How to Get Started on a Healing Diet

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There are many healing diets and usually they require some significant dietary changes for those involved. Often most foods need to be prepared at home and no longer can the person buy convenience foods already prepared at the store. It can get very overwhelming.

So what can you do to make things more possible and ease your way into a diet that potentially could save your life?

1)  Take out one food or food group at a time.  Most of the healing diets do not allow grains so begin by taking grains out of your diet. Or if that seems too overwhelming then start with just gluten or just dairy or both as gluten and dairy proteins are two difficult to digest substances for many many people. That will mean you have to fill in with other food groups – vegetables, fruits and meat (unless you are doing a vegetarian diet.)   There are many amazing recipes and recipe sites around the internet. Google paleo recipes and you will have more than enough grain free recipes to begin to work with.

2)  Add in homemade bone broth on a daily basis.  That is actually more simple than it sounds. Whenever you have chicken or a beef roast or chops take the bones and put them in the crock pot with lots of water, a tsp of salt, a tbsp of apple cider vinegar and some garlic and onion and vegetables if you like. Set your crockpot on low and let it simmer all day or overnight. Voila, you have several quarts of great homemade broth to use in soups or just sip on plain. Try to have at least 1 cup of this each day. The broth has lots of collagen and gelatin in it from the bones and it coats the intestines and heals up the lining.

3)  Start to work to get some fermented foods or drinks in daily.  Pick one thing that is manageable. It could be water kefir, kombucha, milk kefir, plain yogurt (fruited has sugar which will not help with healing), sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented pickles, etc. There are many recipes available on the internet. I recommend Cultures for Health (this is an affiliate link of mine)  as they have a wide variety of resources for fermenting. And they have some great e-books free to those who subscribe to their blog.

4)  Research and read about healing diets. Look for testimonials that will be encouraging. Find groups on FB or Yahoo or a social media site you use often. These groups can be great for information and encouragement.

5)  If you are a praying person (or even if you are not) pray for guidance.  I firmly believe and have seen God answer the prayers of desperation for healing and for wisdom. He has done it for my family. I encourage you to look to the Author of Life for wisdom and direction in all areas including physical healing.

When we realized my daughter needed more than a gluten free diet last year,  we began to make more changes slowly. We had first stopped all gluten. Then we  pulled her off dairy as that seemed to be a problem food. A few months later we pulled her off all grains. We spent several months researching the GAPS diet and joined several groups on Facebook. Then finally when she felt she was ready (at 15 she can make those kind of decisions) she started in with the Introduction part of the GAPS diet. This took her about 6-8 weeks. Now she is on a Full GAPS diet and seeing healing slowly but surely. And although there are still some challenging days when she wants treats she cannot have, overall she is content with her choices. And we have gotten used to the routine of cooking differently.