Let’s Go Shopping

The toughest part of starting GFCF is the inital shopping trips. If you are lucky enough to live in a big city or near a great health food store you might find it simpler. For the rest of us, here’s Part 4 of the GFCF for Beginners series.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind with GFCF grocery shopping:

1.  You are going to experience sticker shock.  Yes, there are are GFCF cookies.  They cost about $5 for 12 cookies.  No.  I’m not kidding.

2.  You will probably need to shop at more than 1 store to get your list & one is going to be either a health food store or a bulk store.

3.  When all else fails, buy more fruit and vegetables.  At least you never need to read the label on those!

Beginning Gluten Free Casein Free Basic Shopping List

Baking List:

• 2 lb Brown Rice Flour
• .5 lb – 1 lb Potato Starch Flour
• .5lb – 1 lb Tapioca Starch Flour
• Xanthan Gum (get this in a bulk store if you can as you can buy a small amount, minimum of 1/2 a cup. My store pre-packs it in baggies for about $5 each.)
• 1 dozen Eggs
• Fleischman’s Lactose Free Margarine(available at Safeway, some Sobey’s and Co-op or Marketplace stores) This is Casein Free, comes in a bright yellow tub
• Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (Enjoy Life are safe, read labels in all other cases. Cocoa Butter is not “butter” and is CF. You may have to sacrifice on this trip and buy a brand that “may contain dairy”.)
• Raisins or Craisins if your child likes them.
• Baking Soda
• Baking Powder
• Salt

Breakfast Supplies

• Van’s Waffles or Kinnickinick Waffles are excellent.  Van’s are “eggo” shaped & my kids didn’t notice the difference
• EnviroKidz by Nature’s Path makes several yummy GF cereals.  Gorilla Munch is like “corn pops” and loved by my kids.  The boxes are fun & each is clearly marked with Gluten Free.  They have a box or two in the same brand that is not GF, so watch for the label.  This cereal is cheaper in the Enviropac bags, but buy a box first in case your child won’t touch it.
• 

Advice: skip all the fancy “gluten free flours like sorghum, amaranth, coconut flour, teff flour etc”. You can try them next time. Keep it simple.

Liquids (Otherwise known as Milk Substitutes)

Okay – everyone says to avoid Soy Milk.  It’s a pretty tempting option and one that we do use, though we are trying to cut back.  So, if you are going to try Soy milk, there isn’t a lot of difference between brands.  So Good and Silk are two major brands, Silk is my favorite but doesn’t go on sale as often.  The “house brand” at Sobey’s is excellent too.

•  Blue Diamond Almond Breeze (comes in chocolate, plain, unsweetened and vanilla)
• Vance’s Darifree – this is a powdered milk.  If you live in or near Winnipeg, you can find it at Lorenzo’s.  I have no idea if any other store carries it, I’ve never seen it.  So, mostly I buy mine online at Feel Good Natural Health Store.  It is a potato-based milk and quite good.  I know, ew, potato milk, but my kids love it.
• Rice Milk – avoid Rice Dream is the advice from the GFCF Kids board.  Apparently it has undeclared barley in the processing.  Better safe than glutened, I’d say.  There are a couple of good brands of rice milk.  One kid won’t drink it, the other kid loves it.  It is quite thin & I think has some texture.  Not my favorite, but it’s ok to cook with.
• Apple/Pear/Orange Juice
• Plain or sparkling water – to help cut back on the amount of milk we were drinking, I offered sparkling water.  They thought it was pop.  Hey, I wasn’t about to argue.

Condiments

Here’s an area that will trip you up.  So many condiments and sides have gluten hidden in them.  Here are a few that don’t:

• Wheat Free Tamari Sauce – San J makes one, I had to go to the “organic” line to find one without wheat.  Available at some Safeway stores
• Heniz Ketchup – gluten free, per manufacturer
• French’s Mustard – gf per manufacturer
• Maple Syrup (pure) or Roger’s Syrup (cane syrup, like corn syrup but a little sweeter) or Corn Syrup

I think that’s enough for 1 trip.  Don’t forget about meat, potatoes and rice!

Swine Flu Mass Immunizations

I’m interrupting my For Beginnners! series to rant (just a bit) about the latest news that Canada will be undertaking an “Influenza Mass Immunization” program in the fall.

Oh, and it gets better.  The latest research suggests that pregnant women, particularly in their 2nd and 3rd trimester are hit “harder” with the H1N1 virus. They may require hospitalization and yes, some pregnant women have died as a result of complications.  (I would point out that other groups of people have died as well, but no matter)

So, what are we going to do about it?  Well, first we’re going to immunize everyone with an untested vaccine.  And, we want pregnant women to be a priority.  Then, we’re going to recommend that if a pregnant woman has “flu symptoms” she should start anti-virals immediately. 

I mentioned this to my husband and he nearly hit the roof.  His first reaction was to suggest that we also thought Thalidomide was safe in pregnancy too and look how that turned out.  Now, he’s not exactly a card-carrying “green our vaccines” member, nor is he anti-vaccine.

We are simply cautious.  The “regular” influenza vaccine doesn’t ever seem to be enough to prevent flu-related deaths, so what makes us so certain this new one will be?

Also, why would you purposely inject foreign material into a pregnant woman but then tell her not to drink, take drugs (of any kind), eat fish containing mercury, avoid hot tubs, casual sex, etc. etc. etc.   Just doesn’t make sense to me at all.

