More-Plant GAPS: How to Prepare Fruit, Beans and Nuts

Preparing plants for More-Plant GAPS starts with the form you can digest. Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride favors cooked vegetables and fruit, adds fat to cooked fruit, and prepares suitable legumes, nuts and seeds before using them. Raw forms come later when digestion is ready.^[1]

This guide gathers those preparation details. The More-Plant overview explains when the approach fits and why it continues to include animal foods. A higher plant share does not change a food’s GAPS status or remove its preparation requirements.

Cook Vegetables First

The More-Plant chapter describes cooked plants as easier to digest and gentler than raw. It names soup made with meat stock, baking, stir-frying and steaming as preparation options. When animal fat is difficult to digest, it gives olive oil and coconut oil as alternatives in appealing amounts.^[1]

Keep the oil’s preparation rule with it. The book’s fats section uses suitable animal fats and coconut oil for cooking and keeps cold-pressed olive oil unheated, added to food when ready to serve.^[2] Our fats-and-oils guide explains that kitchen distinction.

Choose the Named Root Vegetables

For someone missing starch, Campbell-McBride names cooked winter squash, turnips, swede or rutabaga, carrots and celeriac. These supply more carbohydrate while remaining among the vegetables named in this chapter.^[1]

The response still matters. If these foods bring bloating, diarrhea, constipation or other symptoms, the book says to stop them until digestion recovers, then introduce them slowly again. It keeps meat stock alongside the cooked vegetables and fermented foods with the diet.^[1]

Only after these vegetables are well tolerated and have been introduced over plenty of time does the chapter point toward the separate coming-off sequence for potatoes and grains. It does not describe an automatic next meal or add every starchy vegetable to More-Plant GAPS.

Prepare Fruit With Fat

The chapter names apple purée and stewed berries, plums and pears as examples of cooked fruit. Add a suitable animal fat, olive oil or coconut oil in an amount you find appealing. Some honey or dried fruit can be used for sweetness, and cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg are the named spices.^[1]

Campbell-McBride connects the fat pairing with how the body handles fruit sugar and discourages serving cooked fruit without added fat. She says to use an amount you can comfortably enjoy. Properly prepared nuts can add plant protein and fat to the fruit too.^[1]

Choose fruit that also fits the book’s ripeness and sourcing guidance. The fruit-and-berries guide covers those details and the difference between cooked and raw introduction.

Prepare Beans, Lentils and Split Peas

The book’s named varieties are dried white navy or haricot beans, dried or fresh lima beans, string beans, lentils and split peas. Its legumes section excludes other legumes as too starchy for the GAPS food list. String beans are a fresh vegetable, so keep them separate from dried pulses when planning preparation.^[3]

Dried beans, lentils and peas soak in water for at least twelve hours, preferably longer. Drain them and rinse well under running water. The book then discusses sprouting or fermentation before thorough cooking. Its timing limit is also explicit: wait until diarrhea and other digestive symptoms have cleared completely before introducing these legumes.^[3]

Soaking is therefore a job to plan before the cooking day. A bowl of dry beans beside the stove is not the same starting ingredient as soaked, drained and rinsed beans. Follow the preparation for the exact variety rather than assuming a long simmer replaces every earlier step.

Campbell-McBride explains preparation through antinutrients in seeds. A study by Pal and colleagues tested five lentil varieties after dehulling, germination and cooking. The tested preparations changed phytic acid, tannins and trypsin inhibitors, with effects varying by method. This is useful evidence that preparation changes the food’s composition.^[4]

Commercial bean flour is not a shortcut in the book’s legumes section, because the beans have not been properly prepared before grinding. For nut allergy, it describes properly prepared, cooked and mashed navy beans as a baking substitute. That is a specific option, not permission to substitute an unprepared bean flour.^[3]

The beans-and-legumes guide keeps the named varieties and wider introduction guidance together.

Prepare Nuts and Oily Seeds

The More-Plant chapter uses properly prepared nuts and oily seeds in breads, pies and desserts. Its examples include sunflower, sesame and pumpkin seeds. The general nuts-and-seeds section waits until diarrhea and abdominal pain have settled before introducing high-fiber nuts, and uses properly prepared flour or paste in baking before gradually introducing raw nuts as snacks.^[5]

Sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds have their own instruction: wait until diarrhea has settled, soak for twelve to twenty-four hours, then sprout or ferment. Pure seed and nut butters used in baking should be fresh and free of additives.^[5]

Freshness and storage matter as well. The book recommends whole or freshly shelled nuts rather than roasted, coated or otherwise processed products. It keeps almond flour in the freezer because grinding exposes it to oxidation.^[5] Those details belong with the ingredient before it goes into a baking mixture.

Introduce Raw Forms When Ready

Raw vegetables, fruit and nuts are conditional on digestion. The More-Plant chapter describes bloating, crampy pain or abnormal stool over the following days as a reason to wait with raw plant matter and focus on cooked plants instead. It does not tell everyone to move to raw foods on a fixed date.^[1]

Fermented vegetables have another role. Campbell-McBride recommends them with meals as a more digestible plant preparation. Katz’s fermentation guidance keeps the vegetables under their brine and handles fermentation gases through the appropriate vessel or pressure-management method. Use the actual vegetable recipe’s conditions, rather than a universal time for every jar.^[1][6]

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I Have to Cook Plants Forever?

No fixed permanent cooked-only rule is given here. The book makes raw introduction dependent on digestion and the response to the food. Keep a cooked preparation available while working out whether a raw form fits.^[1]

Can Cooking Replace the Legume Preparation?

The book specifies soaking, draining and rinsing and discusses sprouting or fermentation before cooking. It does not present cooking dry legumes alone as an equivalent shortcut.^[3]

Does More-Plant Mean Every Bean Is Allowed?

No. The named GAPS varieties and introduction limits still apply. Check the food list before preparing a new variety, rather than treating all pulses as interchangeable.^[3]

Your Next Step

Choose one food you already tolerate and check its exact preparation before increasing the amount. The More-Plant GAPS Cookbook and the Crock & Jar fermentation course are listed in the WFLI Shop for the cooking and fermenting work around these meals.

References

1. Campbell-McBride, Natasha. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), “The More-Plant GAPS Diet,” cooked vegetables, fruit with fat, raw-food response and fermented vegetables.
2. Campbell-McBride, Natasha. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), “Fats and Oils,” cooking and unheated oils.
3. Campbell-McBride, Natasha. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), “Beans, Legumes and Pulses,” exact varieties, twelve-hour soaking, draining, rinsing, further preparation and introduction limit.
4. Pal RS, Bhartiya A, Yadav P, et al. Effect of dehulling, germination and cooking on nutrients, anti-nutrients, fatty acid composition and antioxidant properties in lentil. Journal of Food Science and Technology. 2017;54:909–920. doi:10.1007/s13197-016-2351-4.
5. Campbell-McBride, Natasha. Gut and Physiology Syndrome (2020), “Nuts and Seeds,” forms, symptom readiness, twelve-to-twenty-four-hour seed preparation and almond-flour storage.
6. Katz, Sandor Ellix. The Art of Fermentation, vegetable submersion, fermentation vessels, pressure and process variables.