Crohn’s is an inflammatory bowel disease that can affect any part of the digestive tract, however it’s normally the distal small bowel and colon that is impacted.
Living with Crohn’s Disease can be an overwhelming and stressful experience, the unpredictable nature of flare-ups, fatigue, pain and bowel changes can cause high levels of anxiety when you are experiencing a flare.
Did you know that the average Australian (including children) consumes around 40+ teaspoons of sugar per day without even trying? All of these sugars are normally hidden in foods that we’re told are healthy and they’re the foods that we feed to ourselves and our kids each day thinking we’re making a healthy choice.
The gut microbiome refers to different microbes and their function which include bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi and protists which are located in our digestive system and have a huge influence on our health.
Over the years I’ve worked with many families of children who have either been diagnosed with Autism, are going through the process or are thinking it might be something they should be considering. As a result many of them ask me about Zac’s diagnosis and what it was that made us think he might need to be assessed and how did we as a family cope when he did finally get diagnosed so today, I’ll share that story with you.
Over the past 30+ years there has been a huge increase in the consumption of soft drink (both full sugar and now diet options), sport drinks and energy drinks.
It’s nothing to see a young teen walking to school with an energy drink in their hand at 8am, or drinking a sports drink, even though there isn’t a piece of sporting equipment in sight and consumption of these is becoming more and more common..
So let’s break it down, what is really in these drinks.
Let’s be honest, all kids have a bit of a disobedient, defiant or impulsive streak. They question us, challenge us and definitely have a mind of their own, but is there a line where this behaviour becomes too much to handle? Is there a point where this behaviour isn’t “normal”?
This was the exact situation we came across in the early days before Zac was diagnosed with Autism.. what was normal behaviour for a child (boy) his age and what wasn’t.. now before you panic.. if your child does have some challenging behaviours or learnings I’m not suggesting they have Autism but there’s definitely some things to think about as far as what you can do to help them.
Over the years I’ve talked about The GAPS™ Diet extensively, how we were doing it as a family and the ups and downs that went with that. It’s been a number of years since we did The GAPS™ Diet and I find that a lot of my patients are very curious as to what we’re doing now so I thought I’d share that with you and perhaps give you a strategy for the long term lifestyle approach we’ve adopted.
My decision for the family was to find a happy medium whereby we were still monitoring our gut health and eating based on The GAPS™ Diet but it was a much more relaxed version.
As a GAPS™ Practitioner, when I’m working with patients, the general rule of thumb is that after you’ve finished the Introduction Diet you move to The Full GAPS™ Diet and follow that for 18 months to 2 years before transitioning off The GAPS™ Diet.
In the real world we don’t all have nannies and live in housekeepers, we don’t wear designer clothes and we can’t just drop everything and go to Abu Dhabi for a week.
In reality we all have different situations, some of us have additional help at home and some of us don’t. Some of us have “easy” children and some of us don’t. Some of us have children that require much more of us and some of us don’t.
Whatever your situation though, mothers do have one thing in common, somewhere along the way of having children we lose ourselves and this isn’t exclusive to those of us that have children with additional needs.
As many parents of children with Autism have done before and many will continue to do after me I have read a number of articles, blogs and websites promising the one thing most families are looking for.. Brace yourself people I’m about to say the “C” word…. Promising a “CURE”.. yep I said it…. CURE!!!
The thing is, I’m not just a mother of a child with Autism, I’m also a practitioner who works with families who have children with Autism… I work in an industry where we’re touted as “charlatans” with unproven methods and treatments that don’t work, promise a “cure” (yes I said it again) and leave families heartbroken.
Being a GAPS Practitioner has meant promoting and using lots of meat stocks and bone broths as part of the healing process. The one thing I’ve come to realise very quickly has been the confusion between what the two are and when is the best time to use them. Today I thought I’d cover off the difference between bone broth and meat stock to try to make it a little easier for you all.
The first thing I’ve noticed is it seems to depend on where you live in the world as to what you interpret as being a broth or a stock as in the USA they tend to use the word broth for what we call stock so no wonder everyone’s confused.
The below explanations are given based on The GAPS Diet and the way we use meat stocks and bone broths to support gut health, healing and sealing as well as ongoing health maintenance.
