An increasing number of folks that I know seem to be trying out the GAPS diet in order to solve autoimmune issues. Many are unwittingly making mistakes that are making success more difficult and time on the diet more lengthy.
GAPS, as it is commonly known, is a short term protocol to rebalance and heal/seal the gut wall. This halts the flood of toxins from pathogenic strains dominating the gut environment from pouring into the bloodstream 24/7. It is this unpredictable mix that triggers autoimmune symptoms.
The diet is described in detail in Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MDs book Gut and Psychology Syndrome. It is based on the century-old Specific Carbohydrate Diet.
The autoimmune disorders significantly alleviated or healed by the GAPS Diet include the simply annoying, like seasonal allergies, to the more life-altering such as autism, fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, and the list goes on and on…
Ok, let’s get real for a minute. Does the GAPS diet as outlined in the bestselling book by Dr. Campbell-McBride MD really work for alleviating allergies and other autoimmune disorders?
Absolutely it does.
My husband used to be the poster boy for allergies. He was allergic to every single prick the allergist tried on him some years ago. Today, he is allergic to nothing. Absolutely nothing. His asthma (during respiratory illness) and eczema resolved permanently as well.
Another person I recently talked to has arrested the progression of her IBS symptoms and gotten herself off the medication using the GAPS Diet. In fact, I know many folks who have received significant relief from their autoimmune disorders from the GAPS Diet.
How empowering to know that there is an answer for autoimmune illness and that something as simple as the GAPS diet can make it happen!
The trouble is, GAPS is simple but not necessarily easy. When folks go on GAPS, a number of common mistakes seem to be made. Here is a rundown of the five most frequent mistakes I’ve encountered coaching folks at various stages in the process:
Mistake #1: Going off Grains but Not Starches
The most important premise of GAPS is to eliminate all sources of disaccharide containing foods from the diet until the gut wall can heal and reseal. Most sugars and all grains, even those not containing gluten, are disaccharides and hence must not be consumed while on GAPS as a compromised gut wall is unable to digest them. Undigested food in any form provides the perfect environment for pathogenic viruses, bacteria, and fungi to thrive.
Talking to people on GAPS, I have frequently encountered those who have eliminated all disaccharides from the diet but not all the starches in the form of potatoes, sweet potatoes, arrowroot flour, potato flour/starch, carob powder, cocoa powder, chickpea flour, all other gluten-free flours and almost all beans and legumes (navy beans and lentils are ok).
This can be confusing, as resistant starch is food for friendly gut flora and overall, good for the gut! Thus, don’t take this to mean starch is “bad”. It definitely isn’t! It just isn’t something to eat while on the GAPS Diet.
Why is this?
Starch is a very complex food molecule comprised of very long strands of hundreds of mono sugars that are very difficult for an imbalanced gut to break down. Undigested starch feeds gut pathogens. Even worse, the starch that does manage to get digested results in molecules of maltose, which is a disaccharide!
As a result, for success on GAPS to be achieved and long term results attained, grains and starches must be eliminated on a short term basis.
Mistake #2: Taking a Cheaper Probiotic or No Probiotic at All
GAPS success requires an infusion of strong, therapeutic strength probiotics to reseed the gut with dominant, beneficial flora at the same time the GAPS Diet is starving out the pathogens. Unfortunately, a number of folks I’ve talked to who claim to be on GAPS are not taking a probiotic at all.
This is a mistake. Taking a probiotic on GAPS is not an option, it is a must!
Unfortunately, a decent quality probiotic is expensive, as you may have noticed! Resist the temptation to settle for cheaper brands.
Dr. Campbell-McBride MD warns about this in her book. She writes that most brands on the market are not strong enough nor do they have the correct aggressive probiotic strains necessary to recolonize the gut. Moreover, many brands of probiotics do not contain the strains listed on the label or have the claimed bacterial strength.
In other words, you get what you pay for.
To avoid the problem of probiotic label fudging, make sure the brand selected is reputable and can deliver the results you need.
