Dairy can be a troublesome food group, so I felt it necessary to dedicate an entire post to discuss our experience of Dairy Introduction on The GAPS Diet.
None of our family went into The GAPS Diet with any sort of dairy allergy or intolerance, but we still roughly followed the steps outlined in The GAPS Diet Book to introduce dairy in phases, when each family member was ready for it. (Refer to page 121 of your GAPS Book for more information.)
We started with Homemade Yoghurt, I followed the directions from 30 Days On The GAPS Intro Diet, introducing a few teaspoons at a time. All the family except Mr 2 tolerated the yoghurt and enjoyed it with a drizzle of raw honey from Stage 2 of the Introduction Diet.
We found that Mr 2’s eczema (I discuss more about his eczema here) flared up and worsened with each attempt at introducing yoghurt. We tried every 5 or so days and it was finally a month into the diet and on the full GAPS Diet that yoghurt didn’t worsen his eczema and became tolerated in small amounts.
In Stage 4 we chose to introduce Homemade Sour Cream to all except Mr 2 and that was also well tolerated and thoroughly enjoyed.
We stuck with yoghurt and sour cream for the remainder of the Introduction Diet.
Once we progressed to the Full GAPS Diet we introduced organic, unsalted butter, by cooking eggs in it and spreading it on pancakes. We gave it a week of incorporating butter into our diet before finally indulging in a long awaited bite of cheese. Yes, you read right – a bite of cheese! In The GAPS Book it’s suggested to have a bite of cheese and then wait 3 to 5 days to watch for any reactions.
We spent a couple of weeks slowly consuming small amounts of cheese. By this stage even Mr 2 didn’t have a reaction and was having yoghurt, sour cream and cheese (in small amounts) daily.
Once the cheese was tolerated we progressed onto store bought yoghurt. We found that store bought yoghurt just didn’t agree with Mr 2 and have kept him on the Homemade Yoghurt from 30 Days On The GAPS Intro Diet, while the rest of the family copes well with store bought, natural, organic yoghurt.
We attempted Organic Milk a couple of weeks back, but My Husband and I felt “phlegm-my” so thought it was probably a good idea to wait a little longer before drinking straight milk as we used to.
While we have been slowing increasing our dairy intake, I’ve made sure to include non-dairy foods high in calcium to ensure that our calcium intake remains adequate.
That’s where we’re at now. Enjoying having dairy as a part of our regular diet, but being careful not to overdose on it as we once did – in fact we used to have to spell the word “cheese” in front of Mr 2 because a mere mention of his favorite food would have him scrambling for the fridge and expecting a slice (or 3!).
Please share your experience of Dairy on The GAPS Diet with us.
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