Diet Management

We share with you what Karyn Seroussi wrote in her book,

"Some cases of autism are treatable with dietary intervention, and the sooner, the better".

l Only one hundred of those receive an early diagnosis;

l Only ten of those have parents who find out about the diet soon after;

l Only five of those have parents who decide to try the diet;

l Only three of those have parents able to understand how to do it properly

l Only one of those children is in the subgroup that will respond

"It appears that there is a window of opportunity after the onset of the behaviors during which certain children are still able to regain functional use of the enzymes that breakdown the neuropeptides."

Effects of the diet

Dietary research has shown the following improvements, though vary according to individuals:

l Increased level of attention and concentration

l More calm and settled

l Decreases in aggression

l Improvements in sleeping patterns

l Improvements in communications

l Improvements in physical coordination

l Improved eating habits

l Improved eye contact

Watch out for dairy

Ingredients that contains dairy : milk, skim milk, butter, yogurt, lactose, powdered milk, goat¡¦s milk,cheese, casein, caseinate, whey. Do not worry. Apart from milk, you should be able to find soy cheese, dairy free live yogurt as substitute.

Know about gluten

There are four groups of foods you should pay attention to: (1) Grains, (2) seasoning & condiments (3) bread and cake and biscuits (4) hidden gluten in convenience & canned foods.

(1)Common grains that contain gluten : wheat, oat, spelt, kamut, rye, barley, semolina. It is suggested to replace them with rice, millet, potato, soy, quinoa, topicoa.

(2) Many seasonings and spread such as soy sauce, vinegar, rice syrup, sauce, salad dressing, jam, cube, gravy actually contains gluten. Look for wheat free tamari,gluten free condiments, gluten free/dairy free chocolate spread.

(3) Unless you get the biscuits/bread/cake from a specialty store, you can safely assume all bakery goods and biscuits available from ordinary bakery contain wheat and gluten. You can make your own bread, pancake, waffle, cake, muffins¡K¡Kusing gluten free flour and mixes. Add tapioca flour, potato flour, xanthum gum (remotely derived from corn) and guar gum( from the seed of a plant of legume family), egg or egg replacer to create the best texture. Toast your bread will give a better taste. As for cookies, you need not worry. There are quite a lot of substitutes of different flavours: chocolate (made from cocoa), digestive, bourbon, custard cream, ginger, crispbread, rice cake, crackers, tea biscuits.

(4) Many canned foods and convenience foods also contain gluten such as chips, French fries, chocolates, candy. Vitamins, supplements, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, glue, playdough, crayon may also contain gluten. So, be sure you avoid gluten in all situations.

A brief guide to diet management

Don't rush into it

After making up their mind, some parents are so eager to try out the diet that they simply rush into it without sufficient preparation. This is counter-productive and will likely create a lot of stress and disappointment for the child and the whole family. Allow yourself at least 2 weeks to prepare for it. Here are the things you should do during these two weeks:

Get support from hubby and granny

Discuss the diet with your spouse and other key members of the family such as grandparents and obtain his/their full support as much as possible. We can¡¦t afford to have a diet on one hand and the other parent/grandparent keep feeding the child forbidden food on the other hand.

Seek cooperation from nanny

Brief your child’s caregiver and nanny fully what is this all about. You may be surprised that they may turn out to be very sympathetic and willing to work with you. Win their heart and not bulldoze it. You need their full cooperation.

Separate cooking utensils

Separate all the cooking utensils (including toaster) for your child,unless you have decided to apply the diet to all family members. While your other family members may still want to eat foods containing gluten and dairy (e.g. cartons of fresh cow¡¦s milk and wheat spaghetti), it is advisable to ensure all essential cooking ingredients (soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, seasonings are entirely replaced by gluten and casein free ones to avoid the confusion and cross contamination).

Reserve kitchen space for GFCF foods

Clear some space in your kitchen cabinet for the new food items. It is better to reserve a compartment solely for your child¡¦s food and snack. There are two advantages: avoid confusion and secondly, your child will learn gradually where to find his food at home.

Write a new food plan

Make a list of food that your child likes to eat and make another list of substitute food. See if you can replace the forbidden food fully. For example, if your child drinks milk every morning and eat cereal. You should replace it with rice milk and quinoa meal or gluten free bread with gluten free/dairy fee jam and chocolate spread for breakfast.

Check out health grocery

Go and check out health grocery and supermarkets what food items they have. Learn to read the labels and ingredient list. If in doubt, ask store operator for further information.

