Finishing the week with eggs, onions, cheese, butter, honey, etc -all items we had limited supplies of- to spare and nary an optional cauliflower purchased has left me somewhat bewildered.

Besides enjoying generous helpings of squash in a pie, a big change was that we ate two meals of fermented lentils, a food we love but generally skip in favour of fatty meats. Per GAPS, we soaked them for twenty-four hours in water with a tablespoon of kefir before rinsing and preparing them. Another difference is that we used a lot of coconut oil where we’d normally use butter, rationing our 1/4 pound of the latter for dishes expressly wanting that specific flavour.

Friday through Monday morning my son’s behaviour was off-kilter, several times resembling a non-GAPS countenance. My intuition is that this was due to the copious orange squash (a bit too high sugar for his body) eaten Friday afternoon and evening. Perhaps for the same reason, or because of the vastly increased amount of coconut oil (an awesome die-off trigger for many), my tell-tale patch of eczema returned with a vengeance. Two nightly doses of Oil of Oregano largely resolved that.

A highlight was making a snack from on-hand supplies that totally delighted not only us, but two non-GAPS, processed-food-addicted kids! What was it? Unmeasured amounts of butter, cocoa (advanced GAPS), shredded coconut, honey, salt. I mashed it together, rolled it into little balls, and refrigerated. They tasted just like nanaimo bars!

Using just what we (or, in the snack’s case, my partner) had on hand definitely saved us money while also igniting creativity. Instead of buying a chicken roasted by Whole Foods (a single mom’s respite), I prepared our own purchased at half the cost. Bored of roasted chicken, but being required to use what we had, I rubbed it with different spices than usual for a delightful change. We also had other delicious new snacks and a soup previously frozen during intro which did indeed prove as yummy as I’d thought it was when I first set it aside.

Surprisingly, my six year old proved totally game, completely eliminating his daily requests for pepperoni sticks from the local deli as well as his rarer requests for things like Lara Bars. (Because he no longer needs to be on strict GAPS, I did let him use his own savings to buy a single, non-GAPS cookie at a garage sale.) He seems to have enjoyed the week and appreciated the value of the experiment.

As for me, I feel I’ve re-set my spending habits and become more conscious of what I’m doing, and what my highest priorities need to be. I plan to focus the next two weeks on comparison shopping, learning which nutrient-dense foods bring the most bang for my buck. For example, if butter is more costly than coconut oil, what amount of butter can serve our butter-specific nutritional needs (eg. Vitamin A), allowing us to rely on the lower cost coconut oil and drippings for the rest of our fats? As always, I’ll report back here.

What are your favourite savings approaches? (To learn how one large family does GAPS on a budget, be sure to read the comment from Cris on this experiment’s original post. You gotta love that girl’s commitment to her family, their health, and their budget! And the results?! Yeah…Seriously, don’t miss her note!)

This exercise will not only serve its primary purpose of saving us some cash and making us more conscious of our spending impulses and habits, it will surely ignite some of that ‘limited ingredients’ creativity we experienced early intro. It will also get us using up the leftover soups, as well as specific meats, we put in the freezer weeks ago and have since ignored!

Now, I’m not generally one to bulk buy or stock up (for one reason why, see the GAPS Guide book page 127), thus, I have not a large amount in reserves, but enough.

As of the first morning, here’s what we had on hand:

FREEZER – These are the items we (a) use infrequently (flours, seeds, fruit), (b) thaw one at a time (meats), replacing our favourites and perpetually ignoring the rest, or (c) wonder if it was really as tasty as we thought it was when first made, then decline in favour of a fresh batch (soups). Here we have: coconut flour, almond flour, half a salmon, broth, mushroom-onion soup, chicken soup, lentils, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, ground beef, boysenberries, whole chicken, butternut squash, chicken thigh, two ossobucco steaks, beef bones, liver chunks.

FRIDGE – In this space are the items we use regularly or, in the case of jam, that simply belong best here: goat milk kefir, 200 grams cheddar, sauerkraut, two dozen eggs, mushrooms, salad greens, half an avocado, six tomatoes, kale, three onions, three stalks celery, green cabbage, purple cabbage, two bell peppers, two zuchinni, two carrots, two globes of garlic, cooked lamb shanks in their gelled broth, roasted chicken, salsa, lemon, fruit-only jam, raw ginger, butter, oils (fish, cod liver, nut and seed).

