Getting Started with GAPS

I’m Angela Taylor, author of The BrainFood Cookbook. I successfully recovered my son from Autism using the GAPS/Paleo/SCD diet when he was 4 years old.

The GAPS diet is the fundamental therapy we used to recover our son from Autism. Prior to GAPS, we did speech therapy for a year and saw very little results until we changed his diet. Once removing all the foods he was “allergic” to (gluten, lactose, soy, etc.) James’ brain became receptive to other therapies. (Speech, ABA, OT, etc.) This companion blog contains over 60 articles on health topics including Speech Therapy, ABA Therapy, blood testing, supplements, ADD, ADHD, detox, drinking water, parenting tips, sleep tips, and more.

I hope you will ultimately decide to try GAPS, and I suggest you implement the GAPS diet in a methodical fashion. (See Getting Started with GAPS and The BrainFood Cookbook for implementation resources.) After you’ve got the GAPS diet rolling, this blog contains many additional ideas and resources to help parents and children struggling with Autism / Asperger’s / ADHD. I know it is tempting to just go out and try EVERYTHING, right away! But it is best to start with GAPS, and then try one new thing a week. Chart behaviors so you can determine what IS working, and what is NOT working.

If all this information seems overwhelming to you – and you need a little extra help – I am available for consultations to guide you on your family’s path to recovery.

Please remember that 
no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

We achieved remarkable results using the GAPS diet to recover our son from Autism. After about a year on the diet James’ speech, eye contact, and swimming remarkably improved.

Before GAPS diet:

James was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2. He would often exhibit autistic behaviors such as flapping his hands, toe walking, and banging his head on the ground when frustrated. James would run around aimlessly in circles. He did not point at objects. Potty training was not even a consideration. James would obsessively play with trains for hours. He had no interest in opening Christmas presents, literally dropping them on the ground and walking away. James would play by himself, even in a roomful of children. He rarely looked people in the eye. A standardized speech test put James down in the 6th percentile. When he did speak, he used one word utterances like “cracker” or “train”. When my husband and I spoke to James, he literally couldn’t understand what we were saying to him. He also exhibited echolalia, where he would repeat things that he heard without understanding a word of it. James never asked any questions.

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After GAPS diet:

Within a year of starting GAPS James was enrolled in regular preschool, speaking in complete sentences, using pronouns correctly, potty trained, playing with other students, and asking questions. I could hold actually conversations with my child, and he was popular with friends at his school. Within 2 years we dissolved his IEP completely, and he discontinued OT and speech therapy. James lost his Autism diagnosis.

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In order to track your progress, you’ll want to keep records before and after. I suggest you take a moment today to:

• Complete the free Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC) ARI offers the ATEC in several languages. Be sure to date it.
• Shoot videos of your child’s challenging behaviors.
• Make a list of what your child is currently eating, and date it.

Please remember that no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

The Paleo, SCD, and GAPS diets share most of the same basic dietary restrictions. Grains, gluten, soy and lactose are eliminated; emphasized foods include non-starchy vegetables, nuts and seeds, grass-fed animal products, and fruits if well-tolerated. (In The BrainFood Cookbook I focus on the GAPS diet, which is the most restrictive of the diets.)

Basically, we are avoiding foods that are:
– known allergens
– have opiate qualities
– difficult to digest

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Allowed Foods: (organic foods whenever possible)
Honey (raw honey is best)
Fruit
Vegetables (fresh or frozen – not canned)
Glass-Jarred Tomatoes / tomato sauces
Nuts / Nut Butter (preferably Soaked/Sprouted/Dehydrated)
Coconut
Eggs (free-range & soy-free is best)
Poultry & Meat (grass-fed is best)
Fish (not farmed)
Ghee (clarified butter)
Fermented Raw Dairy, only if tolerated (such as Yogurt and Kefir)

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Prohibited:
Wheat
All Grains (even “gluten-free” are prohibited)
Rice
Corn/Corn Syrup/Cornstarch
Tapioca
Potatoes
Oats
Most Dairy* (but clarified butter (ghee) IS allowed)
Most Beans*
Chocolate
Peanuts (due to aphlatoxic mold)
Canned Foods (but canned tuna allowed in moderation)
Sugar/Brown Sugar/Molasses/Evaporated Cane Juice
Maple Syrup
Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial Food Dyes and Preservatives
Annatto (natural yellow food dye – triggers ADHD)
Soybeans/Soy Milk/Tempeh
* see The BrainFood Cookbook for more info

What happens when your child consumes “illegal” food which is an allergen/opiate/incompletely digested?
All of these cause irritability and/or brain fog. Once you clear up the brain fog, your child’s brain will become receptive to all the OT / Speech Therapy / opportunities you are offering him!

