You Are What You Eat
“It is very strange that we within the NHS are in the culture of prescribing medication which runs the risk of side-effects, yet we are so nervous about giving tailor-made advice on what a healthy diet would look like.
“As soon as you talk about diet and autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), people assume you are going to be suggesting something wacky, because some people have done so in the past.
“But you can give responsible, tailor-made advice on diet, which is more likely to do good than harm.”
So Dave Rex, lead child health dietician with NHS Highland in the UK, was quoted in an article entitled NHS prescribing drugs ‘when diet might help children with autism from the January 7th Sunday Herald. Rex’s reference to the skepticism about the use of dietary interventions in treating autism struck a familiar cord in me. My son Charlie has been on the gluten-free casein-free diet since June 1999 (I wrote yesterday about Charlie’s excitement that I have finally found a ready-made pizza that he likes).
Dave Rex’s words struck a particulate note in me regarding diet and autistic children. The gluten-free casein-free diet has helped Charlie’s health, but he often seems to have pronounced and often immediate reactions to many foods, such as oranges, chocolate, anything sugary, soybeans, rice. Sometimes it seems that just eating anything results in him becoming hyper, humming a lot, jumping up and down, giggling a lot. These reactions pass (eventually) but I do think that we worry about the foods we give our children because it is something we parents can control: We can choose to buy the chocolate or not, and to give it to our child. When a child seems to struggle more after eating a certain food, we blame ourselves because we feel that we ought not to have given it to our child and when your child (like my child) has minimal language, or is non-verbal, you have to observe your child to figure out how the food might have affected him.
Off to see what Charlie just took out of the refrigerator……..
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POSTED IN: Food and Diet, Health
12 opinions for You Are What You Eat
Julia
Jan 7, 2007 at 4:44 pm
All those foods you list have simple or complex sugars in abundance. Carb reaction? (Maybe not so much with the soybeans, though, I don’t know enough about them to say one way or the other.)
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jan 7, 2007 at 5:51 pm
That’s what I’ve been thinking—-Charlie’s always been known for “carbo-loading,” since he was a toddler.
mcewen
Jan 7, 2007 at 6:54 pm
You are what you eat? Anchovies, chilli sauce, peanuts with a dollop of Marmite on the side. Now who did we identify as having oral issues?
Cheers dears
Julia
Jan 7, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Chicken enchiladas with mild green sauce; if that’s not on the menu, it’s hard for them to totally mess up chicken fajitas.
Vegetarian roll at my favorite sushi place is very nice, as well (can’t eat fish or seafood, I have allergies!).
Bananas. Eggs. Beef. (Sirloin cubes soaked in marinade for 2 days, grilled on skewers with red bell peppers.)
Taco soup. (Ask me for the recipe if you want it!)
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jan 7, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Minus the eggs and beef, sounds good to me—–and things Charlie would like—am afraid I have to include a lot of coffee (you are what you drink?).
Julia
Jan 7, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Coffee started disagreeing with me sometime last summer. I drink green tea. (Mostly Tazo’s Zen. That’s what it would all go into if I got a Starbucks gift card….)
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jan 7, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Green tea is a very good thing too, and some sugarcane and waterchestnut teas my parents sent me. Charlie’s “vaguely Asian” diet is mine, too….
Julia
Jan 7, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I find some elements of Asian diets to be very nice. :) It’s nice to be in a time and place where there’s so much variety available to me!
Kristina Chew, PhD
Jan 7, 2007 at 11:16 pm
That is why the gfcf diet has never been too hard to do for Charlie. It is not easy if one is used to eating a lot in the wheat and dairy departments; I can assure that you that my grandmother, Ngin Ngin, has done very well for 101 years with minimal amounts of bread, cake, pizza and the like……… had Charlie lived on the West Coast and about thirty years ago, he would have had some splendid feasts (and elaborate lunches in his lunchbox) indeed.
sharon
Jan 10, 2007 at 6:17 am
2 of my father’s siblings have celiac disease; I’ve been told it is unusually prevalent in Irish people.
We had Duncan tested when he was 1 and ‘failing to thrive’ as he wasn’t gaining enough weight. He doesn’t have it. It was hard on my aunt and uncle for years, before all the ‘free from’ food started to appear, especially since a large part of the diet here has been flour based.
Jannalou
Jan 14, 2007 at 12:22 am
I’m lactose intolerant and have been all my life. Didn’t discover it until I was in my twenties, though. (Mom asked the paediatrician about my runny stool and was told it was normal and I’d grow out of it. I didn’t.) Luckily, I don’t like the taste of milk anyway, and ice cream was always a rare treat in my family (we had canned fruit for dessert during the week and saved ice cream for Sundays, just as sugar cereals were saved for Saturday breakfast).
I’ve always fluctuated in my eating habits. Sometimes I eat healthily, and other times I’m doing well to eat one proper meal. ADHD includes Executive Dysfunction just like ASD does. I can be hungry and not realise it. Then I’ll think, “I’m hungry. I should eat something.” Two or three hours later, I’ll realise I haven’t gotten anything to eat yet. If it goes on long enough, I’ll go to bed without any supper. And I’m 30.
I tried the GFCF diet at one point and the only benefit I found was the digestive stuff because I wasn’t eating milk products. Now I eat what I want when I want, and accept the natural response of my body when I eat pasta with a cream or cheese sauce on it - it’s my own dang fault, after all!
Sure I need to start eating better. But I figure that the first thing I need to do is make myself consistently eat three meals a day. I managed it for all of November and most of December, but the holidays threw me off and I’m still not back on track. Once I’m eating regularly again, I’ll be able to focus on the content of those meals. And when I do, I’m hoping I’ll be able to visit a dietitian and get proper advice on nutrition.
Julia
Jan 14, 2007 at 12:30 am
I run into the “forget to eat” thing on a regular basis. Eating dinner with my husband helps. Going out to dinner with someone (husband, friends, etc.) helps.
If husband goes out to dinner without me (as happened this evening), I feed the kids and then may or may not space fixing food for myself. This evening I remembered, wandered around looking for something at all appealing (harder when you’ve just dumped about an ounce of M&Ms into the system), and ended up experimenting a bit. Chicken taquitos dipped in raspberry chipotle salsa is pretty nice!
(Now I’m thirsty and about to do the same ED thing with water, if I’m not careful….)
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