GFCF?
breezy0629
member
(Related to the POOP post, but I didn't want to get too confused and ask too many q's in one post)
So, when I hear mom's say that they 'switched to GFCF diet' that's pretty much it. Just a statement.
Before we attempt to make this big change in DS life... I have some questions:
Autism = communication is hard. What kind of changes did you need to make in the FAMILY eating habits to accomodate your child? Just wondering if you feel you have to sneak out of the room to drink milk, or eat a chip. It's very hard for my son to understand that he can't have something if it has always been available. I feel like he CRAVES things like milk - weather for comfort or for hunger.. I don't know.
What kinds of resources do you find are your best advocate for finding the right foods?
What are your favorite foods?
Do you cook meals according to GFCF, or do you just make seperate meals?
Re: GFCF?
I make his chicken nuggets, pizza, french fries. He's fine with it. When we first started the diet, as long as he was eating I was ok with what we got into him. This was for about 3 weeks. If I could get him to eat cereal and chicken nuggets for 4 days straight, I did it. Whatever it took to get him going. Then I expanded from that.
Health food stores are the best for finding gfcf foods but they are expensive. I also ordered special diets for special kids (one & two), The ADHD and autism friendly cookbook, the internet, gfcfdiet.com, tacanow.com. You can buy "regular" things in the grocery store, you just have to know what your looking for. If I wasn't sure if it had gluten (because milk has to be labeled, gluten doesn't) I called the company. Sometimes right in the middle of the grocery store.
I make him seperate meals but usually something similar and we still sit at the table and eat together.
Hope you don't mind me giving some info. Haven't done this myself.
A lot of families keep seperate meals just for the GFCF child. As you'll probably find out it is sometimes more expensive to eat this way so many families can't afford to make the switch for everyone.
What seems to work the best is keeping things similar. If you are drinking milk DS gets his version of the same thing be it Rice milk or whatever. I noticed that some families don't necessarily have to do both Cassein and Gluten some children benefit from just cutting one out or even just cutting sugars out of their diet. But that is all biomedical info that I don't know about well enough.
There is luckily more of a variety of items out there (at least in CA) but most parents shop at smaller Organic grocery stores. (In CA Wholefoods, Trader Joes, Mother's) Some families order food online and there are lots of recipes online as well...just google it
Also just remember that just because your little man can't communicate to you that well it doesn't mean he doesn't understand what is going on around him. I always think it's helpful to you and him to tell him why he can't have something...."It will hurt your tummy, make you sick, mommy wants to make you better. Just an idea, kids always want what they shouldn't have anyway
I've seen this diet really help with attention and behaviors hopefully if you choose to do it you will get good results as well.
Unraveling the mystery of autism and pervasive developmental disorder: A mothers story of research and recovery by Karyn Seroussi
The special diets for special kids also talks about it.
Louder than words - jenny mccarthy
Children with starving brains - Jaquelyn McCandless
My son was on a GFCF diet for awhile. I ended up taking him off of it because it did not work. I have TONS of information and tons of websites. (too many to put on here) If you give me your email address, I can email you some stuff.
I found it hard to eat things in front of my son. I never ate any kind of junk food in front of him. I felt I would be teasing him.
I will email you all the stuff I have tonight. I work all day and I don't have the information at work.