Our oldest was recently diagnosed with autism and we were doing everything we could to help him. I had read countless accounts online of families with young children who sounded just like him, whose autism had been "cured" by the GAPS diet. The accounts I read online were all blogposts called "Our GAPS Journey" or something touchy feely of the sort. As a sort of Type A person enjoys having control over every aspect of my life, I found satisfaction in the idea that a diet could help with Caleb's behaviors. We were doing speech and social therapy, but food? I had never even considered that what we feed our children can have such an effect on their development. (I began to check out library books on this topic like a madwoman and I'm still considering going back to school for nutrition!).
The GAPS diet is no joke; it is built on the idea of cleansing the gut with probiotics and animal fats and involves a detox (which is the only part we didn't do, since I couldn't imagine myself suceeding at getting my five year old to eat meat broth for three days in a row). I've always been a bit of an all-or-nothing girl, and the GAPS was certainly ALL. (After explaining the diet to my poor husband, he politely asked why we can't half-ass the diet, instead of doing a full blown crazy person version, to which I explained how the prohibitied food we were eating would continue to inflame our gut, and it wouldn't have time to truly heal, which would render all our other efforts pointless.) I can really geek out with this stuff guys...
I had done several elimination diets before for myself, and while I had liked to think our family's eating habits were "healthy," after reading and actually paying attention to what I fed the kids in particular (um peanut butter and goldfish crackers every day please?) I realized we were pretty crappy at the healthy eating thing and had fallen into the habit of doing what is easiest because, life. While I used to enjoy cooking, back when I just had one or two kids and was able to share responsibility with James, I actually sort of hated it now. This was truly the last thing I wanted to care about, but the idea that it could affect my son's social and academic performance when he started kindergarten in a few months stuck with me; if this was something that could possibly work, even if it required more time in the kitchen and a change in our habits, we were going to give it a shot.
But here's the thing, GAPS, if you do it right (and of course I had to do it right!) involves cooking EVERYTHING from scratch, making soup from grassfed meats every day, making free range eggs every day, drinking raw milk (good luck finding that), culturing your own raw milk products, fermenting your own organic vegetables, and not drinking coffee, alcohol, or consuming any sugar or deritive of sugar except for a very small amount of honey. It was a lot of work. :(
Since we were ordering pizza once a week and snacking on processed carbs when I read the GAPS book, Our GAPS Journey started pretty slowly; first we eliminated everything processed, then we eliminated gluten, and then we eliminated all grains. And for the most part, the kids did great. I just told them that the prohibited foods would make their belly sick, and they believed me. We even went to a Phillies game with my entire family for my dad's birthday. My grandmother got ice cream, and my kids flocked to her for a share. I got them back over to our seats by bribing them with an organic carrot. A few minutes later, Caleb had a tantrum because he had dropped his carrot on the stadium floor and it was now rolling down several rows in front of us. He was melting down, but experience told me that it was about to get a lot worse, so there I was, holding the 11-month old and crawling past all these Phillies fans to get to the aisle so I could get a better look at where this carrot went. If you have a kid like Caleb, you know that sometimes calming him down just doesn't happen unless he gets the thing he wants. Luckily, the strangers ten rows in front of us somehow got a wind of what was going on, and without stopping to ask us why our kid was screaming for a carrot, when the lady next to him was eating ice cream, they handed it back to us. Whew! Crisis adverted.
Our GAPS Journey was fun while it lasted, and a few people in our life even told me that they did notice a difference in Caleb's behavior, eye contact and social skills while were were on the diet. But our journey ended abrupty when I began to have severe stomach pain and vomiting whenever I ate any kind of animal fat (which was every few hours on the GAPS diet). I'm talking so severe that it was on par with the pain I had during my three natural labors, and there were a few times I even had to sit in the hot bath and use those hynobirthing techniques. Yuck. In the weeks that followed, I had plenty of mornings where the kids had to stay in the pajamas until lunchtime because I couldn't move, nevermind take them to the park. This was terrible because I am not a huge fan of going to the doctor, not even for having babies. But this. I wasn't going to try to get rid of this myself. It was too big for me.
When a series of test results led me to a GI doctor, she told me she was certain that I had a stomach ulcer. An ulcer? Wasn't that something that people get when they are old and super stressed out?
