I have lots to update about my GAPS journey, so I'm going to share the recipe first!
Baked Butternut Squash Fries
Please be careful peeling and cutting butternut squash – here is a post I wrote, complete with video on how to Safely Cut and Peel Butternut Squash.
- 1 butternut squash, peeled and sliced into long sticks
- Coconut Oil [affiliate link]
- Peel butternut squash.
- Cut into long strips.
- Lay out on a cookie sheet.
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- Using your fingers, slather coconut oil onto the squa.s
- Place in the oven and bake 40 minutes or until fork tender.
- You may turn on the broiler and place the pan under the broiler for additional browning of the fries.
- 1 butternut squash
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- Peel butternut squash.
- Cut into long strips.
- Lay out on a cookie sheet.
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- Use your fingers to slather coconut oil onto all the squash pieces.
- Place in the oven and bake 40 minutes or until fork tender.
- You may turn on the broiler and place the pan under the broiler for additional browning of the fries.
Well, today is day 178. I have been weighing myself once a month and I decided to weigh myself on the first day of the month. On May 1st, I weighed 203.6 pounds. Today I weigh 200.6 pounds. So I have lost 3 pounds. I honest had hoped to see 199, but that is okay. Once again, Starlene dear, this is NOT about weight loss. Think of all the improvements you have seen since beginning GAPS.
I did not weigh myself before starting GAPS, but I did have my son look at the scale a couple of weeks in and he says I was at 232 pounds. So I have lost nearly 32 pounds.
My husband stepped on the scale and he has lost ten pounds! He also remembered, when a commercial came on the television that he has not had acid reflux in the middle of the night in months! This is wonderful news. I remember how he would wake up choking. He said it would come up into his nose sometimes.
Sunday will be my six month anniversary of starting on GAPS.
For the last couple of days I had been hankering for a “special treat”. I really was tempted to make some kind of cupcakes with almond flour [affiliate link], but I also want to wait until after the first as I figure the extra calories would affect my weight loss. My plan is to stay off fruit again this month, now that I'm finally broke free of eating them, and I'm also going to limit nuts and almond flour products.
Last night, I decided I should probably use the butternut squash that's been on the counter for the last week to ten days. One of the ladies on the Yahoo GAPS group I'm on talked about butternut squash fries and they sounded so yummy, I just had to give them a try. Here's the before picture.

They were FABULOUS. OH my goodness. I just squished coconut oil onto the fries with my fingers, then spread them out. I baked them at 425°F for 20 minutes on one side and turned them to the other side for another 20 minutes. I wanted to save some for ES, but I ended up scarfing them down all by myself.
I have written before about my bouts of insomnia. They were not too frequent, but I realized this morning since beginning GAPS I have been sleeping VERY well. And in the last couple of weeks I have even woke up hungry a couple of times and been able to go right back to bed and fall to sleep easily! This is huge! This has not been possible for me to do since before becoming pregnant! Every since having a pregnant body, if I awoke hungry in the middle of the night, I had to feed myself, or I would just lay there awake.
I am finding though, that eating foods that are higher in carbohydrates causes me to have insomnia.
Last night I experienced it again, after scarfing down the butternut squash fries. On Day 29 I also ate more than a fair share of butternut squash and was awake throughout the night.
That tells me I should avoid foods high in carbs at dinner because it affects my sleep.
I also have a tooth that has become sensitive to cold and heat. Bummer. It is in the area of the molar which my dentist has wanted to crown for the past 3 or 4 years, but I keep chickening out. I may have waited too long. I hate the dilemma of having dental work done.
Today I had chicken soup for breakfast, a few raw cashews on the way to work. An avocado a couple hours after arriving at work. At lunch there was a crisis. The health inspector arrived to inspect our kitchen! It's always a stressful time for my boss and I didn't want to be in the kitchen heating up my soup with my own little saucepan, so I made do with half a cucumber and a tomato with olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar. On the way home from work I had another tablespoon or two of raw cashews.
Hubby made roast for dinner, and I steamed cauliflower to make Faux-tatoes, used some of the beef broth (with cauliflower, shredded zucchini and a whole cooked onion blended) to make gravy.
I also cooked the organic spinach I managed to score from the farmer's market last Tuesday. There was barely a pound.
I am tired and must go to bed now. We switched milking to mornings, so now I must be up at 3:30.
