I always say that Full GAPS is better than no GAPS, if that’s all you can handle!
Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride recommends starting with the Full Diet in the following situations:
- Anyone who does not have severe digestive symptoms
- People who have always been constipated and have rarely or never had loose stools or diarrhea
- Busy adults who travel a lot, don’t have full control over their food choices, or who can’t take the time to prepare all of their own food
- Older children with ADHD, dyslexia, or dyspraxia, who don’t have severe digestive problems
- If you’re pregnant or nursing
- Anyone who is hesitant to change their diet, or finds it especially difficult
“The most helpful things to me were the specific nutrition lessons explaining
why to do things a certain way.” ~Natalie W.
So what will you eat over the next year or two while you’re healing on the Full GAPS Diet?
Here’s an overview of typical meals, the Recommended Foods list, and the Foods to Avoid list – straight out of the Gut & Psychology Syndrome book.
This is a very brief overview and is in no way a substitute for the detailed information and recipes in the GAPS Diet book! Just a sneak peek before you dive into learning exactly what to eat and how to prepare it.
To start your day:
- A glass of filtered or mineral water with a slice of lemon or
- Freshly pressed vegetable and fruit juice diluted with water
Breakfast Options:
- Eggs – it’s best if the yolk is runny
- Sausage made of meat seasoned with salt, pepper, and herbs
- Leftover meat
- Vegetables, cooked or raw
- Avocado
- Cold pressed olive oil
- Soaked or sprouted nuts or seeds
- Pancakes made with ground nuts
- Home baked goods like nut flour muffins or bread
- A cup of warm meat stock to drink with your food
- Ginger or mint herbal teas
- Weak tea with lemon
Lunch & Dinner Options:
- Homemade vegetable soup or stew
- Meat, poultry, fish, or shellfish
- Vegetables, cooked or raw
- Avocado
- Olive oil with a squeeze of lemon as a dressing
- A cup of warm meat stock to drink with your food
Full GAPS Recommended Foods
Almond butter or oil
Apples
Apricots, fresh or dried
Artichoke, French
Asparagus
Avocados or avocado oil
Balsamic vinegar (high quality, made without added sugar)
Bananas, ripe with brown spots on skin
Beans, dried navy, string or lima beans
Beets or beetroot
Berries, all kinds
Black, white, red, or cayenne pepper
Black radish
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Butter
Cabbage
Capers
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celeriac
Celery
Cellulose in supplements
Cheese – Asiago, Blue, Brick, Brie, Camembert, Cheddar, Colby, Edam, Gorgonzola, Gouda, Havarti, Limburger, Monterey Jack, Muenster, Parmesan, Port du Salut, Roquefort, Stilton, Swiss, Romano, Uncreamed cottage cheese (dry curd)
Cherimoya (custard apple or sharifa)
Cherries
Cinnamon
Citric acid
Coconut, fresh or dried, no additives
Coconut milk (Homemade or no additives and BPA-Free can)
Coconut oil
Coffee, freshly made weak (not instant)
Collard greens
Coriander, fresh or dried
Cucumber
Dandy Blend coffee substitute
Dates, fresh or dried, no additives
Dill, fresh or dried
Eggplant (aubergine)
Eggs, fresh
Fish, fresh, frozen, canned (in water or oil)
Game – Quail, Pigeon or Pheasant, fresh or frozen
Gin, very occasionally
Herbs, fresh or dried, no additives
Honey, raw
Juices, fruit or vegetable (fresh pressed)
Kale
Kiwi Fruit
Kumquats
Lemons
Lentils
Lettuce, all kinds
Lima beans, fresh or dried
Limes
Mango
Meats – Beef, Lamb or Pork, fresh or frozen
Melons
Mushrooms
Mustard seeds or pure powder
Nectarines
Nutmeg
Nuts – all kinds, fresh or raw, flour or ground (not roasted, salted, or coated)
Olive oil, virgin cold-pressed
Olives, preserved without sugar
Onions
Oranges
Papayas
Parsley
Peaches
Peanut butter, no additives
Pears
Peas, fresh green or dried split
Peppers, green, yellow, red, or orange
Pickles, naturally made without sugar
Pineapple, fresh
Poultry – Chicken, Turkey, Duck or Goose, fresh or frozen
Prunes, in juice or dried, no additives
Pumpkin
Raisins
Rhubarb
Satsumas
Scotch, occasionally
Shellfish, fresh or frozen
Spices, single or pure, no additives
Spinach
Squash, summer or winter
Tangerines
Tea, freshly made weak (not instant)
Tomatoes, juice or puree, no additives
Turnips
Ugly fruit
Vinegar, cider or white
Vodka, very occasionally
Watercress
Wine, dry, red or white
Yogurt, home-made
Foods To Avoid
Agar-agar
Agave sweetener
Algae
Aloe Vera
Amaranth
Apple juice
Arrowroot
Artificial Sweeteners (Equal, Splenda, Sweet N Low)
Astragalus
Baked beans
Baker’s yeast
Baking powder, raising agents of all kind
Baking soda
Barley
Bean, flour or sprouts
Bee pollen
Beer
Bitter Gourd
Black beans
Bologna
Bouillon cubes or granules
Brandy
Buckwheat
Bulgur
Burdock root
Butter beans
Cannellini beans
Canned fruit or vegetables
Carob
Carrageenan
Cellulose gum
Cereals, any breakfast cereals
Cheese – processed or cheese spreads including Chevre, Cottage or Cream Cheese, Feta, Gjetost, Gruyere, Mozzarella, Neufchatel, Primost, Ricotta.
