What is the GAPS Intro Diet?
GAPS Intro is the most nourishing diet known to humans, in my humble experience.
It basically treats your digestive system like a baby– starting with the easiest possible foods to digest and then building up from there.
Think about GAPS Intro as ‘introducing foods one-at-a-time,’ stage by stage.
You can click here to download the complete list of foods, veggies, and drinks permitted on each stage.
How do I do it???
To give you a brief synopsis, in preparing the easiest foods to digest, you cook them in meat stock by bringing them to a boil and then simmering for their appropriate cook time.
You drink the stock with the veggies and meats so that you don’t lose any of the nutrients. And consider this, when you think of the most primitive or earliest way of cooking, boiling + simmering meat and veggies in water would have been the easiest way to cook food. We are basically emulating this early experience with GAPS Intro. Evolving our digestive systems over time.
And as you move through the stages, you introduce more complex ways of cooking- roasting in an oven or stir frying in a pan. Then come the nuts and the fruits. And pretty soon after, you’re baking GAPS cakes and adhering to the full GAPS diet until you completely heal your gut.
So You Don’t Have to Go on GAPS Intro for the Rest of your Life
Intro is not a life sentence, it’s a tool, a reset you can use to heal yourself in the deepest way possible. And when you’ve given yourself the healing you need, you can move on.
beet kvass is an example of a fermented brine
The backbone of the GAPS Intro diet, and the GAPS diet in general, is meat stock and fermented brines. Meat stock is literally the glue that seals the ‘leaks’ in your intestines back together. Fermented brines reinoculate your gut with beneficial bacteria (ultimately damaged + lacking due to generations of living the modern, western lifestyle). Both of these foods facilitate your digestive process as well.
But It’s Not for the Faint of Heart
The main thing I want to tell you about GAPS Intro is that it’s not for everyone. The people I guide through GAPS Intro are the strongest, most motivated people I know. It’s kind of a prerequisite considering GAPS Intro may be the hardest thing you ever do. Every single morsel of food has to be cooked at home, and the detox you go through can feel unreal + overwhelming at times.
It is possible to do the GAPS diet without doing intro, especially at first. You can read more general information about that here. On full GAPS, you can go to restaurants and eat what others are eating depending on your crowd. It’s easier to ‘fit in’.
Whether you are doing the GAPS Intro or Full GAPS Diet, I made a series of GAPS Certified Instructional Videos for you so it doesn’t have to be harder than it already is. They have all been approved for accuracy by Dr. Natasha’s son. You can click here to learn more about them.