If you’re interested in starting the GAPS diet and going through Intro, you’re gonna want to read this! We’re having a giveaway of the What Can I Eat Now? 30 Days on GAPS Intro Handbook from Cara of Health, Home, and Happiness.
First though, I gotta tell you about how much I love this little book!
When you look at the section about Intro on the GAPS site, or even in the GAPS book itself, there’s this long and intimidating list of “stages” for Intro, the first few with very short lists of foods you’re allowed to eat. Stage 1 for example, says you can only eat boiled meats, stock, tallow, and boiled veggies — limited to squash, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, and leeks.
Uh… excuse me?
How are you supposed to come up with meals for several days (sometimes a week or longer!) on nothing but that? Wouldn’t that be horribly monotonous?
The other stages weren’t much better. How was I supposed to introduce those new foods one-by-one? And how long should I really expect to take to go through this?
This was what I was thinking before I came across Cara’s book. I really wanted to do GAPS, and do it right — which means not skipping this Intro part. But I just didn’t know how I was going to make that work. I’m really not very good at coming up with my own recipes, and with such limited things to work with, I didn’t think I’d be able to pull it off. I also just didn’t feel confident in knowing when and how to move from stage to stage. It seemed confusing and overwhelming to me.
But when I got What Can I Eat Now? I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything is planned out for you! Most people are able to go through each of the 6 stages in about 5 days, so the book is laid out, as you may have guessed by the title, into a 30 day guide.
Each of the 30 days in the book comes with recipes fit for that stage — and is careful to only introduce one new food at a time when graduating to further stages. There are reminders on every day’s page for what you need to make sure you’re including — whether that’s broth with every meal, an egg yolk mixed into your soup, or sauerkraut juice and ferments to be taken daily.
And the recipes manage to be quite varied — even at the earliest stages when choices are so limited. Simmered Chicken and Acorn Squash, Beef and Broccoli Soup, Creamy Cauliflower, Onion Leek Soup — doesn’t that sound good? And that’s all from Stage 1, the hardest and most restricted stage!
The book has more than just recipes and meal plans, though — there’s a great section detailing what you need to do in preparation for Intro, from two weeks beforehand when you should be reading recommended sections from the GAPS book, to a few days before when you should start making your Intro-legal ferments, plus recipes for them.
It even has helpful tips for explaining to others why you’re on this crazy diet, ways to detoxify your personal care routine, what you need to know to avoid dipping into low-carb-induced ketosis, what signs to look out for to know you’re having a negative reaction to a new food, and how to move onto the next stage. These are just a few of the sections in the handbook aside from the 30 day steps. Everything you really need to know is covered!
As you probably know, I’m almost midway through GAPS Intro myself. What Can I Eat Now? has become my little Intro “bible.” I have it saved to my phone for easy reference, and I probably look at the thing at least ten times a day. Sometimes to see what I should cook that day, sometimes to see what I need to go grocery shopping for, and a lot of times just to look ahead and see how many more days until I can eat certain foods. (T-4 more days ’til nut flour bread!)
I’m pretty much sticking to the suggested recipes for each day, and it’s going really well. It’s so nice to have everything laid out for you so you don’t have to think about what to make with the limited amount of ingredients you’re able to use. I’m actually kinda not looking forward to having to do my own meal planning again — ha!
I can’t recommend this book more highly for anyone wanting to give GAPS Intro a try. I really don’t know how I would have managed to go through Intro this far without it. It’s so easy to follow, and I can trust that all the information is just what I need to get through the diet successfully. Cara has used GAPS to heal various health struggles in her family, and I feel so lucky to have her expertise on hand!
The book has even been approved by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride herself, creator of GAPS and author of the Gut and Psychology Syndrome book. She actually gets a royalty from each sale, which she in turn takes and donates to the Weston A. Price Foundation.
What Can I Eat Now? retails for $30, and is on sale for $20 right now. But, you can try to win your own copy right here!
(Sorry, giveaway closed)
1.) First, follow this link to learn more about the What Can I Eat Now? handbook. You can even download a sample with free chapters to look through!
2.) Make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter. If your name is drawn, you have to be a newsletter subscriber in order to win. I’ve actually had people win giveaways before who did not sign up for the newsletter, and so I tossed their name out to pick the next person who followed the rules! Sign up below if you haven’t already, and you’ll receive my free e-book, Get Real! Traditional Foods Basics, in your email with confirmation of your subscription!
3.) Use the Rafflecopter widget below to complete your entries. Only the newsletter subscription is mandatory. Isn’t this a fun little tool? No more having to enter all those comments!
Remember, you must be signed up for our newsletter in order to win. You can unsubscribe at any time, but you have to be signed up at the time of the drawing to win. Subscribe below if you haven’t already. If you already have, go ahead and count it as an entry in the Rafflecopter!
