So one of the first things we started doing was changing his diet.  The premise here, is that certain proteins, especially the complex ones are difficult to breakdown and digest.  This is further exasperated as a problem with all the genetically modified crap that our farmers feed us.

There are 2 main proteins which we target: Gluten and Casein.  Gluten is found in wheats.  Casein is found in milk and dairy products.  The diet we are doing is gluten free, casein free (GFCF).  On the gluten side thats, no bread, pasta, and most cereals made.  On the casein side, that’s no milk, cheese, yogurt, cream, or any cream based dressing.

For gluten, you can try various other flours out there, and make your own breads.  They don’t taste exactly the same, but they are close. The big downside here, is they have the texture of cakes, but you can do it… kinda.  Instead of wheat pasta, we just go with rice pasta instead.  The taste isn’t bad at all, as long as you remember to cook it properly (wheat pasta is far more forgiving when cooking).  For casein, you can substitute cow’s milk with almond milk instead.  It tastes sweet, the kids love it, so that’s easy enough.  Cheese is a little different.  The dairy free cheese replacement (Daiya) is somewhere between cardboard and cardboard with flavoring on it.  Also known as crap. We have yet to find a good yogurt replacement, but we did come up with something decent for pudding, so that’s good.

So we have some issues with the casein part of it.  Cheese is tasty, so we need to find a good food that he can eat that’s still tasty.  Peanut butter to the rescue… if only he wasn’t allergic to peanuts.  Yes that’s right, beyond gluten free and casein free, we are also peanut free.  Our choices for foods are seriously limited.  Thankfully he’s not allergic to eggs, else we would be in big trouble  (mind you my youngest child does break out in a rash when he eats eggs).

We stopped giving him peanuts mid December.  Started to phase in Gluten free in January, and Casein free in February.  Every once in a while we slip up, but we have been pretty good since.  Of the 3, I personally feel like no peanuts is having the best effect.  Since we pulled it, I noticed some changes within a few days.  Gluten not so much.  Casein removal did show some changes as well, which all makes sense, since when we ran his blood allergy tests, he was very allergic to anything dairy, and peanuts, but only mildly sensitive to gluten.  Mixed in with the other supplements we are feeding him, as well as speech and ABA therapy, and things are progressing.  This isn’t about finding the one thing that flips the switch.  It’s about finding the right combination of all things that do.

The diet will take a few months before we can get him retested and start to look for true tangible benefits.  Once we fix his gut, he may be able to take gluten again.  I predict he’ll be dairy and peanut free for life, which is sad, but a small price to pay if he can be like other neuro-typical people.

So now you know the diet.  In the future I’ll write a more comprehensive post on why we need to do this, when I get to mention things like “leaky gut”.  My goal with this post is to educate others, so when you see me talk about GFCF, now you’ll know what I mean.