While reading and reading and reading, I have come to the conclusion that the Gut and Psychology Syndrome(GAPS) diet by Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride made the most sense. So here is my story of doing GAPS in Singapore.
What is the GAPS Diet?
Here is a great summary of what the GAPS diet is at Sustain Lane’s The GAPS Diet : The Mother of All Diets? (*)
The basis of the diet as summarised by Dr Cowan in the article above is to :
Restore the gut flora, heal the villi, seal the cracks. We heal the villi with the Nourishing Traditions diet with a particular emphasis on soup broth, the magic gut restoring food. We replant the villi grass with probiotic foods and Biokult (a probiotic developed by Natasha McBride for the GAPS program), and until we are healed we completely avoid all foods which contain disaccharides: grains, most beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, most sweeteners, milk (but not other cultured dairy products), and a few other foods.
(*) The links above are dead links. They were published back in 2010-2011 if I recall correctly. But the information still stands.
The GAPS Diet was developed by Dr Natasha based on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) to heal her autistic son. There have been many success stories about how the diet has helped many others as well. And not just for autism but ADD and even mental issues such as bipolar and depression.
The focus is on the gut-brain connection. Heal the gut and the rest of the body will re-balance itself. Remove the pathogenic bacteria and the bad toxins leave the body and the body can function as it is supposed to.
Challenges of Doing GAPS in Singapore
Now the challenge of doing GAPS here in Singapore is the almost non-availability of organic, grass-fed, pastured or free range meats and eggs, even if you are willing to pay an arm and leg for them. And, on top of that, even if we could afford the organic meat ($50 chicken anyone???) there is no guarantee that the chickens or cows were not fed corn or soy.
So How?
Well, we do what we can and leave the rest to God. Sounds cliche, eh? 😀 But seriously what else can one do? We were on a Total Elimintation Diet as those who follow the blog may remember. We saw great improvements when we took out grains in the beginning. But after 1 year of eliminating everything that the IgG test said we were allergic too plus all grains, everything regressed. In fact, we seemed to have developed MORE food allergies.
I still blame the start of the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) as the trigger. Our situation deteriorated very quickly once LUP started. Cement dust is lethal. My father developed asthma in his 60s when the school he was teaching in did major renovation works with cement dust flying everywhere.
Back to GAPS – After reading and researching, I decided that we should at least try GAPS for 6 months. So we started the GAPS Intro Diet at end of September 2011. Just before that, I had put myself on a strictly 2-week vegetable diet. No fruit or nuts even. It was like a cleansing fast of sort now that I think back. But back then, I just wanted the itch to stop ;( And you know what? I was still itching like mad. It really pushed me to GAPS. I need a better strategy! I was going mad with the itch that even antihistamines were not relieving.
Leaky Gut Syndrome
GAPS believes in the leaky gut syndrome where we become seemingly allergic to many foods because the holes in our gut are letting the proteins through into the blood stream causing an allergic-like reaction (simplified version :D). In other words, we don’t really have a true allergy but food intolerances. Once the gut is healed, we should be able to eat almost everything we want, though we really shouldn’t of course 🙂
Books and Blogs
For a detailed understanding of what GAPS is and how it works, I ordered the Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr Campbell-McBride book as well as the GAPS Guide by Baden Lashkov (no longer available). I also browsed through many GAPS related blogs such as the Keeper of the Home, Tribal Mamas, etc. Google GAPS diet and a whole plethora of blogs and websites will come up. I also joined the GAPS Yahoo forums.
Candida Overgrowth
After 3 months at the Intro Stage we are ready to move on to full GAPS, sans fruits and nuts because we have major candida overgrowth. We only found out that the candida overgrowth S had was bad when S overdosed on grapes and rock melon. She broke out immediately all over her face – red and angry rashes. Kati of Tribal Mamas immediately suspected candida and recommended an OTC anti-fungal cream to confirm it. Her rash cleared in 2 days substantially but not completely. After 6 weeks of no fruit I gave her 1 tablespoon of carrot juice. Instead of slowly increasing it I rushed to give her 1/2 cup the next day. And again – boom! The redness and rash returned with a vengeance. Sigh. But this time round the anti-fungal cream did not work 🙁 So there must be something else going on.
Anyhow, we should be progressing to full GAPS in the next week or so, once I get my menu planning and grocery shopping sorted out in the midst of life 🙂
GAPS Cooking
GAPS is by no means an easy diet BUT having come from a strict Total Elimination Diet for one whole year, the transition wasn’t as tough as many others have found it. The constant cooking however does wear one down so now I am planning to cook and freeze meals more meals.
What Are We Eating?
Now on to the food we eat. GAPS recommends lots of bone and meat broths to heal the gut – all types of meats. But I don’t do lamb or mutton. The smell just makes me nauseous so we stick to chicken, beef and fish. For the moment we are kosher as well because shellfish makes us itch super bad and pork just doesn’t appeal to me at this point in time.
