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Today I picked about a dozen pods of peas from my garden, and a large amount of Swiss Chard to go with dinner. The peas went into a plastic baggie to wait until more peas are ready to pick.

On Wednesday at work we had a food donation that contained grilled veggies, with hummus. I couldn’t remember if hummus was allowed on full GAPS, but I think it’s not. And furthermore, I have no way of knowing the ingredients in it since it was a prepared dish from a banquet. I cheated and ate a couple of tablespoons. I ate quite a bit of the veggies, there were beets, green onions [affiliate link], cucumbers, cauliflower, acorn squash, purple carrots and a few others. They were very delicious. I knew they had some kind of oil on them, and after I finished pigging out, I called the restaurant which had donated them. I was told they used either olive oil or canola oil for all vegetable grilling.

I’d be willing to bet they used canola oil, because I was negatively affected by something. My stomach began to rumble and everything ran through quickly.

Wow. Makes me even more determined to try to avoid cheating.

I don’t really have anything of significance to report, although I did buy this Farberware Classic 16-Quart Stainless-Steel Stockpot with Lid from Amazon today. There is one left in their “warehouse deal” section. The cost was $56 with free super saver shipping. The regular price is $95.34.

My husband came home with a Food Network 16 quart stainless steel stockpot from Kohl’s. He paid $50 plus tax. We are going to wait until my order comes from Amazon and see which one we want to keep.

I have always had a 16 quart stockpot, but the ones I’ve had have always had the thin bottom. My last stockpot ended up with a tiny hole popped in it from our electric stove element arcing. Luckily I was awake when it happened! I heard a *PING* sound, then sizzling as if water was being dripped onto the element. When I got in the kitchen and moved the stockpot, there was a puddle of soup at the bottom of the stove. The pot was only about half full, but that would have been a pretty huge mess to clean up had it all leaked out.

Anyway, I will be so glad to be able to make chicken stock with two chickens at once. I am thinking I am going to gear up to start intro early in March. Maybe starving… now that was a weird typo… maybe starting on the 4th.

Also, I am reading an asthma book that my mom gave me years ago when I was first diagnosed. One section I was reading was talking about enzymes, and of course everything I read is through my GAPS lenses. Anyway, the book was saying that most people with asthma don’t have enough stomach acids to digest their food, so he gets them on enzymes right away and their asthma clears up. I doubt the healing is that miraculous if they have gut dysbiosis, but GAPS recommends enzymes also, so it kind of goes along and makes sense.

The other thing he was saying in the same area is when you don’t have enough stomach acid to digest your food, that your body uses all available resources for digestion, which leaves us with little energy for doing anything else, and people with asthma are often exhausted. Which of course, exhaustion is also an adrenal issue. But it does make sense to me, if my body is having to work so hard to digest my food, then it would free up some energy if it didn’t have to work so hard. Intro is, as I understand, a time where the body is being well nourished, but with foods that are easily digested: well cooked vegetables, fats, broth and baked or boiled meats. So that also makes some sense to me.

I think I am going to make a point to read over in the GAPS books tonight about enzymes. I also want to learn more about probiotics and start figuring out what I need to buy so I can be prepared to do introduction.

I was looking at my legs last night, and my calves are at least an inch smaller in diameter. It’s as if my whole body is shrinking. My ankles haven’t been swollen the whole time I’ve been on GAPS.

My last doctor appointment, my doctor asked me if my ankles swell and I said they did sometimes and I thought it had to do with certain foods, and she said it was just old age creeping up on us and as we age our circulation gets weaker so that is why ankles swell. She didn’t have an answer for me when I asked her how come it only happened sometimes. I haven’t fired her yet, but I need to get that done and switch over to another doctor that I think I can tolerate better.

I wish I could work up my energy and nerve to find a naturopathic doctor. I actually know of a doctor that is an MD and a homeopathic doctor and he is said to have cured his asthma. But when I called to make an appointment they told me my insurance wouldn’t cover the introductory tests and I would have to pay for those out of pocket. That would be $2000, thank you very much, but no thank you.

I’m going to try to go to church on Sunday, although it is hard on me to miss so many hours of one of my day’s off work.