Going Gluten Free

[training5]

AND another question....can diet truly affect behavior? How does one go gluten free? How is Celiac Disease tested for? What do you feed your child? Does the whole family follow the diet? How do you know if your child might have this problem?
Thanks again.

[Claire]

Diet can affect behavior. "Is This Your Child?" by Doris Rapp is a good introduction to the subject. Your library may have it.

I'm not an expert on celiac disease, but my understanding is that a typical diagnosis is made in two steps. The first one is a blood test, and the second is a biopsy. A definitive diagnosis is possible only with a biopsy.

It's possible to have an intolerance to wheat without having celiac disease. Food intolerances are poorly understood by the medical profession. Allergies show up on scratch skin tests, but food intolerances usually don't. Food intolerances can cause behavioral problems. Most people use elimination diets to see if food intolerances are causing problems.

[training5]

I am well versed in food intolerances. I have one to chocolate and one to onions. Thank you for your insight and the book. I am going to check if my library has it.

[JamBerry]

AND another question....can diet truly affect behavior? How does one go gluten free? How is Celiac Disease tested for? What do you feed your child? Does the whole family follow the diet? How do you know if your child might have this problem?
Thanks again.

Yes, diet can truly affect behavior. There are foods/additives that tend to be more commonly a problem (like gluten or dairy or artificial anything), but it could be something else too (apples for one of my dc, oats for the other).

Going gluten free is intimidating at first, but it doesn't have to be that hard. My suggestion is to begin with eating more of things that just don't have gluten in them rather than finding gf-substitute foods. For example, eat meat and veggies for dinner rather than trying to create a gf pizza or sandwiches. Eat bacon and eggs for breakfast rather than trying to create gf pancakes or waffles. After a while, you can start trying for gf-substitute foods. There are LOTS of good recipes and mixes out there now. But I still think it's easiest to just eat foods that happen to be gf ANYWAY rather than trying to replace gluten with substitutes.

What do I feed my gf child? Well, he's also cf (casein/dairy free) and apple free (and pineapple free) and feingold (no artificial stuff). Sounds hard, doesn't it? It's not, though. He eats meats, veggies, fruits, gfcf cereal (with gfcf substitute milk, like soy milk or almond milk). He also eats gfcf pizza, waffles, cookies, cakes, and other assorted junk food. He eats natural popsicles, icees, sorbets. Popcorn (with 'fake' butter), chips & salsa, gfcf pretzels. Honestly, he eats pretty darn good. When we go out to restaurants, he's our steak & fries or burger & fries guy (though if he were a true celiac, we'd have to be far more careful about the fries--they are often cross contaminated), or we take stuff from home for him (like if we go to the local pizza joint. we take him his own gfcf pizza).

No, the whole family does not follow the diet. However, we generally DO eat the same meals as he does (really, it's just good eating!), and we thoroughly enjoy lots of 'his' food (Gluten Free Pantry brand chocolate truffle brownie mix makes THE best brownies!). So, while we don't follow his diet, we do enjoy a lot of it ourselves. We are perpetually commenting how he's not suffering--he eats GOOD!

How to know if your kid has this problem? There can be a huge variety of indicators. "Is This Your Child?" which has been recommended is a great resource. We tried it because our ds is autistic and it seems to help a lot of folks on the spectrum. He's one of them, we found. He does MUCH better gfcf/apple free/feingold (GI wise, socio-emotionally, cognitively, etc, across the board).

HTH
Pam
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[Indy Rose]

You might also want to read "The Yeast Connection: Handbook" and "The Yeast Connection: Success Stories" by Dr. William Crook. He talks about how yeast overgrowth in the intestines is related to many, many health and behavioral problems. One benefit of doing his three-week yeast cleanse is you cut out many foods and then as you add them back, one by one, you can tell if you have a sensitivity to it. Also, I've heard a little about the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD) based on a book called "Breaking the Vicious Cycle". I'm getting ready to read the book myself but I don't know much about it yet.
Rose

[mcconnellboys]

Just this past week, I went into an area store (Kroger) and they have cases filled with food products that purport to be gluten free as well as free of other things. I don't know anything about this subject yet, but look forward to hearing replies to your post.

Thanks,

Regena

[Malenki]

We're gluten free and it definitely affects behavior here. We're also Feingold (www.feingold.org) Stage 1, casein free, soy free, peanut/cashew free, and perfume/dye free.

I completely agree with JamBerry that eliminating all foods that have gluten is easier at first than replacing them... the kids don't like the new foods if they just ate a wheat waffle yesterday, for example. But 4-6 weeks later when you introduce them to a new rice flour muffin, they are thrilled and gobble it up. (At least, that was our experience.)

There are tons of websites talking about gfcf diets ("gluten free casein free") which would give advice and recipes even if you don't go casein free too. I also definitely recommend the book "Is This Your Child?". Our library had it and it helped *enormously* when my son was 2 years old and I was wondering what in the world was going on.

Our family eats almost 100% for the most restrictive member. DH *does* eat a few things the rest of us don't (like cream; even I can't handle casein). We eat a large variety of foods... tons of veggies, fruit, meats, eggs; and also a variety of grains (rice, corn, buckwheat, millet). We don't get sick often and we're all at healthy weights. ;-)

To give you an idea of what we feed them:
Breakfasts might be stuffed eggs & rice; buckwheat waffles & sunflower seed butter; a gluten free breakfast sausage and bananas; grapefruit, melons, bananas for fruit.

Lunches have things like turkey deli meat, split pea soup, turkey vegetable soup, fried fish in small pieces, hamburgers, quick steaks, tuna salad, chicken salad; always fruit like melon, bananas, grapefruit, mango, figs, olives, pineapple, pears. Usually a gfcf muffin or rice or leftover waffle or cornbread.

Dinner is things like meatloaf, roast turkey, fish, hamburgers, turkey burgers, pork chops, stir-fry shrimp, roasts; always veggies such as acorn or butternut squash, zucchini, potatoes (sweet or white), corn, peas, okra, green beans, lima beans, turnips, etc. Also rice or muffin or cornbread.

Hope this helps a little... we eat differently but we also don't eat that different if that makes sense.

[Jennefer@SSA]

and it has been a lot of work but I don't regret it at all. I have put together a cookbook of all the recipes we've tried and liked (lots we haven't liked). We have also cut out all dyes, additives and preservatives of any kind. We are not seeing huge results yet but we phased out slowly. Some see immediate changes but that has not been the case with us. We started with dairy and moved to gluten slowly taking 4 weeks to completely phase it out. My ds is severely ADHD and has mild autism as well. We've heard that it can take months to see results as the gluten takes time to get out of the system.

If this diet isn't successful I am planning on trying Feingold and/or possibly SCD. I want to try everything I can in the natural vein before trying medications again. Our first experience was rough with so many side effects.

If you need any more advice/meal suggestions/ideas I would be happy to help in any way I can. Feel free to ask here or email me. There are *many* much more knowledgeable than I but I wanted to offer.

Blessings,

[Lisa in Jax]

Yes, diet can make a HUGE difference.

My son from India, was adopted as a four-year-old. For the first two years home, he had frequent tantrums, slept poorly, was constipated, urinated in inappropriate places, was oppositional, and was so hyper the Tazmanian Devil had nothing on him.

After we started the gluten- and casein-free diet, his hyperactivity decreased, the tantrums stopped, he was no longer constipated, he stopped urinating outside the toilet, and his sleep improved.

Check out tacanow.org and gfcfdiet.com for ideas on how to start the process of going gluten-free. It can be overwhelming, but it's worth it.

HIH,

Lisa