Are you considering the GAPS diet? Trying to improve brain (or body) health? Wondering how to get the best information about GAPS, or just which GAPS book to read? If you are going to read just one book about GAPS or gut health, this might be the one! Read on to find out more about “the yellow book” and whether it is the book you are looking for.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. When you click on these links or use them to make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. These links help me offer this site. I recommend only products I have used and liked.
There is a lot of information floating around about health. The same is true of the GAPS diet. The internet is, well, internet-like in that some of that information is excellent and reliable, while other information is shockingly inaccurate. How do you know what to spend time (and money, in the case of a book) on, and what will mislead you?
A very short version of the GAPS diet: heal the gut to heal the brain and body.
Pin for later!
Health disclaimer The Site offers health and nutritional information and is designed for educational purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Click here for more information.
One way to understand the GAPS diet, both the scientific basis and how to implement it skillfully, is to go straight to the source! Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride developed this approach to gut-brain healing based on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. She has written several books detailing how, what, and why around the GAPS diet. She is the source. Once you know what she says, you can easily evaluate all the other sources out there.
Though she has published several books, the one I will review today is the earliest GAPS book, published first in 2004, with an update in 2010. My edition is the earlier, shorter one, often referred to as “the yellow book” because its cover is yellow.
Dr. Campbell-McBride is a medical doctor with postgraduate degrees in neurology and human nutrition. She works with children and adults with learning, behavioral, digestive, and immune system disorders in Cambridge, England. She also knows the parental side of learning disability recovery, being the mother of an autistic son.
Why the GAPS diet?
The basis for the GAPS diet, which is much more than just food, rather a healing protocol, is that the gut and brain are intricately connected. If something isn’t working well in the brain, the gut is damaged. To heal the brain, it is necessary to heal the gut.
Not only does gut health affect the brain, but the rest of the body as well. The cover of the book lists autism, dyslexia, depression, dyspraxia, ADD, ADHD, and schizophrenia as disorders to treat with GAPS. The book also discusses other brain-related problems as well as more physical health issues.
The second book, Gut and Physiology Syndrome, aims more at physical health. The diet and recommendations are basically the same, and there is considerable information in “the yellow book” about both mind and body. I will review “the blue book” separately.
I read Gut and Psychology Syndrome before our family undertook the GAPS diet, beginning in August, 2022. This “yellow book” was the only book I read. I also had a couple of informative cookbooks and read lots of articles online. After reading this book, I could easily recognize which articles were offering good information and which were not. (Read more about our experiences here.)
The Introduction
While the GAPS diet targets all brain-related disorders, the introduction focuses on autism. Dr. Campbell-McBride discusses the rapid rise in autism cases over the past few decades. She knows the difficulty of treating children with autism, both for parents and for professionals.
She mentions the separation among disciplines trying to help these children. All children, in her experience, who present with autism also have tummy troubles. Though all have other diagnoses as well, the medical system approaches each group of symptoms separately.
So, while there is a common thread (gut damage) running through the person’s health problems, behavior is typically viewed as separate from learning. Health practitioners fail to connect either behavior or learning with asthma or allergy or eczema or constipation, for example. This compartmentalization neglects to treat a main root of the child’s troubles!
The first section
The book has three main parts. The first focuses on what is happening in the gut that damages our health. This section isn’t really about how to implement the GAPS diet, but I think it is essential to read at some point. The GAPS diet isn’t easy to carry out and stick to. It helps to have some comprehension of what we are trying to do in order to maintain motivation!
Also, it is easier to understand the practical parts if you have some grasp of how our bodies and brains should work. The implementation makes much more sense if you have a foundational understanding of the scientific basis. These aren’t random restrictions or directives!
I find this part fascinating! The design involved in the human body and brain are an amazing testament to God’s intelligence and kindness. He formed us with a tendency to heal, repair, and thrive.
For starters, we learn about how the gut controls our health, and how it is supposed to operate so that we have good physical and mental health. The importance of a healthy gut wall and the microbes, harmful and helpful, that live there provide a basis for understanding why our guts matter so much.
Then we learn how our immune systems are affected by what is happening in the digestive tract, as well as how the whole thing gets messed up. There are many factors, including pharmaceuticals, food, environment, infections, stress, and more. Dr. Campbell-McBride includes some perspective on genetics and vaccination as well. Finally, there is a short section discussing schizophrenia.
The second section
At last, as we start the second main part of the book, we delve into the way to heal these gut problems and thereby improve mental (and physical) functioning! This section covers a lot of ground, and I find it helpful to refer back to fairly regularly. While it is a practical section, there are still a lot of “whys” incorporated into the “hows”.
The Food
First we learn how different foods affect us, including carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. You will find lists of foods to exclude and foods to include. I won’t go into the detail that the book necessarily does, but the short version is that you stop eating things that damage the gut or feed harmful microbes. This includes anything processed, grains, refined (and most unrefined) sugar, most non-animal fats, soy, uncultured dairy, and some others.