Please remember that 
no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

Q: My kid only eats macaroni and cheese? Why?
A: The opiate-like affects of the gluten and dairy are actually addictive. The “addict” craves the very foods to which he is allergic, and the vicious cycle continues. There may be withdrawal when you change your child’s diet, so I suggest implementing in this order:

• Go dye free
• Eliminate sugar and “sugar substitutes” (honey & fruit still allowed)
• Go gluten free
• Go pasteurized dairy free (GAPS raw dairy allowed: Yogurt & Kefir)
• Start making most of your meals GAPS-compliant
• Full GAPS
• Do the GAPS Intro / Stages
• Full GAPS

Additional Considerations:
• Changing your child’s diet is much easier when your entire house is emptied of illegal foods, and his school is fully informed of dietary restrictions.
• When my family made the transition from Gluten-Free to GAPS Intro/Stages, I was grumpy for about 2 weeks straight due to withdrawal and die-off. If your child is in school, you might consider making the GAPS transition during Winter, Spring, or Summer break.
• Blood tests (igG tests) can tell you if your child is allergic to Wheat/Dairy/Soy/Corn, but your child must be eating those foods in order for the results to be accurate. So if you are curious, get igG blood tests ordered before removing those foods from the diet.

Please remember that no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

Elaine Gottschall (author of Breaking the Vicious Cycle) originally created the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) legal/illegal food lists. Subsequently, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride wrote Gut and Psychology Syndrome^TM (GAPS) and innovated the GAPS intro diet and GAPS full program.

To reduce withdrawal, I made my own suggestions in The BrainFood Cookbook (as seen in #3 – Getting Started):
• Go dye free
• Eliminate sugar and “sugar substitutes” (honey & fruit still allowed)
• Go gluten free
• Go pasteurized dairy free (GAPS raw dairy allowed: Yogurt & Kefir)
• Start making most of your meals GAPS-compliant
• Full GAPS
• Do the GAPS Intro / Stages
• Full GAPS

Do I have to do the GAPS “Intro”?
Yes, it’s highly advised as it serves to reboot the gut – but let me explain. Many people start on Full GAPS, then go back and do the GAPS Intro/Stages after they feel they are ready. For fullest healing, yes, you should do the Intro and all the Stages at some point. (the sooner, the better)

Once you are ready, here is the complete GAPS Intro/Stages protocol:

Intro/Stage 1
Homemade meat or fish stock
Cooked vegetables
Homemade vegetable soup with your homemade meat or fish stock.
Probiotic foods (kefir/yogurt; juice from sauerkraut/fermented vegetables)
Ginger tea with a little honey between meals
Stage 2 (in addition to previous foods)
Organic egg yolks
Stews and casseroles made with meats and vegetables
Increase daily amount of homemade yogurt and kefir, if introduced.
Increase the amount of juice from sauerkraut or fermented vegetables
Fermented fish
Homemade ghee
Stage 3 (in addition to previous foods)
Ripe avocado
Nut butter/egg/squash pancakes
Egg scrambled with plenty of ghee, goose fat or duck fat
Introduce the sauerkraut and your fermented vegetables
Stage 4 (in addition to previous foods)
Gradually add meats cooked by roasting and grilling
Cold pressed olive oil
Freshly pressed carrot, lettuce, mint juices
Bread made with ground almonds or any other nuts
Stage 5 (in addition to previous foods)
Cooked apple puree
Lettuce
Peeled cucumber
Freshly pressed apple, pineapple, mango juice (avoid citrus)
Stage 6 (in addition to previous foods)
Peeled raw apple
Other raw fruit
Honey
GAPS legal “cakes”
Dried fruit
Full GAPS

Please remember that 
no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

I advise seating your child in a high chair – or booster seat with a clip-on tray – at mealtimes. It’s hard enough to change your child’s diet, without him constantly wandering away from the table.

