The GAPS book recommends considering No-Plant GAPS for recently diagnosed Type 1 diabetes and describes Intro for gut healing more generally. Choosing a route also means planning how food changes fit the person’s insulin and glucose-monitoring routine.[1][2]
This guide puts the food choices in order. The Type 1 diabetes and GAPS overview explains the book’s gut-and-pancreas account, so you can keep this page focused on meals and preparation.
Choose a Starting Route With Support
In the No-Plant chapter, Campbell-McBride names children and adults with recently diagnosed Type 1 diabetes among the groups for whom she recommends trying it. She recommends working with a Certified GAPS Practitioner and transferring gradually from the previous diet. This is a specific recommendation in that chapter, rather than a rule that everybody with diabetes must remove every plant food.[1]
The general Intro chapter recommends Intro at some stage for most people, especially with serious digestive symptoms. It also describes Full-first situations, including chronic constipation, no serious digestive symptoms and practical difficulty following Intro. The official Intro quick-reference guide adds pregnancy, nursing, poor fat digestion and histamine considerations. The Intro-versus-Full comparison keeps these starting situations and exceptions together.[3][4]
Keep the prescribing diabetes clinician involved whichever nutritional route is chosen. The GAPS FAQ calls for glucose checks before each insulin injection and product-specific written dosing instructions from the diabetes nurse. A more restricted menu does not supply those instructions.[2]
What No-Plant GAPS Includes
The book starts with fresh meat stock and gelatinous meats, then gradually introduces the other foods described in the chapter. These include fermented milk and cream when tolerated, raw egg yolk, organ meats, fish and shellfish. Its early dairy choices exclude cow’s milk; beef is also introduced later for this sensitive group. It makes an exception for liquid from fermented vegetable medley as a probiotic tonic, so “No-Plant” should not be reduced to a slogan that erases the chapter’s own details.[1]
The No-Plant GAPS guide covers its exact starting amounts and progression. The source describes some people thriving after four years or longer, while calling the diet temporary and explaining how plant foods can be reintroduced. Its example of James concerns ulcerative colitis, not a child with Type 1 diabetes.[1]
Campbell-McBride discusses glycogen and sugar-containing molecules in animal tissues as carbohydrate sources. That account does not give the carbohydrate content of an individual meal or the insulin needed for it. The No-Plant carbohydrate guide explains that source discussion.[1]
The Six Intro Stages
| Stage | What the Source Adds |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 | Meat or fish stock, soups, suitable well-cooked meats and vegetables, and small amounts of the permitted probiotic foods. Fermented vegetable juice precedes the fibrous vegetables.[3] |
| Stage 2 | The usual introduction of raw egg yolks, then soft-boiled eggs as tolerated, stews, fermented fish and ghee. There is a specific earlier-yolk exception for profuse watery diarrhea.[3] |
| Stage 3 | Ripe avocado, the specified nut-butter pancakes, gently cooked eggs and gradual amounts of fermented vegetables themselves.[3] |
| Stage 4 | Roasted or grilled meats without burned pieces, cold-pressed olive oil, filtered fresh vegetable juice and bread made with fermented nut or seed flour.[3] |
| Stage 5 | Cooked apple, gradually introduced raw vegetables and specified fruit added to tolerated vegetable juice.[3] |
| Stage 6 | Peeled raw apple followed by other raw fruit, more honey and gradually introduced sweet baking. Dried fruit is used as a sweetener in the baking.[3] |
These are stage descriptions, not an instruction to add a sweet food regardless of glucose management. The Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4, Stage 5 and Stage 6 guides contain the full details. Progress follows symptoms and tolerance rather than a fixed calendar. Cod liver oil belongs to supplement guidance, not a new Stage 2 food in the newer book.[3]
Full GAPS, Stock and the Food List
On Full GAPS, the 2020 book centers meals on meats, fish, meat or fish stock, eggs, vegetables and introduced fermented dairy. Fruit and baking are kept out for the first few weeks when starting directly with Full, then introduced gradually rather than replacing main meals. New fermented foods are introduced in small amounts and built up.[5]
Meat stock remains a staple, not something finished when Intro ends. The book distinguishes it from long-cooked bone broth and does not recommend bone broth for at least the first year, and for some people several years. The No-Plant chapter likewise focuses on fresh stock, with its later individual-tolerance qualification for broth.[1][6]
Use the GAPS food list for the current Full GAPS permissions and avoid list. Intro permits a smaller set of foods than Full; it is incorrect to say every food excluded at an early Intro stage must also be excluded on Full. Both exclude grains, but that does not make their food lists identical.
The general Full chapter says about two years, with milder, longer and permanent-course exceptions. It allows considering coming off when health problems are gone and the person has been well at least six months. The Coming Off chapter says the majority should follow strict GAPS for at least two years and have at least six months of normal digestion before introducing non-allowed foods. These are nutritional-protocol qualifications, not permission to change insulin.[5]
Keep Dairy, Juice and Honey in Context
The Type 1 entry’s temporary all-dairy-removal option applies to some people, not everybody. The dairy-introduction guide helps distinguish a planned introduction from simply buying a lactose-free product.[7]
The next entry, Type Two Diabetes, discusses limiting honey and desserts, avoiding fresh juice while blood sugar is unstable, and considering a juice, raw-egg and fat shake once blood sugar is normal and stable. It also describes butter or coconut oil with a little honey for cravings. That passage is written for Type 2 and insulin resistance; it should not be copied into Type 1 as a universal juice or snacking schedule.[8]
A separate Sugar Cravings entry describes the butter-and-honey approach more generally, but it still does not replace an individual Type 1 diabetes plan. Fat and protein added to juice do not remove the need to account for the food and measured glucose in insulin management.[2][9]
Make the First Meal Change Clear
Choose the route first, identify a meal from its permitted foods and write down what would change from the current meal. Bring that specific change to the diabetes appointment rather than trying to solve the whole diet and dosing plan at once. The Type 1 diabetes appointment notes can keep the details together.
My course Your First 30 Days on GAPS is listed in the WFLI Shop for organizing the kitchen work. A written food plan and a written insulin plan need to remain clear enough that everyone helping with the meal knows which one they are following.
References
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), No-Plant GAPS Diet, implementation, clinical observations and coming off.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Official GAPS FAQs, Diseases and Symptoms, question 59, blood glucose and Type 1 diabetes.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), The GAPS Introduction Diet, Stages 1–6 and individual progression.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Official Introduction Diet quick-reference guide, Quick Facts (CORE-01).
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), The Full GAPS Diet and Coming Off the GAPS Diet.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), What We Shall Eat and Why, Meat Stock and Soups.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), A–Z, Diabetes, Type One.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), A–Z, Diabetes, Type Two.
- Campbell-McBride, N. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), A–Z, Sugar Cravings, Chocolate Cravings.
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