One thing I have always tried to do when I have to get up that early. We are fortunate to live in an area that is still relatively dark at night, so we have the opportunity to see thousands of stars, and many nights the Milky Way is very visible. The moon was very bright this morning. I always try to look at being out that early as how lucky I am to see the beautiful moon and stars. And the weather is perfect right now. Perfect. Not too cold, not warm at all.
One more thing. I found Ellen's site I am Gluten-Free – she began her gluten free lifestyle having been diagnosed with Alopecia. ES was diagnosed with Alopecia Areata (basically baldness on the head) at the age of 2.5. He began the cycle of losing his hair and it would come back, a little less hair each year. We were told all those years ago (1989) that there was nothing to be done. Poor boy, to this day he thinks I cut his hair and snatched him bald-headed. He giggles when I cut his father's hair or his brother's hair because he thinks I might take their hair, too. Some days he gets really upset at me for taking his hair. I think it has been gone too long, but I learned at Ellen's site that Alopecia is an auto-immune disease. Which is something GAPS is known for addressing and possibly healing. I doubt that his hair will ever grow back, but I feel sure we are on the right track with GAPS.
How is your GAPS journey?
YUM! These squash fries look amazing! I’ll have to give this is try sometime. Thanks!
Hi Starlene! Those butternut squash fries look fabulous! 🙂
Since you mentioned Ellen’s alopecia, I thought I’d share the info that one of the readers at The W.H.O.L.E. Gang shared with Ellen when she did her guest post for the 30 Days to a Food Revolution event. The reader’s mother had suffered with alopecia, and while her mother was not gluten free, she used a jojoba oil and rosemary protocol to get her hair back and keep it. (I had read about rosemary oil benefits in this area before.) See her comment that I cut and pasted at the bottom. I can’t help but think that if her mother were gluten free, she would not have to work so hard to keep her hair. I’ve read that it can take a year or more to get one’s hair back after going gluten free. Also, it’s very important to note that alopecia and many of the symptoms/conditions related to gluten are caused by the malabsorption issues–failure to absorb vitamins and minerals–caused by small intestine damage. Think iron/anemia, B/depression, calcium/osteoporosis, magnesium +/insomnia, and so on. So the issues caused by the malabsorption issues will not resolve until the small intestine is healed, which can take a good amount of time for many. Youngsters can heal more quickly though, so there really might be hair in the future for your son! Anyway, wanted to share this info.
So happy for your success on the GAPS diet! It’s wonderful to see people heal. 🙂
All the best,
Shirley
Marissa May 2, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Hi Ellen,
I thought I would share the hair protocol and recipe here in case anyone else reading was interested.
1 ounce jojoba oil (great for skin and hair)
30 drops of Rosemary essential oil (stimulates and cleans hair follicles as well as stimulating mental clarity)
Using a toothbrush or other soft-bristled brush, scrub the mixture into your scalp in circular motion. (you most likely won’t use all of the mixture so just save the remainder for later use)
Leave this on for 4+ hours. Rinse and lightly wash with shampoo, often don’t need conditioner due to moisturizing effect of jojoba oil.
To truly reap benefit from this protocol, it is best to continue this daily treatment for two weeks. You should begin to notice new growth (peach fuzz) at this stage.
You can then drop back to every other day treatments for 1-2 weeks, and then progressively down to once a week, to bi-weekly.
My mother continues to do treatments at least bi-weekly as she is still dealing with cradle cap (partial cause of hair loss…). She stresses that it is important to be diligent, especially in the beginning.
I hope this helps!
Blessings, Marissa
Shirley, wow, thank you so much for this information! I was so happy to read about Ellen’s success with alopecia as that has been one thing my oldest son actually cares about, that he doesn’t have hair. We are not yet at gluten-free with him, although I really want to be there already my husband is so reluctant to remove certain foods. I am working on him though and keep telling him all these things that are caused by gluten and other digestive issues. Thank you for the recipe, maybe I can at least start this protocol in the interim to maybe get a head start on things. Thank you again!
Tara Marie, oh my gosh. They were so delicious. I ate the whole squash myself. The critter in my garden has killed my only butternut squash plant so I guess I won’t be too tempted by a bumper crop. There just won’t be any crop. Although my mom is growing butternut squash, doesn’t eat much of it and has five growing so I may have to cave and have another. 🙂
This looks great! It’s nice to see something other than the same-old, same-old maple/cinnamon/something-sweet ideas when it comes to starchy winter squashes. Thanks for the info on storage, too. I’ll definitely be trying that method!