After all, you’re going to all this trouble and inconvenience to eat GAPS. Why cut corners with the probiotic and threaten the success of the process? This article explains in detail why a soil-based probiotic on GAPS is critical to the success of the protocol.
Mistake #3: Going Wild with the No Grain Flours
Our culture’s food supply is so overly dominated by grain-based foods that when a person initially decides to go on GAPS, the thought “what in the world will I eat” can be rather overwhelming.
As a result, a common mistake for people on GAPS is to make a wholesale switch from grain-based foods to those exact same foods made with no grain flour such as coconut or almond.
Eating bread, muffins, pancakes, waffles, pizza, and cookies made with coconut or almond flour at the same rate one used to eat these same foods made with wheat can cause unintended consequences.
Coconut flour is extremely high in fiber and eating too much of it can cause gastric distress. Almond flour contains a lot of omega-6 fatty acids. While essential to health, too many omega-6 fats in the diet contribute to inflammation.
As a result, eating a moderate amount of baked goods made with alternative flours such as coconut and almond is the best way to go to ensure GAPS success.
Mistake #4: Not Eating Enough Homemade Broth
A very important part of the GAPS diet is the consumption of copious amounts of homemade bone broth. A small cup (about 4 ounces) with every single meal is recommended. The reason is that broth contains so many easy to assimilate minerals, vitamins, and amino acids. It is a very soothing food to the intestinal mucosa. Physicians have known for centuries that it aids digestion due to the natural gelatin which attracts digestive juices.
Many folks I know on GAPS are not consuming nearly enough broth. Or, they are using commercial bone broth which is almost always watered down (no gelling in the fridge) and/or packaged in toxic containers like aseptic, shelf-stable cartons.
A good idea before going on GAPS is to make sure your freezer is completely loaded up with any and all forms of homemade broth that you can find quality bones for including chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, fish, etc. Note that the best and most nutritious bone broth is made from fish heads, so be sure to include that in the rotation.
Broth is inexpensive to make and is so very important to GAPS success. Be sure to include it with every meal if at all possible! Once or twice a week in soups is not often enough.
Mistake #5: Giving Up Too Soon
Success with the GAPS Diet takes time. In most cases, it took years for the gut to get in bad shape. Thus, it’s going to take months or even a year or two to get it back to normal. For a child, the average amount of time on GAPS to achieve a significant level of autoimmune remission is 18 months. For an adult, it can take longer.
I have known adults who have achieved success in only 6 months. However, these were typically people who had been eating traditionally for many years already. They simply needed to go on full GAPS for a few months to complete the healing process.
If you are coming to GAPS from the Standard American Diet, then plan on 2-3 years to success. While this may seem like a long time, it is really short considering living the rest of your life with an ever-worsening auto-immune situation.
Don’t give up too soon! Initial subsiding of symptoms within a few weeks or months on GAPS does not mean healing. Stick with it to heal and seal the gut wall for good so you can reclaim full vitality of life!
If the GAPS diet is of interest to you and you would like a complete overview of the program, please check out this article on how to heal autoimmune disease.
There are also many GAPS diet recipes on this site to help your journey.
More Information
Heal Autoimmune Disease with GAPS Diet
How to Speed Healing and Shorten Time on GAPS
GAPS and Ulcerative Colitis
GAPS vs Autism
Chronic Stomach Pain and Bloating Gone!
On Gaps intro, can’t have rice as a FYI.
Any tips on how to get your very picky child to consume broths when they won’t drink it, eat soup or popsicles?
I am hoping someone can help… I noticed a couple of years ago that removing grains from my diet removed the GERD I suffered from. I am currently about 2 weeks in and back an forth with stage 3 & 4. (try to introduce stage 4 and go back to stage 3 because it’s not quite tolerated) Well, after less than a week on intro the GERD is back? With a vengeance!! It’s awful! I struggle to believe it’s die-off, (the arthritis and cold symptoms yes, but this? I don’t know…)
I am uncomfortable from my first Cup of broth in the the morning (post-puke acidic feeling in my throat) and by bedtime I am miserable and have woken up several times hoping I would puke because it was so strong at least maybe it would end, or actually having acid spill out my nose.