For our family of two, the amounts of veggies detailed above usually lasts us a day or two. We shop every two to three days to replenish our veggie supply, aiming for a good variety over the course of a week or so. I’m nervous about fewer veggies. However, like I said I did make one exception to the moratorium in favour of two heads of cauliflower. Interesting that this is what I find I can’t do without! I find cauliflower so versatile, usually shredding it into “rice” for risotto, etc. Not sure how I’ll stretch three onions over seven days, as this is a key ingredient for all my savoury dishes. Oh well -I’m aiming for creativity, after all! I’m super relieved we happened to have so many eggs around.

CUPBOARD – A mix and match of things used regularly and things used rarely: four cans of salmon, dulse, spices, Apple Cider Vinegar, sea salt, oils (olive, grapeseed, coconut), vanilla, tomato paste, raw cocoa powder, coconut milk, canned tomatoes (our first in over three years), honey, bananas (bought in bulk to freeze for ice creams), 1/5th cup cashew butter, herbal teas.

Almost definitely I’ll be making a gorgeous cabbage-dill soup as well as a tomato one. Spiralized noodles, perhaps? The squash makes very nice flour-free cookies or my favourite pie, and salmon patties are always a hit. These moves reserve the almond flour, which we like to limit use of, for a single meal of pancakes.

Are you, too, ready to try some new approaches? For oodles of online recipe options, click here.

I remain rather stunned at having zero cravings. I’m really noticing that so far my body has asked for nothing beyond these soups. What does bring up thoughts is exposure. When I look at recipes or smell a neighbour’s baking, I’ve got the whole Pavlov’s dog thing going on. In those moments, I’m suddenly on auto-pilot, immediately pondering access. How bizarre! How wild that my mind can react so profoundly to exposure or ‘advertisements’, while my body feels so well and satisfied on what it has. Well, maybe it’s not so odd: I have the same thing with furniture. I live in a very small apartment with very little furniture. I love it that way: I like us to have space to move and play, lots of light, little to clean. I feel so good when I sit in my home. But when I see movie scenes or magazine photos of more involved approaches, I really respond to that, getting all excited, planning. A good move in my life is to remember who I am and what works best for me, and to spend little if any time connecting with things my own self hasn’t requested. My mind, spirit and body are all deeply satisfied with relative simplicity -such as, apparently, with these soups! Tomorrow’s? Chicken drumsticks, celery, broccoli, bell pepper and the rest of the usual contents.

My son was keen again today on ‘something different’, so for him I did a variation on yesterday’s squash dish: boiled carrots, quite a bit of duck fat, egg mixed in (it basically gets cooked that way), grated ginger, little bit of honey. I blended it together, poured it into muffin forms and, mistakenly believing we were moving on to roasted veggies tomorrow anyway, baked them. He was over the moon with these “cupcakes”. (When you are ready for this type or preparation, you can alternatively skip the baking part to enjoy this as a pudding alongside your broth.)

I’ve been trying to figure out how to bake or roast osso bucco pieces. If I’m remembering correctly, the Bager/Lass Everyday Grain-Free Gourmet book has a recipe for osso bucco, but at the beginning of the week I loaned all my SCD and GAPS cookbooks to someone looking at going gluten-free. (It just occured to me that being loaned the recipe books -especially those with gorgeous photos- could really help convince a person to go for it!) I like having a recipe to work off the first couple of times, before starting experiments. Anyone with tips? They are steaks, 1-1.5 inches thick, beef around (I believe I was told)  leg bone. On meat-baking day I’m wanting to do these in the oven, low and slow. I have large glass baking pans but not a roasting pan nor lid.

A big day tomorrow. As always, doing and supporting others in GAPS will be priority; doing sports, etc, will have to be assessed as I go.

On Budgeting…

At this point in intro, some people start feeling very worried about their food bill. People are committed to buying the freshest, cleanest sources of food they can manage, and then a ravenous appetite kicks in for them or their kids! People feel afraid their food bills might stay this high forever! They won’t. Usually, appetites mellow about 6-8 weeks after the ravenous period sets in.

For tips around avoiding unnecessary expenses or otherwise wasted expenditures while on GAPS, please review your GAPS Guide book. Following the tips in the ‘Budgeting’ and ‘Shopping’ chapters alone will save you the cost of the book and far more (enough to buy all the recipe books with beautiful photos)! Depending on the tips you have yet to apply, the Guide can help you save literally hundreds of dollars over time!

