Feingold diet friendly food!

from the Feingold Association of the United States

Hey there!    Just got this link, and I wanted to share it with my readers, fellow bloggers, and autism parents.
Do you know anyone on the Feingold diet?   The web site says, “many learning and behavior problems start in your grocery cart.”

Although I do not think that this is the case for everyone, I do know that diet can aggravate  or even cause symptoms in some people with autism, adhd, and other such issues. We found this to be true with my son, as he followed the gf/cf diet for many years. My neice, who has ADHD, had significantly decreased symptoms when she stayed away from artificial additives and dyes.

People who follow the Feingold diet avoid artificial everything, including dyes and sweeteners. It’s not easy to do, as you can imagine.  I know kiddos on the spectrum who tried this diet… and some whose parents won’t try this diet because it is so hard.  I don’t blame them at all.  GFCF was hard enough.

So, as I’ve said before, that’s one of the reasons why I signed up to be a Wildtree rep.  We use nothing artificial, manufacture our own products in a peanut free facility, and strive to make meal planning easy for everyone.    Check my website for more information.  Or, click on the “Wildtree Doc” tab above.

I do make money from Wildtree, and business is great. But please believe me when I say that my passion isn’t for selling… it’s for helping families like mine.  I promise.  🙂

Update on going off the diet

Today was our annual visit to Annapolis, MD to meet with the folks from Pfeiffer Treatment Center.

I told the doctor that we were off of the gfcf diet now.  It seems like my son actually weaned himself off of it– occasional “cheats” and finally just quitting altogether.  This is what I found out:

The diet is apparently not meant to be life long.  It is to be done until the symptoms of leaky gut are gone, and the intestines have healed.  Signs that the diet needs to continue: return of bowel issues and return of the symptoms the were present before the diet was begun.

That’s pretty much it.

Not feeling so “light” today. We are really tired.  We both had trouble sleeping last night.  We probably both got around 3 hours, versus my 7-9 and his 9-10.  He’s also been off of his supplements / regimen for over 24 hours, and is off the wall– stimming like crazy!  So the supplements do indeed work.  They are too many to mention, and we are going back to compounding this next time so he has fewer pills to swallow.  To top it all off, the reason he’s off of his supplements is due to the lab work he was to have done today… which didn’t happen, so I’m extra frustrated.  Also, we think that his yeast issues have returned (which explains his carb feeding frenzy), so a really fun stool test will happen in the next couple of weeks.  Yay.

Ah, well.  At least we know that the sky is not going to fall because we stopped the diet, and that the supplements are working.  And if he does have yeast issues we can deal with that. There’s the lighter side. (Glad I found it!)

Going off the diet

In 2005, my son Philip went on the gfcf diet.  As I wrote in a previous post, I cried!  But we did it.  Somehow, when the going gets tough, I cry and move on, step by step.

According to the folks at Pfeiffer Treatment Center, if casein (dairy protein) was a problem for Philip, we would see fogginess and an inability to focus. If gluten (protein in wheat, barley,  and rye) was a problem, we would see hyperactivity, severe impulsivity, and perhaps even dangerous behavior. We were to try the diet for at least three months to see if there were any changes.

We saw a lot of change in a short amount of time.  Here’s a short list of some benefits:

• We no longer worried about his “escaping” the house. (Before the diet, we had actually called the police a couple of times because he’d simply disappeared. Thankfully, nothing bad had happened and he was safe.) About a month after we began the diet, the escaping stopped and we could take the alarms off our doors.
• We didn’t have to worry about his staying with us when we went out somewhere.
• His speech increased.
• He listened much better.

So the diet, although it was a challenge, was a success.

However, over the past year, Philip has been “cheating” on his diet.  The following event convinced me to start weaning him off of the diet altogether.

A few days ago, I came downstairs to find Philip sitting on the couch, a blanket over his head, and heard munching sounds.  I yanked the blanket off of his head, and said, “A HA!”  I discovered that Philip had gone to the garage, opened the deep freezer, pulled out a frozen pizza, unwrapped it, microwaved it, neatly removed the pizza from the microwave, and cut it into slices with a pizza cutter.  He then took a piece, proceeded to the couch, covered up his head, and at his breakfast in secret.

I didn’t know whether to scold him or laugh and  be proud at his self-sufficiency! I ended up having him clean up after himself, throw out the rest of the pizza (because he didn’t ask first), and get on with his morning schedule.

We watched him throughout the day, kept tabs on him at school, and saw no behavior differences.  In the past, we would have seen “off the wall” behavior right away and perhaps received phone calls from school.

Nothing bad reported.  Nada.  Zilch.

Philip is now eating regular school lunch, and is as happy as a clam.  We continue to monitor.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that, by the time we go on vacation this summer, the diet will be history.

Funny thing is, Philip has been having “green” days at school since he went off the diet.  That means he didn’t get in trouble at all.  Wow.

I became a Wildtree rep (see my link to the right) mainly because of this special diet.  However, we are eating so much healthier because of Wildtree that I’m glad I signed up.

Going on the diet 6 years ago lighted our load by increasing our peace of mind.  Going off of it now lightens our load by lessening our grocery bill and giving us more freedom and flexibility.  Just goes to show that change is inevitable, and that for everything, there is a season!

Things that make my life easier: Wildtree

We had already tried the casein free diet, and were trying our best to stick to it, when a specialist recommended that we do the gluten free, as well.

I cried.

And so my son started the  gluten free / casein free, or gfcf diet, in 2005.   Gluten is a protein in grains such as wheat and barley, and casein is a protein found in milk products.

I began my journey into gfcf cooking, which often times simply flopped.  Happily, I’ve come a long way since then! (I still haven’t figured out how to make gf bread, despite bread machines, mixes, and cookbooks.)

Fast forward a few years.  I was at a local grocery store and saw gfcf chicken nuggets, bagels, donuts, fish sticks, cereal.

I cried again, only this time for joy!

Disclaimer: I am a representative for the company I will talk about next,  and I do make money from Wildtree.

Now, we have several special diets in the house.  GFCF, low sodium, low cholesterol– you get the picture.

Recently I tasted some products from Wildtree, an all natural food company that specializes in quick and easy, allergen friendly meals. Delicious!  And when I went through the product ingredients, my list of things everyone in my family could eat was much longer than the list of things that they couldn’t.  Same for my friend whose son is allergic to peanuts!

I jumped for joy, and then signed up to be a rep, mostly for the life time discount I get on the products, and also to try to make some income for the family.

Life have definitely gotten easier since I signed up to be a rep.   Especially since I can use the natural butter flavor oil for popcorn, in gf shortbread cookies (they taste soooo good), and other things that call for butter. (The butter flavor comes from coconuts.)

Here’s the a healthier, more streamlined, easier 2011!