A Personal Experience Putting an Autistic Boy on the GFCF Diet

Ok, I thought I would share with you my personal experience because I am not a Doctor.

My personal experience is with a child who had moderate Autism, no language, hearing issues, behavior issues, pica, and all the classic signs of Autism 11 years ago. He was diagnosed by 3 different Doctors so he could be admitted into a research program for Autism. (Dr. Lovaas's Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) research study.) I was trained to do this treatment also, as well as recruiting and training all the therapists who worked with us with supervision from the Wisconsin Early Autism Project. The ABA therapy helped tremendously. In fact, I don't think my son would have ever learned to talk or read without this therapy. But it doesn't address the organic cause of the Autism, which, at the time, nobody knew anything about or what to do for it. At least in my City. The diet was only one of many things we tried with our son.

But the diet is so important to his well-being that we have tried it more than once, even though at the time we first tried it, I struggled with it because there was so little information about it, and I couldn't get the other family members to be on the same page with it. This time around is so much easier, and I have the whole family on it so cooking is simpler. Everybody seems to like it and I have more specialized products available to replace some of the things we missed the most, like frozen waffles and ice cream.

Also, Oprah went on a diet that is called "The 21 Day Cleanse" which is supposed to be GFCF also, but eliminates meat, too. So more people are looking for GFCF alternatives. The demand is up for more products, and resources.

This is how we started. His whole life, my son has limited himself to about 5 foods total. Sometimes the specific foods change, but he stays with about 5 choices, period. He screams as if you are trying to poison him if you offer him a food he won't tolerate. He runs from the kitchen if I cook something he doesn't like because of the cooking smells in the room. So I went to several nutritionists early on, and had a feeding study done at the hospital, and we did specialized "feeding therapy" all to no avail. One time a feeding tube was mentioned (another parent called it a "brain bypass.") I mean, therapy helped to at least keep him from starving, but didn't change his basic behavior around food. As he grew older, he didn't grow out of his food issues. As he learned to talk (thank God) he started to say he was a vegetarian to help make his case for not eating what he didn't/couldn't/wouldn't eat. He has to smell everything before eating it, and can taste even tiny "adulterations" we might make to sneak in healthy things. He even has to have certain "Brands" of food, with exactly the right label and packaging before he will eat it. So I thought a diet of any kind was out of the question. So I put it off several years after hearing about it, because I just wasn't up to it. (We were running a 30-40 hour a week therapy program out of our house at the time.)

After many, many small introductions to foods with the help of therapists and family, we got him to eat most vegetables and fruit, because I figured that people seem to do just fine on a vegan diet, which is the most restrictive so-called "normal" diet I could find that would sustain a long life. I figured that if I could get him to at least eat like a vegan, that would be an improvement!!

So introducing this diet wasn't as difficult as it could have been, because a vegan diet has no dairy products already. Every time he ate a new food we would celebrate, and he would get "points" which we use to reward him with his favorite games and kid stuff.

As it stands now, here is a list of the foods he will eat, and also fit the GF/CF yeast-free diet:

potatoes, rice, sweet red pepper, romaine lettuce, apples, pears, grapes, kiwi, sweet peas, cucumber, carrots, celery, peanuts, cashews, almonds, rasperries, strawberries, cherries, black olives, raisins, maple syrup, olive oil, 100% fruit juices, popcorn, corn chips, dairy-free chocolate, grapefruit, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, watermelon, green beans, red cabbage, oranges, bananas, blue potatoes, blue corn chips, cauliflower, broccoli, zuchini, honey, lemon, lime, iodized sea salt, gluten-free ketsup, garlic, onion, blueberries, blackberries, yams, sweet potato, brussels sprouts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cherry tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, parsley, gluten-free cookies, gluten-free crackers, Rice Chex, Gluten-free waffles, sorbet, sherbert, home-made popcicles, natural sugar, tapioca flour, certified gluten-free oats, GFCF granola bars called "Luna".

He takes various vitamins and supplements to balance things out, and are also theraputic. I will list these next post.

When we go to McDonald's, he can have: A side salad with french dressing, an order of fries, apple dippers, an orange juice (not orange drink), and I bring a handful of cashews for protein. Right now this minute he is eating organic "Spud Puppies" which are usually called Tater Tots, with ketchup, home-made lemonaid, some slices of sweet red pepper, a couple of leaves of leafy green lettuce, 10 maple coated cashews, and half of a peach. He's normal weight and height for his age, speaks with perfect diction, is mainstreamed in school and working at his grade level, has about 6 friends who call him daily and arrange activities, (one of his friends just called now), loves drawing cartoons, and is a computer whiz.

He still needs to be coaxed into eating some of these foods, for instance, if he was cooking for himself he would still only eat 5 foods. But these are all foods he will eat, with just a little coaxing, which is a big difference from running screaming from the room! His description of his diet is "anything without eyes." Which I guess works.

I am perpetually working on a new food with him, which takes several months to a year for him to tolerate. Right now, we are working on garbanzo beans (chick peas.) This means presenting it to him in tiny amounts very gradually (first he just has to tolerate looking at the food without gagging.) Then we go to touching it, smelling it, and then finally tasting a tiny amount. Most foods I present un-cooked (except for potatoes, rice, waffles, and chicken, which he says has eyes and so this will be harder) un-altered, and with no dips or sauces. I think its easier for him because he can "standardize" in his mind the taste/texture of the food better that way.

The longer we follow the diet, and the more carefully we follow it, the easier it is for him to eat things. I think his system is healing, he is thinking clearer, and he can tolerate more tastes and textures than before we put him on this diet.