The focus in GAPS is less on which foods to exclude than on which foods to include and, in particular, which to focus on to promote healing. We want to stop harming our guts, but we prioritize healing using beneficial foods. Primarily, meat stock (not bone broth!) and fermented foods are keys to healing. There are many other supporting foods beyond those.
If you get nothing else from Gut and Psychology Syndrome, knowing how to make a really effective meat stock would be invaluable.
Instructions and recipes walk us through the introductory phases of the GAPS diet all the way through “full GAPS”. This is the least restrictive and longest healing phase. The GAPS diet is meant as a temporary healing protocol, not a permanent change for most people. There will be permanent changes to maintain health, but many people will transition off the diet at some point.
I didn’t find the recipes to be adequate on their own, but they are a springboard for making up your own recipes and evaluating other people’s GAPS recipes. The author’s British and Russian life shines through, and you can adapt to other culinary traditions if you like.
The preparation methods are instructive, especially for fermenting foods and for making a healing meat stock. Mostly these are not difficult techniques, but they are different from what many of us are used to. Even an experienced cook will learn things here. At the same time, a novice cook will find most of the recipes to be achievable, as they are not complicated.
Supplements
Second, we read about supplementation on the GAPS diet. While diet is the main source of nutritional healing on the GAPS diet, some supplements can be helpful. Broadly, these include probiotics, fatty acids, vitamin A, digestive enzymes, and thoughts on vitamin and mineral supplementation.
The recommendations are rather specific, not to mention different from what we hear from either mainstream or many alternative doctors. (We didn’t fully adopt all these instruction when we did GAPS– maybe we should have, or maybe not. The advice will contradict what many practitioners of all sorts advise. You will need to make your own decisions. I don’t know if we made the best ones!)
Detox
Lastly, there is a short section on detoxification. Partly this section focuses on removing the sources of toxicity as best we can, and partly it is about how to reduce the toxic load we all carry so that we can heal. Some of these strategies are diet-related. We also learn some other ways to help our bodies get rid of toxins effectively.
The third section
Finally, the third and shortest section offers something of a grab bag of pertinent topics that didn’t quite fit the other sections. It advises on common problems for GAPS people, such as ear infections and constipation. The author shares her perspective on genetics and educating and working with children with autism and other GAPS conditions.
My favorite parts of this section are the two short pages on ten factors than boost immunity and ten factors that harm immunity. These are simple lists! Some of the items are less simple to address, but these little pages are handy references for keeping on track with lifestyle and diet. These are applicable to anyone, whether following the GAPS diet or not.
In conclusion
The last bits of the book are the references and index. All I will say about that is that my edition has 20 pages of references, versus 50 pages in my edition of the blue book. (Newer yellow book editions likely have more.) As boring as references look, I am interested to get an idea of where the author got her information. Beyond clinical experience, it is good to see what sort of support she has for her premise and practice.
Gut and Psychology Syndrome offers a great deal of information on health, healing, and living in a way to promote thriving. At under 250 pages (in the 2004 edition), it isn’t a very long read. With clear explanations written for the average reader, this book clarifies what could be challenging information for those of us with no medical background. (I have no medical or scientific training.) A high school education with decent reading skills is all you need!
Another strength of her book is that Dr. Campbell-McBride clearly understands that people reading it are dealing with challenging problems. Most are contending with big needs of struggling children (or their own health problems), and she tries to make it all understandable and possible, with a compassionate tone. She won’t make you feel guilty!
I delight in the scientific explanations, even if I don’t retain all the information. For those who may find those parts boring, I would suggest at least a cursory read. While you may not grasp the full picture, the underpinnings matter when you try to implement the diet, to say nothing of maintaining motivation and confidence in the protocol.
The main weakness of the book, in my opinion, is that the recipes are pretty basic. It would be entirely possible to use only the included recipes and implement the GAPS diet indefinitely. However, we want to really enjoy our meals, and we found some of the recipes to be rather bland.
We also wanted more variety! This problem was easily solved with a couple other cookbooks, some GAPS blog recipes, and a lot of creativity and adaptation.
Further GAPS help
The foundational details you don’t quite understand, or forget, will not prevent your mastering a general idea of what you are doing and why. With that foundation, you can follow the GAPS diet. It is also possible work with a GAPS practitioner or coach for help. You will still need to understand some of the basis, though.
Online groups furnish opportunities to get informal help and foster your understanding. The one big problem with online communities is that some members will not be adequately informed and will offer bad advice. So, a bit of education first is critical for you to evaluate what you read. The same applies to blogs, recipes books, and so on. (Here is one of the best online sources on the GAPS diet.)
In summary, Gut and Psychology Syndrome pulls together a great deal of information about health, healing, food, and a lifestyle of thriving. I consider it essential before starting the GAPS diet. If you are considering GAPS for more physiological issues, you might opt for the blue book instead. The diet itself is the same for both, though.
If you are not necessarily going to follow the GAPS diet, there is still value in the book. Understanding our bodies and what helps them work more the way God designed them can help us. Also, implementing just some of the recommendations for food, detox, and such could promote healing even for those who don’t strictly follow all the recommendations.
Stay tuned for my review of the blue book, Gut and Physiology Syndrome!