Chestnut flour
Chewing gum
Chick peas
Chicory root
Chocolate
Coconut milk, canned with additives
Cocoa powder
Coffee, instant or coffee substitutes
Cooking oils – all liquid, including canola
Cornstarch
Corn syrup
Cottonseed
Couscous
Cream
Cream of Tartar
Dextrose
Fava beans
Fish, preserved, smoked, salted, breaded or canned with sauces
Flour, made out of grains
FOS (fructooligosaccharides)
Fruit, canned or preserved
Garbanzo beans
Grains, all kinds
Ham
Hot dogs
Ice-cream, commercial
Jams or jellies
Jerusalem artichoke
Ketchup, commercially available
Lactose
Liqueurs or cordials
Maple Syrup
Margarines or butter replacements
Meats, processed, preserved, smoked or salted
Millet
Milk, buttermilk or dried from any animal, soy, or rice
Molasses
Mung beans
Nutra-sweet (aspartame)
Nuts, any kind, salted, roasted or coated
Okra
Oats
Parsnips
Pasta, of any kind
Pectin
Potatoes, white or sweet
Quinoa
Rice
Rye
Saccharin
Sago
Sausages, commercially available
Seaweed
Semolina
Sherry
Soda or soft drinks
Sour cream, commercial
Soy
Spelt
Starch
Sugar or sucrose, of any kind
Sweet potatoes
Tapioca
Tea, instant
Triticale
Vegetables, canned or preserved (frozen is ok as long as there are no additives)
Wheat
Wheat germ
Whey, powder or liquid (homemade is ok)
Yams
Yogurt, commercial
I was looking through your complete list of GAPS foods, and you listed “ugly fruit.” What is it please?
It’s a citrus fruit, also spelled ‘ugli’
At what stage can introduce nightshades..
Is breadfruit( a vegetable) allowed…
I was reviewing a recipe and she stated that she used Applegate farms pepperoni. However, in reviewing the ingredients, it list turbinado sugar. Per all the reading I have done, this would not be GAPS approved. Am I correct on this? Thanks.
Yes, that is correct. If honey is an ingredient in curing, that’s would be ok.
Hi,can we have a gluten free porridge?Thanks
Full GAPS is entirely grain-free.
Hello,
I am in the process of reading your first book and am encouraged that this diet can help if not cure my daughter. Do you have experience with working with a legal guardian mom of a 20 year old daughter, as this is my situation. I believe my daughter needs the full GAPS diet based her history and current symptoms. However I am challenged to get my daughter to buy into it not so much at home as I am prepping the home with the diet and my husband and I could do the diet as well to support her. However the challenges lies when she is at school or not with us. She uses her own money to buy what she likes, which are foods not compliant with the diet. I’ve thought how can I deal with this problem. I thought I could take the money away from her however I worried she may become resistant to complying at home in rebellion. Wondered if you have experience with this and how you were sucessful. Let me know your thoughts. I am currently working with a functional medicine doctor who actually recommended this diet to us based on her intial comprehensive assessment. She also recommended your book and a cookbook which as I said I am currently reading I do see my daughter’s symptoms in life in the book. I also just ordered The Heal Your Gut Cookbook for assistants. Please let me know how I can best navigate this exciting, hopeful but challenging new path
At that age, you really need to get buy-in. You can start by cooking and serving only GAPS foods when she is at home, and that will make a difference. Some GAPS is certainly better than none. If that feels good in her body she may be inclined to follow it more fully. In my experience you need to relate GAPS to her goals for herself and then ask if she’s willing to give it a go for a certain period of time – like 6 weeks. She’s unlikely to commit to a long time frame, but if she gets through even a few weeks and feels a big difference, she may be willing to go further. I do recommend working with a GAPS practitioner or *very carefully* planning what you implement to be sure she feels better, and doesn’t just get lost in the die-off and terrible feeling parts. If she’s willing to read a small portion of the book – even the first 35 pages of the blue GAPS book – that may also increase her interest. Young adults often need to learn more about GAPS on their own, not from parental figures, so they feel they are making the choice for themselves, not to appease others. Best wishes!