Since we can’t eat typical “starches”, we need to eat a LOT of vegetables to get enough carbohydrate calories for a balanced diet. (Eating a diet too high in protein is hard on your kidneys.) Our strategy was to control the plate, and insist on “First peas, then steak” for example. So we would alternate bites, for the entire meal.

As a further incentive to eat the whole dinner, dessert can be set in the middle of the table, out of reach, until the dinner plate is empty. (I found even a simple apple could be
a great dessert motivator.)

But my child hates vegetables…

Our child only liked 5 vegetables, so we would serve them often: carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, peas, and green beans. Researchers have found that it takes 15-18 exposures to a new food for a child to accept it, so we would always insist that James try one small bite of “new” vegetables when they were served. (And, we would generously coat new vegetables with ghee and sea salt.)

We even kept a chart, and eventually, we added some new veggies to our repertoire.

Please remember that 
no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

One secret to doing GAPS (without losing your mind) is just doing some simple planning so you’re never “stuck” with nothing legal to eat. I always keep snacks in my purse and in the trunk of my car. Snack boxes of organic raisins and bags of nuts are good choices.

Just to give you an idea of how we do GAPS, pretty much every day we eat:
(those on “rotation diets” may cringe, but this works for us)
• Breakfast – kefir smoothie (see The BrainFood Cookbook p. 119) or French Toast made with walnut bread (see The BrainFood Cookbook p. 80)
• Snacktime – raisins or a baked good
• Lunch – cucumber, turkey sandwich on walnut bread (see The BrainFood Cookbook p. 80), fresh fruit
• Snacktime – fruit, baked good, or crunchy snack
• Dinner – planned for all 7 days on Sunday. Typically we have only 3 items per meal: raw veggie, then a main course and one cooked veggie.
• Dessert – fruit, or something fun from The BrainFood Cookbook
• Beverages – exclusively spring water, except 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed (unpasteurized) juice per day

I like to write on a weekly calendar what we’re having for dinner that week, then make one big grocery store trip on the weekend. Dinner is not always a fancy affair – for busy nights I’ll plan to have Scrambled Eggs and Petite Peas, or Hamburgers and Green Beans for example.


Please remember that no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

Some parents question the value of the time consuming/expensive GAPS diet as many doctors dismiss GAPS as being “unproven”. Until then, be assured that every parent I have spoken to – who has properly implemented GAPS without cheating – has seen huge improvements in their child’s cognition and behavior.

Please also know that I am pushing hard to launch a scientific research study to validate
the effectiveness of GAPS in a clinical research setting. I will continue to post updates on my efforts at brainfoodcookbook.com.

When the going gets tough, just remember that untreated Autism/ADHD is also expensive and time-consuming – and heartbreaking.

Here are some assorted tips to help you save time and money:

• Cheapest food staples are bananas, eggs, carrots, frozen petite peas, ground beef, homemade pumpkin purée. Also beans, but ONLY if they are tolerated.
• Obtain a stand-alone freezer.
• Buy a quarter-cow and freeze. We choose to have the butcher turn the toughest cuts into ground beef rather than keep them as roasts.
• Buy nuts directly from the grower in bulk and freeze.
• Soak/Sprout/Dehydrate a great quantity of nuts at one time, so you always have some nuts at the ready.
• Soak/Sprout/Slowcook a quantity of beans (or lentils) at one time, and freeze them in recipe-sized portions.
• Form a neighborhood buying group with Frontier Wholesale to buy various organic spices/staples in bulk.
• Unfortunately most warehouse clubs sell woefully few grass-fed/organic products. There is a brand new mail-order “warehouse club” called greenpolkadotbox.com that may be of some usefulness to you.
• Bake double batches of recipes, and freeze.
• Buy bananas 2-3 times per week so you always have ripe bananas on hand. When bananas get overripe, peel and freeze until you have enough for a recipe.
• Buy organic produce in season, and “can” in glass jars, dehydrate, or freeze.
• Save leftover carrot pulp/apple pulp from juicing, and freeze. (Use later for baking).
• Try to grow whatever is easiest/most expensive (i.e. tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, butternut squash).
• Pumpkin has twice the fiber of oatmeal, so it will help you feel full. Many of my baked good recipes contain pumpkin.
• Buy honey directly from the beekeeper.
• Buy raw dairy directly from the farmer.
• Join an organic CSA for fresh veggies in season.
• If at all possible, obtain the following appliances to save time in the kitchen:
KitchenAid Food Processor
Omega Juicer
Excalibur Dehydrator
KitchenAid Stand Mixer
Strong Blender (If you don’t have a Vitamix, a Blendtec or Braun may be sufficient for your needs.)
• Ask friends/family/church members to help out with cooking. Hire a personal chef or culinary student to come help out once a week if your budget allows.

