GAPS Guide

My son is going through one of those extra-hungry* weeks. You know, the ones where they beg for food every three and a half minutes, then proceed to eat you out of house and home? Non-GAPS and GAPS kids alike experience hollow leg days, but for GAPS families, who can’t just head for a McDonald’s, or put 14 commercial wieners on the grill, these periods can be exhausting.

Yesterday, I got up early to make loads of food for a big day to the beach. By 7am, my son had eaten half the day’s feast! In a wise GAPS moment, I realized that a day at the beach was, instead of remaining a pleasurable idea, beginning to interfere with my lightness and with my son’s need to fill his belly.

We skipped the beach, and took a long bus ride instead. We had a light picnic out, picked up some groceries, came home and made a buffet-style dinner (fish, dulse, dill sauerkraut, carrots, salad, kefir, nuts – of those, only the fish needed any preparation, and that was a simple five-minute pan fry).

The buffet is what I used to do in early GAPS and it works really well. Lately I’d become more a stickler about food combining, etc, but on the beach-pending-disaster day, I realized I needed to toss those extra rules for a few hours.

While out and about, I developed another new idea, too: From now on, I will have a basket in the fridge of foods he can select from anytime. Home from daycare and starving? Don’t bug me; grab something from the basket. He loves being able to feed himself! It also becomes obvious, when he has a choice of several foods, when he is not actually hungry at all, and just bored or needing some one-on-one time.

Before bed last night, I put his breakfast in a bowl in the fridge. When he woke, I was able to point him in the right direction and he was able to sit himself down for a meal the second he was ready. Today I’m putting a cheese/greens/kraut mix into his basket for after school.

With this approach, more days will feel like relaxing days on the sand!

* I suspect the extra hungry week is due to the fact that several days ago we ran out of yogurt, which alone usually gives him 1-2 cups of full fat per day. On our bus trip yesterday, we did manage -much to my relief- to finally source more starter.