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This giveaway will run through next Saturday, 2/28/12 at midnight, and I’ll announce the winner on Sunday. Good luck, everyone!
[Giveaway closed]
The giveaway is closed, but you can still pick up a copy of What Can I Eat Now? on sale, click here to check it out!
[Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/5]
That looks so helpful. I know that it can be hard to do GAPS but I’m truthfully looking forward to when I can do it. I’m not sure when that will be, but I just had a baby in December and I wanted to wait until she’s eating a good amount of regular food before I start detoxing myself. I’ve had digestive issues since I was 14, and if this doesn’t work to fix them, then nothing will. I’m just tired of being tied to the toilet!
GAPS should be able to help you with that really quickly! Digestive issues are supposed to be the first symptoms to go. You are supposed to hold off on Intro when pregnant or breastfeeding, but you’re okay to go on full GAPS now, if you wanted to give it a try! Here’s the foods list for full: http://gapsdiet.com/The_Diet.html
Let me know if you decide to go through with it!
I have had almost daily diarrhea for years and was too embarrassed to mention it to anyone for fear that they would just assume I ate crap. This GAPS is a blessing to me. I am finally (after a year)a normal person…as normal as I can be anyway! lol.
That’s awesome, Molly!!
That rafflecopter thing is amazing! And I am so enjoying your blog. Going GAPS for Lent so getting prepared now. Perfect timing for the giveaway!
Thanks so much, Rebecca! Yeah I totally love using Rafflecopter now. Makes everything easier! Oh GAPS for Lent — what a great idea! I kinda feel like it’s lent right now for me… “Lord please let me walk away from that cookie and eat my soup instead!” LOL. But seriously. It helps. 😉
I’ve played with GAPS intro but never fully committed to it… yet. I can’t stand sweet veggies like winter squash and (cooked) carrots so that drops my veggies choices down even more. I have the GAPS guide but I didn’t care much for me. I’d love to try out What Can I Eat Now — maybe it’ll be more my style. Now if I can just find that can of motivation & stick-to-it-through-the-suck-iveness I lost somewhere in the back of the cupboard…
You know, GAPS is actually supposed to help with picky eating habits! 😉 It really does start to transform your tastes. I wasn’t real crazy about squishy, cooked veggies either, and now two weeks later I get hungry for them.
I think it’s good to have a motivating force behind your decision to go on GAPS. For me, it’s preparing my body for having babies in a couple years, as well as fixing my digestion so I can gain weight. For some people, it’s reversing allergies, or a disease or disorder. For others, prevention of cancer and other illness.
It’s helpful to remind myself of why I’m doing this, when it gets hard. It’s my stick-to-it-through-the-suck. 🙂
Er, didn’t care much for it, not me. ^^fingers and brains didn’t agree on something in the above post^^
Question: are raw foods allowed instead of boiling? Questions arises due to benefits of raw foods as espoused by Aajonus Vonderplanitz – “we want to live”, also see his Primal Diet recipe book. Also, how much time is needed on a daily and weekly basis to follow this 30 day intro period? Thanks.
Good question about the raw foods, Teresa. In the initial stages of Intro, no raw foods are allowed. The only reason being that raw foods are more difficult to digest. Raw veggies, such as a simple lettuce and cucumber salad, begin on stage 5. On Full GAPS, inclusion of raw veggies is encouraged due to their enzyme content to help with digestion, etc. Only certain veggies should not be eaten raw (and this goes for anyone, not just people on GAPS), like broccoli, spinach, and kale. Raw fruits and other foods you would typically eat raw such as sushi is fine too. I’m pretty sure even raw eggs in smoothies and stuff is okay. I’ll have to check the GAPS book.
About how much time is needed, well, that’s tricky. It is time-consuming to prepare all the food you need to eat on Intro, day to day. But, if you’re already eating a real/whole food, traditional diet, you probably are used to spending time in the kitchen, and it may not seem like that much more work to you. And you’ve probably already figured out ways to save time, like prepping foods in bulk and freezing, using a crock pot, etc.
I am spending a LOT of time cooking right now though, because my appetite has gone through the roof and I’m eating all day long. Almost on the hour. You never really know how your body will respond to GAPS I guess!
I am actually reading through the GAPS book right now and anticipate starting the treatment in March, so this would be PERFECT. 🙂
Thnks for the opportunity to in his book!
the chiropractor told me last week my youngest had those allergy lines under his eyes; we’ve been attempting a more traditional/paleo diet, but i’m tempted to do a gut rehaul with gaps
Thank you so much for offering this giveaway. I will be starting intro in April sometime and have been on full GAPS since April last year when I took Ann Marie’s Reversing Allergies course. I have not done intro because I have been working outside the home at a very busy medical clinic and have been concerned that I would have to take sick days because of die-off. So full-GAPS it has been. I will be quitting that very stressful job at the end of March and coming home to heal. 🙂