It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 3

So, you’ve done the GAPS diet Stages 1 and 2 and your digestion is better than ever. You are getting a bit tired of all that soup and vegetables cooked until they’re smushy. You’re in luck, because Stage 3 brings on new textures! It’s important to introduce the new foods one and a time and in moderation to continue the healing process and make sure that you can tell what is causing reactions, if you have them.

Here’s what you get on Stage 3:

• All the foods you’ve been eating on Stage 1 and Stage 2
• Ripe avocado
• Pancakes made from nut butter, eggs, & winter squash
• Scrambled eggs
• Sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables

Remember to continue with the sensitivity test before introducing new foods, and consult your health care practitioner if you have any questions about how a particular food may affect you!

Here are more details about eating the new foods:
All the foods you’ve been eating on Stage 1 and Stage 2
Keep eating your soup and probiotic foods! While the new foods introduce new sources of nutrients, the soup remains very important source of healing and nutrition. Have a cup of broth with meals that are not mainly comprised of soup!

Ripe avocado
On the GAPS diet, it’s important to choose ripe fruits and vegetables. Avocados are a great source of saturated fat and will help you feel full. You can start of with 1-3 tablespoons in soup, and increase the amount. You can use avocado as a side with your other meals as well.

Pancakes made from nut butter, eggs, & winter squash
All ingredients on the GAPS diet are organic, and nuts are no exception. Nutbutter is really easy to make, but it does take some doing. We use the Nourishing Traditions method of processing nuts. First you rinse and soak them, then dehydrate them, then process them into nut butter. Not only does soaking the nuts help eliminate gluten cross-contamination, it also removes phytic acid. This process makes them easier to digest. We have a recipe up for almond-walnut butter, but you should start with just one kind of nut at a time.

You’ll want to prepare quite a bit of winter squash ahead of time so that you can use it in these recipes. It’s very easy to do – you can either peel & deseed it, then put it through a food processor and then bag that up, or you can do like we do and roast it.

To make the pancakes, combine the three ingredients, and then cook them in a pan with ghee, goose fat, or duck fat, taking care not to burn them. Experiment with the proportions to get a pancake you like the texture of. Do not expect them to be like Bisquick pancakes. They won’t be. But they’ll be yummy! We use these same three ingredients to make a baked dish which is very much like Dutch Babies (German Pancakes).

Scrambled eggs
Make sure you add a lot of fat to your scrambled eggs. Ghee, duck fat, goose fat, or pork fat are recommended. Scrambled eggs turn out the fluffiest if you use low heat and stir slowly.

Sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables
You’ve already been eating the juice of your fermented veggies, now you get to enjoy the crunch! In this stage, you’ll gradually work up to about 4 teaspoons of fermented vegetables with each meal.

Prep for Stage 4
In Stage 4 you’ll start juicing, and you’ll be baking with nut flours! Make sure you have crispy nuts ready to go, and a juicer!

If you need a bit more guidance on getting all set up to start GAPS, check out these related posts:

• GAPS Resources
• Starting GAPS
• It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 1
• It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 2
• It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 3
• It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 4
• It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 5
• It’s so Easy – GAPS Intro Stage 6
• The GAPS Full Diet

This post is part of the Probiotic Food Challenge on Real Food Forager!