Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS)


In last year I kinda became obsessed with healthy foods. I decided to eliminate sugar (not counting fruit) and processed food and instead incorporate more healing foods into my diet. Examples include green tea, kefir, bone broths and other other inflammatory food.

I also became acquainted with so-called healing diets, namely Specific-Carbohydrate diet (SCD diet) and Gut and Psychology (GAPS) diet. I’ve studied them both but haven’t practiced them. Also for a SCD diet I think it’s a way too restrictive. But what’s great about both diets are the fact they are backed by books, written by authors of diets (SCD diet has Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall, GAPS diet has Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Natasha Campbell-McBride). I read both of them. Each of them was very informative.

I’ve enjoyed reading Gut and Psychology Syndrome because it has chapters which describe how human gut works (beneficial, opportunistic flora), how it’s state influences our immune system, what harms it. That’s what interests me very much in general. But other chapters (about genetics, vaccination) deserves attention too because we live in a world where it’s lifestyle (diet rich in sugar and processed food, medicine) does tremendous damage to our body and next generations and are responsible for diseases, which weren’t so widespread till the 20th century. The author, Natasha Campbell-McBride, the doctor and a mother of a recovered autistic child thanks to her GAPS diet, writes in thought-provoking style from time to time which also makes for an entertaining read.

The GAPS diet is explained in her book and that’s what I was looking too when borrowing the book from hometown library. It’s premise is to heal a disease by healing the gut. I intend to incorporate additional food to my diet from it.

I definitely recommend the book to parents who have children (whether they have health problems or not) and people who wants to lead a more normal life with less or free of digestive problems and better immunity.