The GAPS Guide book offers a full chapter on budgeting. Below are four additional tips to take into consideration:

Read the fine print…and the unprinted. I purchased an item called “The Zapper” from a site run by K. Presner. The site presented a “trial offer”. I made the purchase, followed instructions exactly, kept the item in pristine condition, carefully rewrapped it and mailed it back according to the very explicit instructions. After the “refund”, I was out over $125.00. Why? The seller deducted 10% in “banking and administrative fees”, 15% in a “service fee”, full shipping (and of course I paid to ship the return), plus a hefty difference in exchange rates from the time of purchase to return. Where policies stand to gain the seller $125 on a returned item, now available for resell, we realize that the business is extremely viable regardless of whether the product works or not.

Check your statements. A year after having purchased some specific software, I noticed a strange charge on my credit card. I called the company. It claimed that by not opting out of a renewal subscription, I had opted in! I ordered them to remove the charge and not bill me again.

Return items. If an item is in brand new, packaged condition and you realize you do not need it after all, return it. Conversely, if an item has been used but is found to be defective or to have unlisted ingredients that are affecting you, return it. Renew Life, for example, offers in-store refunds for its parasite cleanse if not tolerated, and Inno-Vite offers in-store refunds for its Yeast Buster kit if not tolerated. The store at which I purchase most of my groceries, supplements, gadgets and appliances is absolutely excellent about refunding any purchase over which the customer is not 100% satisfied. Before shopping, check with a store or company about its refund policies.

Follow up on refund promises. A few months after purchasing my Omega 8005 juicer, large pieces broke off of the auger. As my family was unable to manage several weeks without the machine, Omega agreed that I could buy a replacement auger and, upon its receipt, mail in the defective one and receive a full refund. Alas, no refund was forthcoming. Four months, thirteen emails, and a long-distance phone call later, I finally received a refund on the part (but not on their hefty shipping cost).

Follow up on purchase orders. The first time I ordered from ChemistDirect in the UK, I received my order. The second time, I did not. The tracking number they gave me brought up no results in the Royal Mail system. Each time I contacted the company, they pasted in a new stock answer, each asserting that they were not responsible for delivery. In a case such as this, one can file a dispute claim with one’s credit card company.

I decided to try it in my Excalibur dehydrator and had fantastic results!

Fed up with all the conflicting rules and regs, and with the blessings of my dear online support group, here’s what I did:

• Push veggies (a whole cabbage; several carrots; garlic cloves; ginger; onion) through my Omega 8005 homogenizer.
• Juice a couple of carrots to top its liquid up.
• Add sea salt and crushed peppercorns.
• Mix this up a bit and stuffed it into the jar.
• Press the batch down, to get all the air pockets out.
• Press some whole cabbage leaves on top.
• With at least 2″ of space between the veggies and lid, close the jar tightly.
• Put the jar of veggies + salt, and a thermometer, into my Excalibur dehydrator. Set the machine to it’s lowest temperature point, ie. just barely ‘on’. (It ran 18-24 Celsius, but mostly 20/21, which is perfect.)

Sure enough, at the end of Day 6, I opened the jar and it was a’ sizzling and a’ hopping. Pretty happy ferment, there.

Always chicken to try my newest batch, I put it in the fridge for three more days. Well, shiver me timbers, this was the most fantastic kraut I have ever had! It is tangy, zesty, flavourful –it sparkles in my mouth!! Oh, I love it so! The only challenge now will be going ‘low and slow‘ with it.

(This just in: My Eastern European Taste-Tester pronounced it “excellent” and has requested the recipe.)

Next batch I’m foraying into the world of curried krauts, as outlined in the book Vibrant Living.

I’m very happy about having one machine that can do my nut dehydration, crackers, SCD yogurt, and veggie ferments –even in a cold house. I didn’t love the sound of the machine for six straight days and nights, but it was certainly livable. Note: Those with a warmer house can simply set their jar anywhere. Others might use a simple heating pad, or wrap the jar in warm towels and set into an insulated bag, etc.

These notes are provided to help you save money and research time. If they have done so, please consider donating a portion of those savings to this blog.

Shopping Tip! To get equipment and supplements cheap or free, try kijiji (Canada or US), Craigslist (Canada or US) or Freecycle (Canada or US) then EBay. As not everyone posting an offer will bother reading the “wanted” ads, be sure to read the “offer” posts regularly.

For quality service in and samples of GAPS-specific products, click here. Those purchasing GAPS Guide from NuTriVene receive a discount coupon which can be applied toward other NuTriVene products, such as supplements.

