Getting on GAPS in 12 Stages

This program is designed to ease you into GAPS over the course of a year. Each month you will add one thing and drop one thing. If you are not in your kitchen a lot, or you have a busy schedule, or you just feel overwhelmed, this is a great place to start! After a year, you can begin Full GAPS or Intro and you will have a lot of the pieces of the puzzle in place already!

Before you begin, consider testing your stomach acid and listening to an interview with Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride.

Month 1

Add: Lacto-Fermented Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is the most beneficial probiotic available. When you start off consuming it, you will take only a small bite (or a tiny sip of the juice), as it is possible for any “live food” to initiate a die-off response (YT video, YT video) in your body. Work up slowly to having a quarter cup of kraut before every meal.

Remove: One Toxic Item

Replace one toxic item (e.g., shampoo, dish soap) with a toxin-free one, preferably homemade. Buy from someone local who makes soap, laundry detergent, or shampoo without fragrance, dyes, or shampoos.

You can replace your shampoo with egg yolks, wash like normal, and rinse with a cup of water and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar.

Laundry detergent should only include the following ingredients:

• Fragrance-free castile or homemade soap
• Borax
• Washing soda
• Baking soda
• Salt
• Essential oils

If you would not eat it, then don’t put it on your skin.

Month 2

Add: Meat Stock

Meat stock is the foundational food for healing and sealing the gut. It is essential for nourishment, essential fatty acids, collagen, and hyaluronic acid. The meat stock must be made properly and we never make bone broth. Chicken leg quarters are easy to source, so use them for your first time.

If desired, cook carrots, onions, and any other vegetables you choose, in the meat stock for twenty minutes, along with the orginally removed meat.

Remove: Toxic Deodorant

Stinky pits are a result of a magnesium deficiency. The more you heal, the less you will need deodorant.

Replacement options:

• Crystal™ Mineral Deodorant Stick
• Peroxide
• Apple cider vinegar
• Lemon juice

Month 3

Add: Raw Milk

Learn to make kefir, yoghurt, and home-brewed sour cream.

Source raw milk by using realmilk.com, reach out on your local Weston A. Price Facebook page, or ask around at your local farmer’s market. Seek out Jersey A2/A2 raw milk or goat milk. Pasteurized milk is not recognized by the body and neither is the milk from a Holstein cow. If you have been intolerant of milk in the past, trying raw milk alone can solve the problem.

Kefir can produce quite a bit of die-off, so take it slow.

Remove: Toxic Make-Up and Beauty Products

Bee You Organics is a wonderful brand that is completely toxin-free. However, you can - and should - learn to make these products yourself, which is much more cost-effective.

Month 4

Add: Fermented Beet Kvass

Beet kvass is an amazing liver support and you will be adding a new series of probiotics to your diet. You can drink as much as you like but always remember to take it slow in the beginning. Landing at 1/4 cup per day of this healing drink is beneficial.

Remove: Municipal Water

Remove any water used for the body, internally or externally that is municipal. Chlorine, fluoride, antibiotics, and many more toxins are found in the water that is pumped into our homes. You can use a countertop water filter like a Berkey, plumb in a filter under the sink, or even install a filtration system for the whole house. If you don’t have a filter in your bathtub or shower, you can still take baths safely using this method.

Month 5

Add: Liver Pâté

Make liver pâté. You can choke down a spoonful per day until your body asks for more. It may not be delicious the first few weeks but you will slowly come to enjoy it. Freeze what you do not use in the beginning. Our bodies need to taste the food to understand where the nutrients are coming from. You can waste a lot of time and money on the liver supplements or you can educate your body in a matter of weeks.

Remove: Grains, Seeds, Nuts, and Legumes

Remove grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes from your diet. Keep in mind that fats will keep cravings at bay. You can make coconut fat bombs or honey butter and eat every fifteen minutes if needed. You will find your cravings will be gone as soon as your blood sugar is regulated. Depending on how much sugar you have been consuming, you can see results in a few days of a couple weeks.

