Today’s post is written by Melanie Christner, a GAPS Practitioner and a Certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner who used to be one of my Meal Plan subscribers. 🙂 She writes at Honest Body, I am so excited that Melanie was willing to share some of her GAPS knowledge with all of us! She is also offering a GAPS Class, and the registration for the class ends soon. If you’d like to learn more about the GAPS Diet, I recommend checking out her class!
Hello! I’m so pleased to be able to write a post for Brenda. When our family first started GAPS (before I trained as a GAPS Practitioner) it was Brenda’s meal plans that saved our family dinners! She had meal plans that fed our family of six (with leftovers no less) and that tasted great without being overly complicated.
The toughest part about the GAPS Protocol is certainly the Introduction part of the diet. When Brenda asked me to write about Intro, I knew what I wanted to supply. As a small (but important) part of one of the modules of the GAPS Class, I put together a 5 Day Prep for Intro. I chose five (5) days because those are typically the most difficult…and if you can be completely prepared with everything on hand ahead of time, all the better. I’ve written it for a family of four, but you can scale up or down as needed.
5 DAYS OF INTRO: Prep List
{ For a Family Of 4 }
You’ll Need:
Fats:
- 1 Qt Ghee
- 1 Qt Other – such as duck fat, beef tallow, lard
- Container of extra virgin coconut oil
Broth:
Enough for at least 2 cups per person/per day + more for misc
- Day 1 – 3 Qts brothDay 2 – 3 Qts broth
- Day 3 – 3 Qts broth
- Day 4 – 3 Qts broth
- Day 5 – 3 Qts broth
Meat for Boiling: Stages 1 – 3 (approx. 5 days of snacks & meals)
- 2 whole chickens
- 14 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs
- 2 – 3 lbs chicken legs
- 1 lb. wild halibut
- 1/2 lb. wild cod
- 1/2 lb. wild shrimp
- 8 lbs. ground meat for meatballs (lamb, beef or pork)
- 2 lbs. stew meat
- 1 lb organ meat, diced to mix in with meatballs & sausage
Produce
- 5 lemons
- 2 – 4 heads of broccoli, chopped into florets
- 4 heads cauliflower, chopped into florets
- 1 lbs green beans
- 10 lbs carrots
- 8 leeks, sliced
- 2 shallots
- 1- 2 bags of onions
- 6 bulbs garlic
- 2 winter squash of choice, peeled & diced
- large bulb of fresh ginger
- turmeric root (optional for tea)
- 1 bunch each fresh dill, cilantro, basil, parsley, marjoram, basil
- 2 zucchini
- 1.5 lb. mushrooms, sliced
- 1 – 2 avocados
- 12 – 16 tomatoes, or 8 jars of diced tomatoes (glass jars)
Fermented foods
- 1 qt. sauerkraut (juice 1/2 jar for stages 1 – 2)
- 1 qt. beet kvass
- 1 qt. pickles
Tea:
- Honey
- Ginger root (see produce list)
- Chamomile
- Mint
- Turmeric root (see produce list)
Misc:
- Crispy nuts (2 cups worth)
- Pastured eggs: 5 – 6 dozen
- 2 – 3 lb. plank of salmon (for making Swedish gravlax – optional)
- Sea salt
- Raw honey
Detox bath ingredients (for a rotation)
4 cups epsom salts
4 cups raw apple cider vinegar
4 cups baking soda
4 cups seaweed powder
4 cups sea salt
Supplements
Chelated form of magnesium, like Biotics Mg-Zyme, to help constipation
Fermented Cod Liver Oil by Green Pastures
Probiotics
Betaine HCl (if needed for digestion)
Equipment:
1 – 2 enema kits (in case of constipation, and for general health they are VERY useful)
Juicer – for carrots & lemons, in case low blood sugar is an issue
5 Day Intro Prep Menu (Sample)
Day 1: Stage One
Breakfast:
Filtered water + squeeze of lemon
Ginger root & turmeric root tea + coconut oil + tsp honey
Chicken soup (omit parsley) + 1 tsp sauerkraut juice
Broccoli simmered in broth
Lunch:
Chicken soup (omit parsley) + sip of beet kvass
Veggie of choice, simmered in broth
Dinner:
Lamb + garlic meatballs
Mashed cauliflower + garlic
Mug of Broth with garlic + sea salt + tsp sauerkraut juice
Detox Bath: 1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
Day 2: Stage Two
Breakfast:
Filtered water + squeeze of lemon
Ginger tea
Carrot ginger halibut soup + tsp sauerkraut juice
Lunch:
Egg yolk drop soup
Veggie of choice, simmered in broth
Dinner:
Chicken thighs simmered with leeks + mushrooms (Heal Your Gut cookbook)
Mashed cauliflower + garlic
Mug of Broth with garlic + sea salt + tsp sauerkraut juice
Detox Bath: 1 cup Epsom salts + lavender essential oil