Please remember that no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

Here are several tips to help you keep your child away from harmful foods while he is on his healing journey:

• Put everyone in your house on the diet. Give away all your illegal food.
• Pack a “lunch bag” for your child whenever he leaves the house: for school, playdates, sports, outings with Grandma, you name it.
• Inform the school in writing and verbally – to every single teacher – of dietary restrictions. Although I provided printed and emailed legal/illegal lists to his teachers, I didn’t count on them to do much with it, as I sent in all of his food from home every day.
• Also provide all friends and relatives with printed and emailed legal/illegal lists.
• Ask the teacher to keep a stash of your frozen GAPS cupcakes – clearly marked with your child’s name – in case there is a treat day.
• Provide allergy blood test results (igG tests) to the school if you have them.
• And the obvious: serve delicious food, that he likes.

Please remember that 
no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.

Some critics of the GAPS diet say that it will lead to nutrient deficiencies. I would argue that most kids eating the Standard American Diet already have nutrient deficiencies! The best way to know – for sure – is to do Micronutrient Testing from SpectraCell Laboratories. This is far more accurate testing than typical blood testing done at your local Qwest or LabCorp. SpectraCell has developed highly specialized Micronutrient testing (requires a blood draw) to measure 33 vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants in your body, and evaluates how well your body actually absorbs and utilizes each nutrient. Once detected, deficiencies can be corrected either with foods high in the nutrient, or supplements. In disorders like Autism and ADD, the potential improvement of symptoms when even a single deficiency is corrected can often be quite dramatic.

SpectraCell – Micronutrient and Omega-3 Testing

Good news – it is possible for you to order this test directly from the SpectraCell website without needing a doctor’s note, but it costs $390 if ordered this way. However, if your health practitioner sets up an account and charges you his actual cost, the practitioner cost is approximately $190 US (submitted with your insurance card) or $290 self-pay. (FYI – as a courtesy I offer this test at-cost ($190) to my Health Coaching clients) It’s recommended to retest every 6 months to track your Micronutrient status.

Be sure to also add-on SpectraCell’s Omega-check ($40 if ordered as part of the CardioMetabolic Panel) to find out EPA/DHA levels.

Diagnostic Solutions – Gut Parasite Testing

Most Autistic/ADHD children have dysbiosis caused by pathogens in the gut. Diagnostic Solutions’ GI-MAP is a DNA stool analysis – it is state-of-the art testing for gastrointestinal pathogens ($179 insurance deposit or $359 cash pre-pay). Be sure to add-on the Zonulin test to identify and track intestinal permeability ($29 insurance deposit or $64 cash pre-pay).

Mold Testing

Many homes unknowingly harbor mold. The toxins given off by the mold can make us physically and mentally sick. To detect hidden mold in your home I recommend hiring a mold detection service that uses a specially trained mold detection dog. You will then need to eliminate the mold from both the body and the home. Mold remediation is an extensive topic which I will cover thoroughly in a future blog post.

Lyme Disease

A large percentage of people get bitten by Lyme-carrying insects each year. If the immune system is in good shape, it can handle the Lyme with no problem. However if the immune system is brought down by a pre-existing problem (including mold), it gives the Lyme an opportunity to take hold. If you are curious to order a lab test, the best one is the Western Blot.

Please remember that
 no matter your dreams or obstacles, you have the power to change your child’s life. I sincerely hope our resources can help you do just that.