GAPS Intro Update: Fruit Fails and The Home Stretch In Week 4

Week four, the last of our 30 Days on GAPS Intro, came to us with promises of the stuff of dreams — the elusive fruit we’d been waiting for the past 20-some days.

But we would have to start slow. First on the menu was cooked apples, in the form of homemade applesauce. Why I had never made this magical creation before, I do not know. Why everyone does not make this treat, so ridiculously easy and infinitely tastier than it’s processed counterpart, also eluded me.

The smell of simmering apples diffusing into the air was more than I could handle.

I snuck a hot little morsel of it as I stirred.

Taste bud freak-out ensued.

I had read in the GAPS Guide (which I absolutely love and plan to write a full review of) that the best way to introduce a new food, especially a tricky one like fruit, is to start with one teaspoon the first day. Then the next day, have none. Then the next day, if you haven’t had a reaction, 3 teaspoons. Then wait one more day. If you feel fine, you can eat the food freely.

So one teaspoon was all I was going to be allowed of this delicious delight.

Aheh. Hah. Huh. Heh…

Yeah, no. That didn’t happen.

About a cup and a half happened and then another licking of the pot happened after we polished the whole thing off between the two of us.

And then some other things happened in my insides later that night and the following morning when they woke me up with an…urgency of sorts. Pre-Husband’s insides remained unscathed. Hrumph.

The next day, once again, I couldn’t help myself as I gave PH some of his morning juice, which had fresh pineapple in it. I figured he’d be fine with that since the applesauce had treated him well. And once he started raving about how much it tasted like a “smoothie,” a gulp or two ended up in my mouth. It all happened so fast!

Trying to delude myself that perhaps my “reaction” to the apples was instead a reaction to an increased dose of BioKult, I thought I’d give it one more shot, and had a couple tablespoons of the sauce again later that afternoon.

Twenty minutes later, my delusions held no water. But my lower intestines — ah, never mind. Getting a little too TMI up in here.  I think you get the picture.

So, while PH continued to enjoy his progression on Stage 6 with a medley of blissful raw fruits introduced one at a time, I had to take a step back and cool it on the fructose for the time being. After a couple days of reverting back to the previous stage, I tried again with a reasonable amount of applesauce. I was fine. Hallelujah! I’ve since been able to slowly add in the rest of Stage 6 fruits with minimal trouble.

Moving On to Sweets and Treats

In Stage 6, you’re allowed to start sweetening up your nut flour bread, with dried fruits. Dr. Natasha says this is better than using honey, as its properties change when cooked and it’s better to eat it raw. I’ll be honest, I plan on cooking GAPS-legal cakes, cookies, and such with honey, because ground up dates just don’t really cut it for me.

We did the bread, and then we went a little crazy. I was cleaning out my cupboard of all non-GAPS goods, and discovered a canister of plain, natural cocoa powder I had forgotten about. Oh, dear. You’re really not supposed to add in cocoa and homemade chocolate until later on, like several months later, but there was just no way I was going to to let that cocoa sit there. I’d make a little chocolate with honey and coconut oil, and see how it went.

It went a little bit like this:

That’s the remains of our chocolate-covered macadamia nut candy that we wolfed down and scraped clean before I remembered to get a picture. We felt fine, and we’ll continue to have a little chocolate as long as we still feel we’re tolerating it well.

Dairy and the Rest of the Diet

All that’s left after the fruits of Stage 6 are beans (lentils, navy, and lima), coconut oil (already added that in with the snack balls I made at the tail end of Intro) and other GAPS-legal dairy. We already introduced ghee, but it’s recommended to hold off on the rest of the dairy for about 6 weeks if you can.

But since we never had any troubles with even crappy pasteurized and highly-allergenic dairy, we’re going to go ahead and start with 24-hour fermented yogurt and kefir this week, and then un-ghee’ed butter after that. Ghee is great and all, but, I wants my butter.

So basically, we’re pretty much there! We made it to Full GAPS. And I’m so glad we went through Intro. I have so much to say about the changes we’ve experienced, our overall struggles and successes, and other thoughts about Intro that I’m going to save all that for another post tomorrow.

What do you think?

Those 30 days went by pretty quick, huh? Are you thinking about giving Intro a try? Or if you’ve already done it, what was your experience like?

If you missed the last three weeks, by the way, you can check out how we did here:

We Survived One Week of Intro

Cravings, Perseverance, and Pancakes in Week Two

The Best Food I’ve Ever Eaten in Week Three 

 

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