The GF/CF Diet...How and why we got started

After Kaylee was diagnosed with autism I got to researching. I read lots and lots of books and found a lot of information on the Internet (much of it conflicting...none scientifically proven, but that's a whole other post) and I don't remember where I heard of it, but I read one of the must reads for autism moms: Unraveling the Mystery of Autism by Karyn Seroussi. Before I read this book I never knew that autism was something kids could recover from. I thought kids were born autistic!

In this book, Karyn Seroussi talks about one of the first interventions she implemented for her son was the Gluten Free/Casein Free diet. This diet is one that excludes all wheat and dairy.

The standing theory is: when our children with autism eat these foods they can become chemicals like drugs that can fog up our children's minds and/or trigger their immune systems. This could be due to the 'leaky gut" syndrome, but nothing has really been proven as far as I know. But one thing is for sure, it has helped many children with autism either recover or at least improve their condition.

Now I was glad that there may be hope for my little girl when I read that, but I wept with an overwhelming fear and trepidation, "how am I going to do something like that????" I was expecting my third child at the time and I had a 2 year old and a 4 month old. Where would I find the time to cook all of this stuff? And what if she didn't eat it?

I believed that Kaylee was a definite candidate for this diet, pending her constant diarrhea, pale sickly look, and her underweight body seemed to be reason enough for me to take this step, scary as it was for me.

First, I took out the milk and replaced it with soy milk. She seemed OK with that.

The wheat? That was the hard part. If you want to go gluten free and you don't have much money (like us), you have to cook from scratch. That's what I did! I found some recipes online to replace what Kaylee's "usuals" were and I haunted the health food stores.

At first, Kaylee didn't like her new diet. I remember when I put the first GF/CF chicken nuggets in front of her. She wanted her Tyson chicken nuggets. She gave me a puzzled look at first and then proceeded to ignore them. I didn't fight her about it, I just let her from out of her chair and eventually she became hungry enough to eat them (this was at dinnertime) and she still eats them today.

After a little time on the GF/CF diet, I noticed that Kaylee's speech increased, and her poops were better, but still not normal. I was disappointed with her lack of growth. I heard of stories about people's kids speaking sentences after their child's gluten-and-milk-induced fog lifted, but such was not our case.

However, that is where I could lead into the next thing: the diet wasn't the whole problem for Kaylee. Later, after starting Kaylee on the NIDS Protocol for awhile I started to see that we were removing her triggers one by one: viruses, yeast, allergies. We are still working on the allergies now. It is important to know that even if your child doesn't totally show an improvement on GF/CF, you may be missing a part of the picture, but still on the right path! I believe that most if not all of our kids with autism have an issue with these foods until they become healthier.

I have been cooking GF/CF for Kaylee for over a year and a half now, and now I have a system that works for us. I will be sharing some of my tips in my next post.