Eating my last meal earlier in the evening has not helped and I am now sleeping upright until about 6 hours after my last meal to at least prevent the acid out the nose. I wake up feeling GREAT but dread eating at all. I tried the betaine hcl, but it didn’t seem to help. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions for help?
Im not sure what to do. I have bad blood pressure. Im trying to lose my post partum weight by eating no wheat or refined sugar but im not sure what else to be doing. I was going to start biokult too
Hi Sarah, I’m curious how long your husband did the diet?
I just wanted to say thank you, Sarah, for such a well-written informative article. I’m about to start GAPS but really wanted to know if I had my information right. You let me know that I’m on the right track, and that I’ve processed the info correctly. (It can be a lot to take in!) And I’ve pinned this so I can check back as I progress and remind myself… Just a note for those who are concerned about additives in Bio-kult: it no longer contains maltodextrin (as of 2014 at least). Thanks again!
I stopped reading the comments b/c people are saying scary and shocking things. You shouldn’t feel hungry on this diet b/c if you pull off the mask on the Gaps diet…. it’s really “traditional food”. You don’t have to feel lost and eat a strange diet your unfamiliar with, if you have even a vague memory of eating traditional food with your family at the dinner table. The recipes for the intro diet…you’ll find an equivalent in any traditional food or you can easily modify a traditional recipe to fit the intro guidelines. For the people with acne, you won’t grow out of it. Your gut is crying out for help. If you have gout, your body is crying out for help too. You have nothing to loose from eating homemade, additive-free food made from whole foods (not the grocery store!).
@zjac Disagree. If your talking about Dr. Wahl’s intensive nutritional therapy or protocol, she based much of her work on the paleo diet and added supplements and increased intake amount for certain types of whole foods, needed specifically to treat MS patients. You missed the fundamental theme behind paleo and dr. wahl’s information and gaps too — which is people do not eat fresh, nutritious foods anymore. People today eat nutritionally inferior, ultra processed foods. If you find it hard to stick to the diet it’s b/c your eating “their” diet and not the one you grew up with. If you grew up on a Standard American Diet and don’t have a traditional diet to fall back to, then look no farther than old fashion southern food but you’ll have to find pre-industrial revolution recipes b/c today’s southern food is heavily processed (sugar, industrial oil, additives) or adjust southern recipes to fit gaps or paleo guidelines.
As someone suffering from Multiple Sclerosis, and having investigated thoroughly several diets, it really is a pity the nutritional medical community doesn’t come together. There are some serious conflicting point amongst the most popular diets: OMS/Jellenik diet, Gaps Diet, Paleo diet, Wahls protocol and a long etc, and all have detailed scientific backing. It makes me question whether just like pharma companies have an interest in not being completely transparent, several of the preachers of these diets have the same interests especially where publishing books are concerned.
It is ironic to see diet specifically aimed at helping MS with such striking and contrasting differences.
I definatly know that there great part of the cause of Autoimmune and other chronic illnesses are related to the food we eat, but the quicker the great thinkers of nutrition come together and work together to provide aligned information, the quicker we will all start to heal. These diets are all generally quite hard to stick to, and what you do not need to distract or deter you is contradictory information and evidence.
2 questions:
1) Is GAPS safe durng pregnancy?
2) After the diet shows complete effectiveness (your estimated 18 months-3 years), can you go back to eating a normal whole foods diet?
I’m not talking about returning to the Standard American Diet, but will we be forever tied to GAPS? We’re on Feingold right now, and while it’s helped my son’s SPD a ton, there are constant new food sensitivities for him, and he will be on this diet forever. It’s more than a little disheartening… Hoping for something different… Thanks so much for the info!!
Can someone explain if the GAPS diet is o.k. for someone who has gout symptoms? I have been removing grains/starchses/sugars from my diet and leaning toward paleo, but I am thinking I need to do something drastic right now because of my fibromyalgia. Then last week I had my left knee swell up like a balloon over night for absolutely no reason. The doctor thought it might be early gout. 🙁 For gout you have to avoid a lot of meats, and some veggies and fruits. Comments or insight?