{"id":2003,"date":"2016-09-21T12:45:40","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T00:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2021-05-18T09:39:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T21:39:49","slug":"gaps-diet-part-2-which-foods-to-avoid-and-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/2016\/09\/21\/gaps-diet-part-2-which-foods-to-avoid-and-why\/","title":{"rendered":"GAPS diet – Part 2: which foods to avoid, and why"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can GAPS help people with autism and other mental, digestive, allergy or autoimmune issues?<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re on the autism spectrum, we talked about why you might want to do this diet in Part 1 \u2013 an intro to the GAPS diet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you have any other mental or psychological issues, digestive problems, allergies or sensitivities, autoimmune conditions, or anything else that might be because of a gut dysfunction, GAPS might also be suitable for you.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For today, we\u2019re going to cover the foods that need to be avoided while on the protocol.<\/p>\n

GAPS Unfriendly foods<\/h3>\n

There are three main types of food to avoid on the GAPS protocol:
\n\u2022 Certain carb foods (temporarily)
\n\u2022 Certain dairy products (temporarily, unless you have allergies)
\n\u2022 Processed foods (ideally permanently)<\/p>\n

Specific Carbohydrate foods<\/h3>\n

The GAPS diet is based on the Specific Carbohydrate diet (SCD) written about by Elaine Gottschall in her book \u201cBreaking the Vicious Cycle\u201d. Dr Natasha has added other traditional healing foods and lifestyle modifications to create the GAPS diet.<\/p>\n

To understand why these carbs need to be avoided, it\u2019s helpful to understand the main types of carbs (sugars \/ starches). The three main types are shown in the chart below.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Our bodies can only use the simple sugars for energy, so when we eat either double sugars (disaccharides) or starches (strings of glucose molecules) they need to be broken down to single molecules.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s take a quick trip through the digestive system, focussing on where carbs and sugars are digested.<\/p>\n

Digestion starts in the mouth. When we chew food, an enzyme called amylase is released which helps to break down and digest carbohydrates. This is why it\u2019s so important to chew well.<\/p>\n

In my second post about DNA testing<\/a>, I talked about how analysis of our AMY1 gene tells us how much salivary amylase we produce ie how well we can break down carbs. There is quite a wide spectrum here, and some of us are already disadvantaged at step 1 of digestion, so might need to avoid starches on a more permanent basis.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After food goes through the stomach, it goes to the small intestine, where enzymes released from the pancreas also include amylase. Between the mouth and the small intestine, all starches, or strings of glucose, are broken down to maltose, which is two glucose molecules joined together.<\/p>\n

Now we come to the final stage of digestion, on the villi of the small intestine. Here the double sugars (sucrose, lactose and maltose) should be broken apart by another type of enzyme. But when the gut is damaged, these enzymes are not produced properly and the double sugars can\u2019t be separated.<\/p>\n

So we need to avoid starches and double sugars till the gut has healed. This means:<\/p>\n

\u2022 All grains, including whole grains and quasi grains like quinoa
\n\u2022 All legumes\/soy (except navy\/haricot beans which have different sugars)
\n\u2022 Starchy veges: Corn on the cob, Kumara, Parsnip, Potato, Yams, Sweet Potato
\n\u2022 Fruit that is unripe or ripened in cold storage
\n\u2022 Natural sweeteners including rapadura, maple syrup
\n\u2022 Beer, brandy, liquers<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re familiar with a gluten free diet, you\u2019ll see that by eliminating grains, we\u2019re also eliminating all gluten, which is also a problem food that can\u2019t be properly digested. But this is going one step further.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t worry though! There are other carbs (and alcohol) you can have, which we\u2019ll talk about next time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Certain dairy products<\/h3>\n

With dairy, there are two potential problems. The first is the double sugar, lactose. We can break that down into single sugars by fermenting. This means making homemade yoghurt or kefir out of your milk or cream.<\/p>\n

The other problem, as many of you will already know, is the casein. Unfortunately, fermenting doesn\u2019t break that down.<\/p>\n

If you are casein sensitive, you may be fine on ghee (clarified butter), but you will probably have to avoid all other dairy.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, you may be able to tolerate fermented milk and cream, and later on, cheese.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Processed foods<\/h3>\n

These foods are really not very good for most people, so you may have to avoid them even in the long term:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Refined sugars
\n\u2022 Refined carbs, white flour, white rice
\n\u2022 Pasteurised milk
\n\u2022 Processed foods of any kind, incl processed meats like most salami and sausage
\n\u2022 Unfermented soy products
\n\u2022 \u201cBad\u201d fats \u2013 most vegetable oils, especially those that haven\u2019t been cold pressed, hydrogenated oils, margarines, anything commercially deep fried
\n\u2022 Additives \u2013 artificial colours, flavours, sweeteners, and preservatives
\n\u2022 Toxins \u2013 aspartame, MSG, tobacco, recreational and over the counter drugs<\/p>\n

You can read more about whole foods vs processed in my other nutrition posts.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One last category<\/h3>\n

Anything you already know you have a bad reaction to, even if it is technically a GAPS friendly food.<\/p>\n

Depending on what these are, you might have to do a modified version of GAPS. In some cases, you might not be able to follow it exactly but might be able to use the healing principles in different ways.<\/p>\n

Bottom line<\/h3>\n

So, sorry to say, this means:<\/p>\n

\u2022 NO bread, pancakes, muffins, cakes, biscuits (cookies), snack bars, ice cream or desserts (unless you have made them yourself from GAPS foods)
\n\u2022 NO rice, pasta, breakfast cereals, chippies (crisps), corn chips, soft drinks, chocolate or lollies (candy)
\n\u2022 And just in case you missed it earlier, yes, I did say NO beer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now, don\u2019t get all gung-ho on me and go rushing off to take all these things out of your diet today. Now you know what might be causing problems, we can go over what you CAN eat next time. Part 3 is here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Once you know that, if you decide you want to give GAPS a go, I always recommend two things:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Do lots of reading, so you know what to expect
\n\u2022 And above all, ease in! Take it slowly, step by step.<\/p>\n

This is an overview, and usually I\u2019d spend quite a while going into the detail of this with my clients.\u00a0For more info, visit\u00a0my GAPS website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Originally posted on Steemit –\u00a0https:\/\/steemit.com\/health\/@kiwideb\/gaps-diet-part-2-which-foods-to-avoid-and-why<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can GAPS help people with autism and other mental, digestive, allergy or autoimmune issues? If you\u2019re on the autism spectrum, we talked about why you might want to do this diet in Part 1 \u2013 an intro to the GAPS diet. If you have any other mental or psychological issues, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[37,18,41],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2144,"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions\/2144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.frot.co.nz\/design\/dietnet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}