Month 6

Add: Mineral Salt

Keep at least two salts, as they offer different mineral compositions.

Here’s the list, in order of decreasing quality:

• Baja Gold
• Celtic Grey
• Redmond Sea Salt
• Himalayan Pink

Using mineral salt and pepper for seasoning, learn to make baked chicken on the bone, meatballs with organ meat, fatty pork roasts, and fatty beef roasts.

Remove: Premade Seasonings

Remove premade seasonings, marinades, and flavourings from the home. Buy single dried herbs and spices (organic, no caking agents) from trusted sources. A great place to source herbs is from your local farmers’ markets, then just add pepper and you mineral salt.

Month 7

Add: Beef Heart or Tongue

Here’s what I do:

• Dice beef heart into bite-sized pieces
• Slice four packs clean¹ bacon into bite-sized pieces
• Cook in a skillet to your preferred crispness
• Place the heart into the pan once the bacon is done
• Cook until the pieces are not past medium

This recipe from Offally Good Cooking is also delicious.

Remove: Seed Oils

Remove seed oils² from your diet. You can still use coconut oil or olive oil, organic and cold pressed, but do not cook with them. Use only animal fats for cooking such as tallow, butter, ghee, lard, goose fat, schmaltz.

Make sure any restaurant you choose does not use seed oils. You can call ahead or use Seed Oil Scout. This seems daunting but your health is worth it!

Month 8

Add: Picnics

Make GAPS meals to take to parks, the woods, or any nice picnic spot to reward yourself for not eating out.

We love to make bacon cheeseburgers with carnivore bread.

Remove: Toxic Detergents and Cleaning Products

Remove toxic detergents, cleaning products and dryer sheets. Make your own or buy toxin- and fragrance-free ones.

Month 9

Add: Coconut Fat Bombs

Make coconut fat bombs (or honey butter) again.

Remove: Sugar from Diet

This will be the same process as removing grains.

To regulate blood sugar, eat the fats with honey as frequently as every fifteen minutes. You should be free or cravings within about a week. Your body will be done with them when it has regulated.

Month 10

Add: Kombucha

Make kombucha with a 21-day ferment. It is important to use a 21-day ferment at first so that all the sugar is removed.

You can obtain a SCOBY by asking your local Weston A. Price Facebook page on social media. You can make your own SCOBY from store-bought kombucha.³

Buy one of the GAPS books (yellow book, blue book) and a trusted cookbook⁴.

GAPS, Stage by Stage, with Recipes is a great book, but do not eat nuts, fruit, or honey too frequently, and never cook with honey.

Nuts and fruit together should only make up five percent of your diet and some people should have none.

Remove: Toxic Cookware

Remove plastic, aluminum, silicone, and non-stick cookware from the home slowly and begin to replace with glass, cast iron, clay, enamel, or stainless steel.

Month 11

Add: Fermented Pickles

Make fermented pickles.

Remove: Synthetic Fabrics

Begin removing synthetic fabrics as much as possible and replacing with 100% cotton, linen or wool. This takes time but you can do the research this month and start by replacing one item. 

Month 12

Add: Intro or Full GAPS

Prepare to begin Intro or Full GAPS. Watch these two videos from Monica Corrado:

• The Importance of Stomach Acid
• GAPS Basics: The Four Pillars

Your stomach acid needs to be on point or being supplemented for proper healing to take place. There are a couple ways to test your stomach acid. One is to check for red in your stool after eating a slice of cooked beet. If the red is present, your stomach acid is low. A second method is in the aforelinked video.

Each of the four pillars of GAPS are equally important and essential to healing. The removal of harmful food, the consumption of meat stock, detoxification, and repopulation of the gut are all necessary.

Remove: Sweeteners

Your insulin spikes every time your body tastes something sweet - regardless of whether it actually has any sugars in it - so remove any honey or artificial or natural sweeteners.

Do not add in nuts, fruit, or honey for a very long time.

Author’s Note

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