When I watched the videos of Donna and Natasha I was floored, it all made sense and I am very excited to start the diet. I am doing BED since I had already ordered the book.

Thank you to all for posting here, it answered alot of my questions as to the diet differences.

I will post here when I have good news as I know my son will be recovered from his autism.

Maryjo

About three months into it, I had one piece of bread. The next day, I had two. That night, I was up until 3am “organizing Legos” like I had OCD. Amazing!! During the day, I snapped at my kids and yelled at them over nothing. At that moment, I realized I used to do that ALL THE TIME, but I hadn’t in 3 months, since I started the diet. So YES, GAPS does absolutely work on stress levels. I felt completely capable of handling anything, thus never yelled or got stressed out. And I have to stress again, my body and mind felt really right, like it should feel.

Now, 8 months into it, I’m cheating again. The yelling has started again and now I’m having sleep issues which adds to the stress. But I know I have a tool now to make it go away.

Two more things, dairy used to immediately clog up my nose and my chest would feel tighter. That no longer happens. And my son who has allergies and asthma, hasn’t had an asthma attack in 2 months now. Just wanted to share my experience. I think this diet is very important for physical & mental health.

My family is ovo-vegetarian/ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and gluten-free, but we’re moving toward a trial-month on the GAPS diet. (I bought my first meat in 20 years today – a free range chicken that is simmering on the stove right now, well on it’s way to becoming stock and more).

I have found over the past year+ of eating gluten-free that I don’t tolerate any grains very well. My older son is definitely gluten intolerant and is also behaviorally challenging. My 2 year old son, who is still nursing, has recently developed constipation issues that I’m hoping GAPS will help.

As was mentioned above, the GAPS diet allows a few less-starchy legumes. I am wondering if anyone has experience or knowledge of whether the Indian dals, such as moong dal and urad dal, could be eaten on the GAPS diet? Thanks!

Thanks for the excellent thoughts! I think that it is important to do the full diet if you have major issues you want to heal. But as an “all or nothing” type of gal, I think that it’s also important to say that everyone could benefit from adding in bone broths and cultured foods into their diet, and that many people will see improvements in their health even from just adding in nourishing foods like bone broths. I wish it were that easy for all of us!

I think that you can definitely cut corners and by not wasting anything, really be able to utilize your resources well. I do think that it would cost more to eat grain free, however. It would be worth it for those of us who have health issues to resolve, but you may want to have at least a slightly higher food budget while on the diet. But it would be worth the extra cost if you were able to resolve health issues (that could cause doctor bills!).

Good luck to all those who choose this journey.

Great post! I just wanted to share my experience briefly (catching up on my blog reading, can you tell?!?!) We found great success with my daughter (whose long saga of birth trauma and other ailments can be found at http://oreganicthrifty.blogspot.com/search/label/our%20healing%20journey)
when we were doing GAPS for yeast and constipation issues. I had also hoped that GAPS would help the behavioral issues as well, but it did not. Fortunately, I found out about “Neurodevelopmental Retraining” which is a movement-based therapy that builds new neurological growth in the brain. Interestingly enough, children with neurological impairments (the whole spectrum) have digestive issues, as Dr. Campbell-McBride has noted as a pediatric neurologist.

After some more health sleuthing as to my daughter’s issues, we began Neurodevelopmental Retraining (which recommends the GAPS diet in conjunction). I also had Nutritional Response Testing done on her by a local Naturopath, Dr. Daniel Chong (awesome) and he detected mercury issues and major wheat, rice, corn, and gluten intolerances. I guess mercury can cause persistant yeast issues, which my daughter definitely dealt with. Interestingly enough, almost the day after we started our herbal supplements for her (pre-digested, fermented chlorella) the yeast issues practically disappeared as the chlorella helps chelate heavy metals. Even though she’s eating plenty of fruit and honey on GAPS, she has not a single yeast issue. So the only thing that’s changed is the chelating agent, which I think Dr. NCM discusses in her book.

Anyway, it’s all very interesting . All this to say, sometimes diet alone isn’t enough; it might also take some mild chelation and movement therapy if the underlying cause of the digestive disorders is neurological. But the latter can never be healed without the change in diet.

I also have been on BED and I love the principles. I didn’t do well with any of the grains, and just feel better when I eat GAPS. I think a person with type A blood would do really well on BED, while I (a type B) prefer more meat and fat and less carbs.