Activated Charcoal

Yes. This remedy, used just once, brought great relief in a too-intense die-off. I think it’s a good idea for every medicine cabinet.

Baking Soda

Yes. I love it for deodorizing, cleaning, detox baths and more.

Bio-Kult

Yes. For me, it successfully triggers die-off. I found that when we skipped it for several days, my son and I both stopped pooping. (Most of a stool is used bacteria.) Save!

CitraSolv Cleaner and Degreaser by Nature’s Miracle

Yes. Super effective on awful stains, stickiness, etc. It seems non-toxic, but I don’t know for sure.

Cod Liver Oil

Yes. I have not noticed specific results, but I’m just satisfied that the taste did indeed become bearable over time. (My son actually loves it!) This is a product we’ve continued using. We use Green Pastures Fermented, Plain – I don’t think this is the raw one. I’d go for the raw one next time, and still unflavoured. Save!

Colander and Sieve

Yes. I use a colander for draining tiny bones, etc, out of a broth, for draining and rinsing soaked nuts, etc. A sieve I use for draining and rinsing small seeds, like sesame. If soaking sesame seeds at the same time as other items (say, for my Walnut-Sesame patties), put the sesame seeds into a sieve and set the sieve into the walnuts’ water. When you go to drain and rinse, the seeds don’t disappear through a colander’s big holes.

Epsom Salts

These make a wonderfully soothing detox bath.

Excalibur Dehydrator 9 Tray With Timer

So far, so good. I’ve had mine for only a week, but I’ve had success making zucchini chips, dehydrating some SCD cookies, making SCD yogurt (setting to 105 F and achieving 106) and recrisping soaked almonds. When purchased directly from the manufacturer, a 30-day satisfaction guarantee is offered.  However, in my (Canadian) case, taking them up on this would still result in a net cost to me of $126 in shipping and customs.

GAPS Guide Book – Am I biased because I wrote it? Perhaps. But I wrote it because it seemed so badly needed. Feedback from others indicates that this is so.

Gut & Psychology Syndrome Book

Yes. I read it through, then referenced it every single day for at least the first several months and still refer to it regularly. Save!

Hulda Clark Parasite Cleanse Protocol

Yes. Although I did not see any parasites leave my body, I had various positive results, including an end to a 30+ year nailbiting habit! I used the brands recommended by my health food store: Knowledge Products Black Walnut Extra Strength; Knowledge Products Cloves; New Roots Wormwood. I did not need the l orthinine. Would definitely do this again. However, I did not do the recommended maintenance (because I’m terrible at any maintenance program) and my nailbiting came back after a few months. (I am now looking into the Ultimate Zapper to replace this program. I’ll report on that after I check it out.)

Jars

Yes. I like wide-mouth glass jars, so I can see what’s in them, put things in easily, retrieve food with a cooking spoon, and fit my hand in to clean them well. I use all the jars I got from the days in which I bought a lot of Nuts To You nut butters. For storing and fermenting, I get canning jars from thrift shops and new lids from any department store.

Knife

Yes. When I started cooking like a madwoman, a friend gave me an awesome knife. It’s a J.A. Henckels International 31161 – 200mm (8″) no stain. Large and heavy, it practically does the work for me –even on a raw butternut squash! A good knife can make all the difference to your ease, energy and happiness in the kitchen. Don’t skimp here. One cooking guide strongly recommends a 10″ Chef’s knife, insisting that if we like an 8″, we’ll be ecstatic over the self-employment leanings of a 10″!

Knife Sharpener

I’ve tried a few. As clumsy and inattentive as I am, I didn’t feel safe with any until I met the TwinSharp. I cannot get over it! It is  safe, simple, fast and super effective. I press my knife through it every second or third cooking session and I have a brand new knife! I’m in Canada and bought mine at Sears.

Large Pot With Lid

Yes. This is critical for the big batches of broth, soup, etc – especially during intro (or, for a big family, every day). Although some avoid stainless steel over concerns of nickel or cadmium potentially leaching, I use stainless steel happily. Glass is another good option. For more specific pot-thoughts, please see the comments, below this post, by Justine and Eloise.