For chicken, we use Sakura chicken which claims to be antibiotic and hormone free. 🙁 Some people recommend Kampung Chicken but then I have no idea what is fed to them.
For beef marrow and bones, I just buy them from NTUC Finest. I know QB Foods sells Australian Grass Fed Sirloin and Tenderloin but that is all that they have. We need the bones and marrows and tendons to make gelatinous broths, not just the meats. So….we just do what we can.
I tend to buy salmon for our fish broth as I find them less fishy smelling. Yes, I know farmed salmon is bad for health but where on earth can we find wild salmon in Singapore that doesn’t cost me a bomb?! Sometimes I alternate with white snapper or whatever fish is available except Toman fish. Have you eaten that fish? It is totally tasteless 🙁
Is GAPS Working?
I wish I could tell you that GAPS cleared out our skin and we are now happily eczema free. Nope, not by a long shot at all 🙁 It has been very discouraging to say the least. But I have heard GAPS forum members share that the skin is often the last item to heal. Even mental issues are resolved faster than skin issues. Like really?!
But since I told myself that we will press on for 6 months, we shall indeed press on for another 3 months. Besides, after all I have read, I really can’t see putting ourselves back on the standard average diet most people eat. In fact, when the family eats out (I bring along food for S and myself) I cringe at the foods they order and eat. I especially feel bad when I allow them to eat MacDonald’s and/or KFC. But one battle at a time.
Other Benefits of GAPS
The great side effect of eating GAPS style for me that is, is the loss of weight! And also the loss of cravings for sweets and bread! By eliminating all carbs, one basically eliminates all processed foods and all the usual snacks and desserts. It is a guaranteed weight loss programme! However, I am still craving coffee with milk! 😀 As for S, her brain fog is almost all gone except when she has either a die-off effect or something else is triggering the rash and itch.
So there you go, our attempt to do GAPS in Singapore despite all the obstacles. Hopefully, I will have a better update come end-March 🙂
16 Comments on Doing GAPS in Singapore
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Have you heard of LactoGG? I heard it works wonders for eczema.
Leona
Not only have we heard of it, we used it for a long while and it did NOTHING for us 🙁 Thanks for your comment.
lactogg made my son’s eczema worse as well, though I did hear of it helping others.
serene, I did study GAP for a while but the only thing I adopted was a lot of bone broth for my son. (No way I can take out grains and we avoid dairy. too much fruits are also out for us.) Incidentally, it was also the advice from an old aunt who used to be a fish-monger – just give my son meat broth and rice. Her advice so far has turned out to be in line with my son’s condition. She specifically instructed me to avoid salmon and cod because of additives, as wel as certain species of local fishes that I cannot recall. She also told me to avoid soy and beans. We went on a restricted diet for 6 months. During this time, we also address his dustmite allergy, and the various infections on his eczema site. His skin cleared beautifully and stayed that way until we started slacking. Believe me I tried to cut corners, experimenting with which part of our regime we can drop and still have clear skin, but in the end, addressing the infections plus the diet(internal trigger) seem to be the most important components. If your children have infected eczema, simply putting on the steriod cream or hydrocortisone or “natural” creams will make them worse over time. We’ve been there. The infections really needed to be addressed very thoroughly with the right agents and lifestyle approach.
Interestingly, I recently took my son to a second allergist and he was found to have IGE sensitivities to all these food we have been avoiding and we confirmed another major food allergy. Of the two food that he did not test allergic too, we have always known that he was intolerant to them since infancy. If I had followed the GAP diet strictly, it would have gone badly for him. So do go with your observation and do not follow any diet blindly. Take what helps and leave the rest. In my limited experience, once you find the right trigger, there is only improvement, no regression.
I’m not sure when your children’s eczema began, but if it began later in life and not in infancy, it MAY not be outright food allergies. It coul be intolerance to food chemicals, of which there is a personal threshold level. Food chemicals include artificial and natural.
Finally, I’m not too sure about this, but from what I’ve been told, IGG does not reflect food allergies at all.It may be an intolerance – or nothing. The best is still keeping a food journal.
A long one. I hope some parts are helpful and that you all get better soon. It does take such a toll on everyone.
Thank you Iris for visiting and commenting.
What you are doing is basically what we did for the past 1.5yrs before GAPS. An Elimination Diet. The point of GAPS is that after healing the gut, one can go back to eating a wider range of foods instead of just avoiding them for life. It did work for us at one stage but it no longer works for us now. Perhaps the toxin overload is just too much now with the LUP 🙁
So if cod and salmon are out then what fish does your son eat? I believe with our fishes mainly farmed, all would be contaminated in varying degrees with additives and other awful stuff 🙁
Eh?? But an elimination diet includes fish! Fish is one of the top eight allergens. I’m not saying it may be a trigger for your children, but it is a possibility if that is one thing you have not tried. I personally know of four other children whose eczema was directly linked to fish. In my son’s case, it was a minor factor but not the biggest one.