(It isn't by the way, you can get an ulcer from an infection that's pretty common!)
Then it hit me. God was trying to tell me something here. Since embarking on this "GAPS Journey", I have spent way too much of my free time in the kitchen. And I secretly hated it. The books I was reading about nutrition and child development made me obsess about ever ounce of food I was putting into my kids stomachs. If we didn't do this diet, I would feel guilty, and if I did do it, I would continue to feel guilty for hating it so much. I was determined to provide them with the best possible nutrition as they grew up, yet I was forgetting that nutrition was only one element of their development. Instead of reading to them and playing with them, and, perhaps more importantly, taking care of myself (my workouts, which were my main source of stress relief, had taken a pathetic turn due to my broken hand and my low energy from eating so low carb), I was consumed with meal planning, cooking, fermenting, culturing, and baking. I was driving to PA line to buy raw milk from a farmer in a parking lot. When I could not meal plan in time to get delivery from The Family Cow (See below!), I was planning our week around which farmers' markets we could get to! All the people in the Facebook GAPS support groups said it would get easier, but for me, with three little ones five and under, a baby that wouldn't sleeep unless touching my nipple, a 100 pound puppy, a husband with a three hour commute, a house that was literally falling apart, and a broken right hand that made cutting veggies impossible, it was time to admit, that this journey flat out sucked, and it was past time for it to end.
I started to let the kids have grains and then breads. And before you knew it, we were ordering pizza again (once in a while!) and having ice cream cake for my birthday. (My three year old, pointing at my ice cream cake, informed me that this is the kind of birthday cake she wanted to have at her party next year. Apparently, she was disappointed with the GAPS-friendly cupcakes we had made for her and her friends a few weeks before. They were sweetened with honey and so our kids were the only ones that ate them. I feel slightly guilty...maybe we should have a birthday party redo?)
I stopped reading the nutrition books for a few weeks. I played with my kids more. I remembered that there are other theories out there for helping children with autism, like Sonrise Technique and Floortime, where you get down on their level and play with them for several minutes a day; maybe these were the right strategies for our family right now?
My running workouts were noticably better.
My stomach pains stopped.
My sleep improved.
The kids' sleep improved.
We were happier.
(There's so many people who say the opposite; that their sleep improved while they were on GAPS.)
That's the thing I find so fascinating about nutrition; it's never one-size-fits all, just like so many other things in life, and there's always lifestyle factors to consider. You just have to do what nourishes you, your body and soul.
For me, for my family, at this time, GAPS was more stressful than it was nourishing. Maybe our guts aren't going to be that healthy. Maybe they'll be downright unhealthy. But maybe, that is just not the worst thing in the world for our family at this moment.
Since we did notice a difference in our son, we are probably going to hire a nutritionist to develop his own personal plan once school begins, which hopefully won't be as intense as GAPS, and will be tailored to his individual needs, but for now, we are indulging where it's earned, and trying to relax and enjoy life.
Where to find GAPS food:
When we embarked on this "journy," I quickly realized that my shopping and my budget needed tweaking; many of these items were not sold at the Wal-Mart grocery pickup, my primary grocery-getting strategy that involved ordering things from my phone, scheduling a time to pick them up, putting the kids in the car and driving to the WalMart, popping my trunk and waiting for the employee to put the groceries in my trunk for me. This involved no wrestling of children, and no people at the grocery store judging my lack of parenting skills. . I didn't think I would ever be able to find something this good in the world of raw, organic, and fermented food...
Then I found these farmers in Pennsylvania who raise animals humanely. You order online and they ship it to a cooler right outside of your front door! Their website and email list is a treasure chest for anyone experimenting with a traditional diet such as GAPS. And their philosophy of raising animals the way Our Creator meant for them to be raised really reasonated with me. It made sense to me that God wanted these cows to eat grass because it made the cows healthier and their milk and beef made us healthier. Other than fasting and making simple meals during Lent, I had never given too much thought about my food consumption choices from this spiritual perspective. Check out to see if the Family Cow delivers to your doorstep. You will not be disappointed!*
*Do understand that there are some risks in consumming raw milk. It is not for everyone!
