotics are the most important factor other then the foods you eat (or don't eat!) on this diet. They are in the end what is going to flush out the gut to bring about healing. We start with small amounts, building up to more and more. This includes the probiotic itself - Bio Kult, or whatever else you choose to use. I didn't realise when I started out that an average adult needs to work up to about 8-10 Bio-Kult capsules a day. If you have two adults, and two 12 pluses that works out to approx. 30 pills a day. We bought a box of 120 which will only last four days when we all reach therapeutic levels. That is very expensive! My main point then is count the cost!

Then think about the food probiotics, sauerkraut, fermented dairy. It really does become a juggling game trying to gradually increase the different ones and introduce Bio-Kult without suffering bad die-off symptoms. So care needs to be exercised. It's more tricky the larger number of people in the family. Close records need to be kept!
We decided (after suffering) to build up the food probiotics first to a good level and then to introduce Bio-Kult, so we wern't doing both at once. This worked better.

We are now 9 days into the introduction diet. I can't yet say I'm a 'pro' but I am learning some things which I hope to share with you here.

They say  the GAPS diet is hard work and boy, it's hard work! I don't mind the cooking so much - it's actually easier as it's mainly broth and meat and vegetables, but it's the planning ahead and the WASHING UP! No, we haven't got a dish washer and don't want one due to the toxins they introduce into the home, but after each meal there seems to be a mountain of saucepans and broth containers!
AND they are all GREASY! Not the bit I enjoy the most!

It gets trickier as more foods are added. Last night I suddenly realised they were eating more sour cream and we wouldn't have enough for tomorrow. So I a made rush to make it (not that it takes long, but it was bed-time!) wishing I'd thought about it earlier in the day. It's made harder as those three can take the sour cream, but I need yoghurt. The fridge is full of little containers!

It does seem to be getting easier now. A new rhythm is emerging to our days!

So some practical ideas!

BUY ENOUGH CONTAINERS - preferably glass jars, or BPA free plastic boxes to store both broth and meat. I find that glass is easier to clean and doesn't leave a smell of plastic on the food.

PLAN WELL AHEAD especially at weekends and onto work on Monday morning. Buy in bulk. I think I've tended to get little bits of shopping here and there and ended up visiting the shops three times more than normal. Meat is alright as I go the butchers once a week, it's not local. But I tended not to buy enough veg.

MAKE SOUP IN BULK
I have used my slow cooker to make the meat broth, but then I've kept it in batches in the fridge, just cooking up a little each time and making fresh soup. Now I'm going to make a batch of both, convert it immediately into soup and store batches of it ready to heat up and I hope this will cut down on a lot of meal prep and washing up.

ENLIST THE HELP OF THE CHILDREN
My children are used to helping, but don't usually actually cook much (other than sweet things!!). They help dry up, but now I need them to start cooking more. This will be good for them (so  I keep telling them). Son 2 was quite pleased that he can make his own scrambled eggs this morning. OK not a big deal, but good for starters! Breakfast went a lot more smoothly and was ready quicker. I didn't realised how ignorant they are of the geography of the kitchen. 'Where are the jugs?', or how lacking in kitchen know-how 'I've spilt something!' 'What should you do then?' Blank looks! Seems like I've neglected a part of their education and done too much for them, but I doubt I'm alone in this!

KEEP RECORDS
I have one sheet for each member of the family on which I note each new food as it is introduced and how much probiotic they are taking, be it fermented dairy or sauerkraut. Keeping it up is time-consuming, but if they do react to something the information is all there.

VARY THE MEATS
We tended to just have chicken pieces and minced beef made into meat balls for the first four days and we got sick of it. Adding in other joints has made it easier. Pork chops on the bone, lamb shoulder and beef brisket cooked with marrow bones have been delicious. Do remember to put take as much fat and cartilage from the bones as you can and add it into the soups. I blend these bits with a little water and add them in lump free so no-one knows they are there, or they would say 'YUK!'
We also ate a lot more fish - especially fresh mackerel for breakfast. Herrings had too many bones. Or we bought wild caught frozen salmon, all of which were quick to prepare.


It does get easier and more automatic though!