GAP works well for some, but for others, it may be more. I think it’s good for those with chronic stomach woes or eczema linked to intolerances. But it will not work for those whose eczema is linked to food and environmenal allergies, and may be caught in a vicious cycle of infection. This is especially if it is an environmental allergy. The combination of infection and constant exposure of raw skin to the irritant keeps the patch from healing. If my son has even one small patch of broken skin, it takes forever to heal. We have to guard against the internal trigger, because the scratching leads to broken skin and though the food reaction passes over in a while, the environmental reaction takes over and that is very hard to manage.
If you see a direct link with the LUP, other than moving(!)and the diet, the thing to do is to really wash and clean constantly (with the machines, not your poor hands!). The minute the kid gets home, a quick shower to rinse the dust off. All infected area must be treated and pat dry. We treat both bacterial and fungal infection consistently twice a day. I air the rooms away from traffic and dust and use only the dryer for the beddings to prevent outside dust. All these improve the healing time greatly without steriods – like a patch that had been broken since one year old finally healed a few months after we did all these. (He’s four plus now) Once the skin heals completely, he can get away with eating some of the food that he is intolerant to and we don’t have to worry so much about dust where the skin is concerned.
It’s a tough journey. Good luck!
A elimination diet means you eliminate what you are supposedly allergic to, fish or not. We are not allergic to fish – both the IgE and IgG tests have confirmed this. So I don’t understand your comment.
Eczema has many causes. Some are very simply eliminated by moisturising the skin or keeping their live-in area dust free. While others are more complicated. Bacterial and fungal infections are also very common because the broken skin (from the scratching) allows all these pathogens to enter the blood stream and infect the person. Also eczema sufferes almost always have a yeast overgrowth.
It is good that your son’s case was solved with your detective work.
I’m sorry Serene. I did not know that you had already done the Ige for fish. We were told that those allergic to cod usually cannot take other fishes as well and after trying a few other fishes, it did seem problematic for the little one. But if it works for you that’s great! I wish we can have fish for a change! 🙂
One thing I noted while studying the GAP diet was how it seemed to tally with the sinseh’s explanation. It was fascinating! The sinseh said almost the same thing with their yin and yang. First cleansing, then rebalancing. And the dietary guidelines follow that of an anti-yeast diet but without the restrictions on grain and extra fermented products. Many of the food or vegetables that old folks have told me to avoid also seem to be in line with what an anti-yeast diet describe.
I will be looking forward to your next update. Happy CNY! 🙂
Hi we are doing GAPS with my 3 year old – he’s been on GAPS intro since October 2011 – would love to get together for a chat – and maybe get some tips to make my sauerkraut more successful ! We live in River Valley. GAPS is working great for us !
I recently moved to Singapore and I am having trouble getting copies of the books. Can you suggest where to get them or might I borrow your copies for a week or so?
I bought my copy from The Book Depository.
Hi Serene, what are you using for the fermented foods part?
I am not. I can’t coz I react to it 🙁 Dd also can’t. The only fermented thing we have going on now is water and milk kefir. Coz it is the easiest and since I have lots of grains ust use it for the others in the family. I did sauerkraut before and loved it but reacted with more rashes. And I don’t think it was a die off effect coz the rash wouldn’t go away.
Hi! I just found your post because we are thinking to move to Singapore after having been on GAPS successfully for a year. We see improvements and would like to continue the diet.
I was wondering where you found kefir grains in Singapore? Have you also found more organic, pasture raised poultry or beef meats and bones?
This blog post was posted 10 years ago. I would love to see any updates or comments from the Singapore locals on new grocery places that may have sprung up that is GAPS friendly. Thank you!
Hi Sharon. Yes, it has been 10 years! There are facebook groups that offer kefir grains. We have never gone the full organic, pasture-raised meats and eggs because it was just not sustainable for our large family. We just aimed for real food and cooking from scratch. There are no GAPS-friendly grocery stores. You just have to be an avid label reader for foods that have labels.
We have just set up a Facebook page – ‘GAPS diet in Singapore’ – would love some of you to join if you want. Kate
Well Kate Wilesmith is very radical. She kicks out of her page anyone does not think like her.Gaps is not a sect. It is for open minded people. I am very shocked by what happened on her page. She discouraged a woman taking antibiotics for Lyme. Gaps cannot heal HIV cannot heal sexual disease. To tell people to follow GAPS and to stop antibiotics is ok but you cannot act like a dictator.
Gaps is not a sect.