Renew Life’s First Cleanse

Please note: I do not recommend herbal cleanses in the first months of GAPS. This is because (a) GAPS is already intensely cleansing (you won’t need or want a double whammy), (b) a cleanse’s ingredients can be hard on a still-compromised system thus can interfere with GAPS, and (c) it is important to have those first several months to see how GAPS alone works in you, and for you to build a relationship with your body. Curious as I am, eleven months into GAPS, I completed Renew Life’s First Cleanse. I did indeed find it ‘gentle yet effective’ for my somewhat sensitive system. I was not overwhelmed by stuff, but saw the following changes in my body: a triggering of mild eczema which I have not seen in almost 20 years, the return of the morning nausea (resolved upon morning bowel movement) which I’d otherwise only had in the first months on GAPS, two pimples then incredibly clear and bright skin, some degree of fatigue, resolved upon ending the cleanse (this may or may not have been due to the cleanse). Did I feel better in the end? No. And the mild eczema on my hand has stuck around. But based on the changes, I feel I did achieve a deeper level of healing.

S Boulardii

Yes. Successfully triggers die-off. Improves stools. For a ‘clean’ version and   savings, click here.

Seventh Generation Dish Liquid and Laundry Detergent

Yes. Without hurting my “delicate constitution”, they work on everything, including my son’s poopy pants and my greasy broth pots. (For big dish-grease, I do sometimes add a touch of baking soda to a soapy scrubbie.) Note: According to their website, these products contain, respectively, Sodium Laureth Sulfate and Sodium Sulfate. These may be problematic for some.

Steamer Basket

Yes.  I use a collapsible one that fits into any pot. I steam squash, greens, you name it.

Stick Blender

Yes. For years and years I had a Braun handheld. Loved it. It finally died. I then bought a Cuisinart. I don’t think the brand matters. What matters is that I can zoom a soup, pate or dip in seconds, then detach and quickly clean the active part. I use this 1-3 times per day.

Tea Tree Oil

Yes. A drop in shampoo usually relieves dandruff; a drop in the laundry disinfects; a toothbrush soaked in water + tea tree oil gives an extra clean feel; etc.

Thermometers – Meat, Yogurt

Yes. These guys are awesome little tools to ensure safety (meats) and maximum effectiveness (yogurts). Be sure to get ones that can be recalibrated and then do this regularly! I caused myself much grief using a thermometer which was “off”, only to ultimately learn that the particular one I’d purchased could not even be reset. Note: Just as with their non-digital counterparts, some digital ones can be recalibrated and some cannot.

Thermoses

Yes. Correctly conditioned before each use, these can be used to keep cold things cold or hot things hot. I use one from the Thermos brand ‘SteelCommuter’ line. I chose one that was 750ml, because this was the biggest that was still simple in design. I chose a widemouth, perfect cylinder so that I could scoop all the way to the bottom and also fit my entire hand in to clean it. Again so that it would be easy to clean, and also so that it would have fewer parts that could break, I chose one with no parts besides body and lid –no handle, no straw, no built-in spoon.  I originally bought two and, later, two more. For a picnic, we fill two with drinking water and two with our meal. Some people aim to avoid stainless steel, due to concerns about the potential leaching of nickel or cadmium. They might opt for a glass-lined version. (Be aware that some companies offering ‘glass’ containers line the glass with  non-removable plastic.)

Val’s Veggie Bars

Yes. It’s a rare hand/body soap that doesn’t irritate me. (I don’t know why Ivory says its product is pure. I can’t be within ten feet of a bar of Ivory without getting an intense headache.)

Potentially Helpful for Some, But Not A Fit For Me

These notes are provided to help you save money and research time. If they have done so, please consider donating a portion of those savings to this blog.

Note: When I say I was able to return a product, I have never tried this with one purchased online. For appliances, etc, I try to shop locally in stores with excellent return policies, just in case.

Acupeds

A tricky one.  On the one hand, I enjoyed the idea and the activity (of sticking the pads to my feet and seeing what showed up every morning) and certainly they turned black. However, after going through an entire box, I was still getting the same outcome. This told me that either (a) I needed another ‘x’ number of boxes to get clean, or (b) the product is a hoax. I didn’t have the cash for countless boxes, so I stopped, thus did not find out whether there would, ultimately, have been an end…

Betaine HCL

Not needed for my son or I. We ultimately learned that Dr Campbell-McBride only recommends this if needed after several months on GAPS. Save!

CandiGone

No. No real noticeable results. Used completely, so return was not an option.

Nature’s Miracle Stain & Odour Remover

No. I got this for when my kid poops or pees somewhere other than in his potty. It did work sometimes, but more often just soaking up with a towel and/or applying baking soda and/or scrubbing with CitraSolv (by the same company) and/or running removables through the washing machine have been most effective.