Day 3: Stage Two
Breakfast:
Filtered water + squeeze of lemon
Hamburgers w/ Intro gravy
Veggie of choice, simmered in broth + ghee
Mug of broth w/ garlic + sea salt
Lunch:
Fish soup + tsp sauerkraut juice
Dinner:
Tomato soup + tsp sauerkraut juice (Heal Your Gut cookbook)
Simmered hamburgers + garlic/sea salt
Russian custards (2 egg yolks whipped w/ tsp honey per person)
Detox Bath: 1 cup baking soda
Day 4: Stage Three
Breakfast:
Filtered water + squeeze of lemon
Fermented cod liver oil + pickle juice in shot glass
Probiotic
Butternut squash leek soup (Heal Your Gut cookbook)
Scrambled egg w/ slow-cooked onion in ghee
Lunch:
Butternut squash leek soup (Heal Your Gut cookbook)
Baked chicken legs (Bake at 350F w/ ghee & salt, until tender)
Lacto-fermented pickles
Dinner:
Crockpot cilantro chicken (w/ mashed avocado)
Onion soup (Heal Your Gut cookbook)
Mug of Broth w/ garlic + sea salt
Detox Bath: 1 cup seaweed powder
Day 5: Stage Three
Breakfast:
Filtered water + squeeze of lemon
Fermented cod liver oil + pickle juice in shot glass
Probiotic
Nutbutter squash pancakes with ghee/honey mixture
Scrambled eggs
Mug of broth w/ garlic + sea salt
Lunch:
Lamb + garlic meatballs
Tomato soup (Heal Your Gut cookbook)
Lacto-fermented pickles
Dinner:
Beef & vegetable stew
Broccoli simmered in broth (with broth served on the side)
“Shot glass” of beet kvass
Russian custards
Detox Bath: 1 cup sea salt + lavender essential oil
A Note On Meat Stock vs. Broth
I remember years ago, when I was transitioning my family to a Real Food diet, making bone broth was one of my biggest hurdles. Generation by generation we have simply lost certain food arts, and this was one tradition I couldn’t wrap my head around.
As I finally made my own, I realized, it couldn’t…be…simpler. Soon I was making soups that other people raved about and that nourished the bodies of my family.
This broth making would become an especially huge part of our diet as we undertook the GAPS™ protocol. Taken in therapeutic amounts daily, it is extremely nourishing and building for digestive tract, bones, muscle, skin…with benefits ranging from stimulating growth hormone to getting rid of cellulite.
Bone broth is essentially made with bones or the carcass of the animal, and simmered for long periods of time.
Meat stock is simply the liquid that you have cooked your meat in, and is a shorter period of cooking time. (Which comes in handy when you are doing so much soup making on Intro!)
Meat stock is best for:
Being gentler and less detoxifying, and is used for the Introduction diet. Has less free glutamates, and much less histamines, which can be problematic for some in the beginning. MEAT STOCK IS RECOMMENDED FOR THE FIRST 30 DAYS OF GAPS.
Bone broth is best for:
Being more therapeutic, and should be eased into if you are doing the Introduction diet, especially if you are sensitive to free glutamates, as these will be increased in the longer cooking times for bone broth.
Here is an article that explains the differences further, along with some recipes:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/stock-vs-broth-are-you-confused/
I hope this is helpful and takes a little stress away from Intro. I wish you the best! GAPS™ is good and nourishing. If you would like to learn more, and be supported for a full 10 weeks by a GAPS™ Practitioner (who has been there) I would love for you to check out the GAPS Class. You’ll have lifetime access to the materials and can “go through” the course live as many times as you need to.
Remember to check out Melanie’s online GAPS Class! 🙂
do you have a recipe link for your meatballs??
Maria, here are my meatball recipes: https://www.wellfedhomestead.com/meatballs-with-herb-gravy and https://www.wellfedhomestead.com/swedish-meatballs-and-zucchini-noodles 🙂
Hi Brenda, I’m so happy I search and found you! I googled, “GAPS menu plan for the working person” and you were first in line. I plan on starting the GAPS intro diet in May. I have the book, And the two recipes books. Did all my reading last year and now, I’m ready to do this, on account of too much pain and discomfort in my gut. I would really like to check out Melanie’s online GAPS class but all the links I tried are broken. Does she have an updated link? Thanks!