Create a daily journal

Set aside a diet journal for your child. This can be a notebook or you can create a file in your PC. The daily journal should consist of three sections. The first section is a record clearly stated what food the child eat during breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner ,etc. The second section is what supplements does he/she take or being added/or being taken away during that day. The third section is to a description of the child¡¦s overall conditions, mood, eye contact, responsiveness, school performance,toileting, bowel movement or any other things you think it worthwhile for evaluating the diet. Since you need to input data onto this journal everyday, our subjective opinion is that you should just use the most simple method ----- a notebook ---- which (1) you can bring it anywhere you like (e.g. to the clinic if you had an appointment with your child¡¦s doctor, bring it with you during holiday trip) ;(2) you can ask your nanny or husband to fill it in for you if you are not free on that day. The idea is to share out the responsibility a bit.

Inform the school

Make sure you talk to the teacher about the new diet before you start. It is better to make an appointment with the teacher rather than telling her causally while you pick up your kid from school. To prepare for the meeting, you should have the following with you (1) a short note explaining why a new diet is needed (2) A list of common forbidden food (3) a box of snacks suitable for your child for keeping by the teacher to deal with unforeseeable situations. In order not to confuse the teacher, you can simply tell them that your child is allergic to milk and gluten, and they should refrain from giving him food without consulting you.

Set a start date

It is important that you choose the best time to start the diet. Avoid major festival or upcoming birthday when your child will crave for festive and party foods that he/she can have. Avoid starting it when you are having an overseas holiday because mealtime and availability of foods is much less predictable. School holiday (if no overseas vacation is involved) is a good time to start as you can have full control over what food your child eat. Understandably, you should avoid periods when your child is particularly moody and weak such as falling sick. Once you feel that your preparation is ready, you should go for it.

Remove dairy first

When you are ready, remove dairy from the diet in the first place. It should not be very difficult. Replace the cow¡¦s milk with rice, soy, quinoa, almond, tapioca, potato milk. Be sure that they are also gluten free so as to avoid changes in the near future. Some rice milk may contain traces of barley, malt and are not gluten free. If in doubt, always check directly with the manufacturers or your store operator.

Remove gluten is the next step

After you have removed dairy, you can consider removing gluten in about two to three weeks¡¦ time, if not earlier. It may take a few attempts to find out the foods that your child will happily eat. Be optimistic and keep trying.

Create your own recipe

If your child will not switch to non dairy drinks right away, try and mix it with cereals first. Or add a little bit sugar (organic cane sugar or unrefined sugar) to enrich the taste. Or dilute the milk with a little bit of water as sometimes the taste of soy is quite strong. Just be creative. As the memory of milk fade, the taste may gain more acceptance.

Regression is normal

The initial one to three weeks is critical and most children will show regressions in behaviour such as anxiety, crying, moody, clinginess. This is similar to the withdrawal symptoms of opioid addicts trying to stop the drugs and regression is not abnormal. In most cases, the stronger the reaction of the child, the more likely that he/she will benefit from the diet.

All or nothing is the key

Your child must stick to the diet rigidly. There is no middle ground. Half hearted-attempt is worse than not doing it at all, taking into account all the trouble in implementing the diet.

This is not a quick fix

Be patient and it is advisable to stick to the diet for at least six months. This is because the body takes time to reorganize its biological system and there is a belief that some of the products derived from gluten may be stored in the body, and this means that even when the foods are removed the child may still have a reserve of them.

More home-cooked food, less processed food

Eat home cooked food is always the safest and most healthiest approach. The more food is processed, the more nutrient depleted and chemically altered it becomes. Many of the chemicals added to food (flavour enhancers, colours, various additives and preservatives have been conclusively shown to contribute to hyperactivity, learning disabilities,psychiatric disorders and many other health problems.Natural foods subject to extreme heat,pressure, enzymes, solvents and countless number of various other chemicals ,fats get hydrogenated and proteins get denatured. So, aside from the diet, if you need to eat processed foods at times, try to switch to those with no chemicals and artificial colouring, organics, no genetically modified ingredients.

Rotate the foods in your diet

Your child may be a picky-eater but you must try to rotate the foods in his diet so that he will not be too dependent upon one food. For example, he should rotate fish, pork, beef, lamb¡K. And the same applies to vegetables as well as non-dairy substitutes. A bit of everything is always better than focusing on a few food. For people prone to food intolerance, it is ironical that the more he craves for one food, the more likely that he is intolerant of that and the more he eats, the more he will react to it.