Omega 8005 Juicer

I originally purchased this about 11 months into GAPS. I loved it and used it almost daily, moreso for homogenizing (making smooth) than juicing (only because I couldn’t afford any more than I was already eating whole). I mashed my nuts, seeds, and veggies for burgers, treats, cookies, you name it and found the machine reasonably  easy to clean. However, a few months in, large pieces snapped off the auger. The company asked me to purchase a replacement piece, saying they would refund me when the defective part came in. Four months, thirteen emails and one phone call later I received a partial refund.

Many of our list members, on the other hand, use and rave about the Vitamix for making all things completely smooth, being easy to clean, *and* having excellent repair and warranty service. It doesn’t juice, but you can blend veggies or fruits in the Vitamix then drip them through a nut milk bag.

Personally, I’m back to just a simple Cuisinart stick blender, for which I paid $63 at my local department store.

Other Supplements Not Listed

I have bought a variety of other supplements. Some I started to take, some I did not. Many I was able to return. Most I simply found unnecessary. If a supplement is not listed under my ‘recommend’ list, above, I may well have considered and/or began to try it but ultimately found it not necessary. This has included adrenal support (GAPS eventually resolved a chronic fatigue); L Glutamine (GAPS resolved loose stools); calcium (my diet is high in calcium via sesame seeds, leafy greens, bone broth, etc); l Orthinine (parasite cleanse did not trigger insomnia); etc.

Probiotic Lozenge

This was an attempt to clear the white coating on my tongue. I used Udo’s Choice Super 5 – its additives are not SCD-friendly.  As many things have, it seemed at first to help, and then didn’t. No ill effects – just no helpful ones.

Renew Life’s Paragone

I started the product at full dose, and had rather intense reactions. After seven days, I reduced to the half dose suggested for sensitive people. I had a manageable level of die-off with this. Unfortunately, I was then short seven days for the end of the cleanse. Renew Life declined to send out the difference. However, Renew Life did support my getting a full refund at the store at which I had purchased the kit, so it’s something you can safely try out. Overall, I felt that the combination of parasite and yeast killers was far too involved and intense for someone already adhering strictly to a cleansing diet. I also found it very difficult to time the doses (at least three hours after one’s last meal of the day, by which point we are usually sleeping).

Renew Life’s Paragone

See also ‘Renew Life’s Paragone’, above. This product was very gentle, the tincture was very tasty and the capsules were very small. Overall, it was very child-friendly. It successfully triggered die-off in my son, and to a manageable degree, ie. He was not remotely uncomfortable, but he had a return in his old symptoms, such as peeing on the floor and being unable to follow direction. Overall, I had no complaints about the product, but also did not feel there was enough benefit to have spent money on.

Waterpik Ultra

No. It came highly recommended to me by a close relative, who buys and owns practically nothing and who finds it made a big difference to her mouth, so I figured it was a sure thing. I did like the feeling of “bathing” my mouth, but on the limited trial recommended by my relative and the company itself, I did not find this to help reduce plaque build-up, etc. Returned. I prefer using a toothbrush which I soak in water + tea tree oil.

YeastBusters Kit [Not SCD-Friendly]

No. I tried this when I had been only “mostly SCD” for a few months and had self-assessed my yeast to be “beyond severe”. I assume my extreme reaction was die-off. Upon the second introductory dose, I was violently ill – utterly incapacitated. According to their FAQs, which I located later, this happens to a number of people. They suggest starting very slow in that case and, if the reaction persists, to assume an allergy is present and discontinue. I didn’t want to risk more of this reaction. Returned.

Yogourmet Yogurt Maker

I actually loved the simplicity and silence of this product and it does make excellent yogurt. However, SCD yogurt is supposed to ferment for 24-29 hours at 100-110 degrees F, and the Yogourmet cannot do this. However, Elaine Gottschall and other prominent SCDers did not worry about this as the desired SCD results were achieved for them.  Some SCDers have success plugging the Yogourmet into a light dimmer, but this did not work for me.

Zapper, The

I purchased this ‘parasite killer’ from a site run by K. Presner. The contraption unclipped itself frequently during normal use and was cumbersome to put away and take out for the required sessions. I also noticed no effect. Upon taking the site up on its refund offer, I discovered its policies applied to a machine returned in perfect condition still resulted in my being out over $120. Zappers can be purchased via Craigslist, etc, for less than the amount paid in purchasing and returning a new one from this particular company.

Have these notes helped you at all? I write these to help you save money and research time. If they have done so, please consider donating a portion of those savings to this blog.