The Gut and Psychology
Syndrome (GAPS) Diet
The GAPS diet was developed for autistic children by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. She is the mother of an autistic son who recovered from autism after being on the GAPS diet. Her book contains numerous examples of other recovered autistic children.
Autistic children almost always have some kind of digestive problem. When Dr. Campbell-McBride asks parents about their child's stools, it is very rare for them to respond that they are normal.
The GAPS diet was developed from the SCD but has an introductory phase designed to heal the intestine and put the patient on the road to recovery quickly. I tried the GAPS diet when I was making no progress on reducing diarrhea seven weeks after having finished a course of antibiotics. It got me back to normal stools within a week.
The introductory phase of the GAPS diet begins with a diet of bone broth, thoroughly cooked meat used in making the broth, all of the gelatinous tissues and fat from the bones and broth, and the marrow from the bones. She has her patients eat all of the fat because it is highly saturated fat and its short chain fatty acids can be absorbed directly into intestinal cells without needing any digestion first, so it nourishes the intestinal cells quickly and easily to speed their healing. Thoroughly cooked non-starchy vegetables can be added to make the broth a soup. Probiotic foods are also in the introductory phase starting with cultured vegetables. Cultured dairy products are introduced as soon as possible. After the first several days, avocados, ghee and egg yolks are introduced, and then eggs and cooked peeled apples. Finally, the patient moves to the full GAPS diet which includes all of the foods permitted by the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD).
Dr. Campbell-McBride says that healing the intestine and establishing healthy flora will clear up food allergies. As you can see from the foods on the introductory diet, she is generous with dairy products and eggs. She says that homemade ghee is so pure that her patients, even those with severe dairy allergy, tolerate it. (I made ghee from goat butter, and did not tolerate it. I also ate avocado every day for three weeks, and began reacting to that). This diet is a good natural treatment for autistic children and is excellent for quick intestinal healing, but if you have food allergies and try this diet, you should be careful and take your allergies more seriously than the GAPS diet does.
Footnotes