We all have to make our own choices about this.  I won’t be choosing the vaccine for my family based on the lack of clear research that I’ve seen.  My children are not lab rats.  Perhaps when some better evidence is available, I will change my mind.  For now, we’ll stick to good hygeine and our homotoxicology.

GFCF the Easy Way

Welcome to Part 3 of a continuing series on the GFCF diet.

There are two ways to start GFCF – the hard way, where you pull everything and go cold turkey or the easy way. 

Now, don’t kid yourself for a second, GFCF is still a challenge and you’ll likely spend a lot more time in the kitchen than you are used to.  However, the slow & steady method is a little easier on your child.

Step 1: If you haven’t already, take inventory in your pantry.  Gather up all the gluten & casein containing foods and put them in a box.

Step 2:  Look at what is in the box.  Are any of these foods serious favorites for your child?  Is anything perishable?

Pull out the perishable items.  (You don’t want to put those in a dark cupboard!!)  Resolve to feed them all to your kid before the end of a week or give them away.  For example, if you have boxed chicken nuggets (and I know you do!), you are going to practice making GFCF nuggets & serve them with the boxed variety.  I found mixing the GFCF foods with “regular” food helped to get the kids used to new flavours.

In the chicken nugget example, you make 1-2 GFCF nuggets (or buy them, Ian’s brand is GFCF).  Slice if necessary & serve.  When 1 nugget gets choked down, serve a regular nugget.  Repeat as necessary.  Remember not to put too much food on the plate at once because it can be really overwhelming to ASD kids.

Step 3: Go shopping!  This is the (not so) fun part.  This shopping trip is going to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r.  If you can, go solo.  If you can’t, you’ll need to accept that you’ll be spending the same amount on less groceries & possiby going back for more in a few days.

If you are already an avid label reader, you know why the trip will take a long time.  You MUST read every label on every item.  If it comes in a box or a bag, it has a label.  You are checking for gluten, casein and all their sneaky descriptions.  Don’t worry about getting it perfect this time.  Try your best and know it will get easier.

More on this in Part 4.

Step 4: Begin cooking GFCF as much as possible.  Keep it simple.

Meat. Starch. Vegetable. Fruit. Beverage.

In other words: Chicken, Potato, Peas, Apple, Almond milk

Or: Ground beef, rice, carrots, pear, apple juice

All safe, all GFCF.  Remind yourself of all the things you can eat. Don’t focus on what you “can’t”.
Step 5: Watch for changes.  After 1 week of GFCF we were already seeing increasing communiciation and eye contact!

Ignoring the Controversy

There has been a recent study released by researchers at the Mayo Clinic that has found “restrictive diets may not be appropriate for children with autism”.

Well goody.  So the researchers took 100 kids with autism and tried them on a strict GFCF diet for 3 months and saw no benefit, right?

Nope.

Well, they must have tried a strict GFCF diet for at least a month, right?

Ummm.  Nope.

Here’s what they did  (cut and paste from the article): Researchers at the Mayo Clinic reviewed the medical records of over 100 autistic children over an 18-year period and compared them to more than 200 children without the disorder.  (bold emphasis mine)

Perhaps I should repeat that, in case you missed it.  They reviewed MEDICAL RECORDS. 

Well, I have never mentioned GI problems to our doctor.  I have never mentioned that I had concerns about his BMs, odor or odd food choices.  It never occurred to me.  We haven’t done a “well child” exam on him since age 4 months.  Every other time we went to the doctor it was for an infection, a possible concussion, a broken bone.  Never once did the doctor say “and how are his bowels today?”

My point?  The study makes no sense.  My son has obvious, real GI issues and yet he would have been found to have none in this study. 

I am going to simply ignore this study, as I have every other flawed study that has ever been done.  I suggest you do the same.

If GFCF is working for you, why do you need some researcher to “prove it”?  The proof is sitting in front of you, in conversation, in eye contact, potty trained and social.

Please, be an advocate for the GFCF diet.  Remind people that we once said many things were impossible.  Going to the moon was impossible.  And yet:

 

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

 

I think President Kennedy’s words ring true for us today, as well. 

Starting GFCF

This is part two in a continuing series on the GFCF diet. Remember, I’m not an expert, just a mom who’s been doing this!

We’re going to assume you read the last post and have gathered up a list of foods your child eats. Take a look at the list. Do you see mostly dairy products?

- Milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, cottage cheese

Or, is it gluten (wheat) products?

- Bread, pasta, cereal, cookies, muffins

Or do you have what I consider the “classic autism diet?”

- Kraft dinner, chicken nuggets, french fries, at least 4 litres of milk per week, some fruit, very little meat

Now you have a choice – the easy way? or the hard way?

The Easy Way

Some will call this a misnomer because no matter what, starting the diet is hard for you & your child. If you’ve got a rigid thinker, a child who demands everything the same way, right down to the serving plate, this is the way to go.

First, pull out the food that your child doesn’t focus on. So, if he loves milk, start pulling out gluten. If you’ve got the combination of dairy & gluten, choose whichever you think will be easier. It is probably dairy.

In the easy way, you don’t go cold turkey – you finish what is left in the cupboard & don’t buy it again. Or, you start adding a little alternative milk to his cup with regular milk and then gradually reduce the cow’s milk.

We’ll explore this in part three of the series.

The Hard Way

In the “hard way” you pull everything.  Gluten, dairy, soy, artifical colours, flavours, chemicals, pesticides and every toxic thing you can find.

Ok.  Not quite.  But, there are parents who recommend it.  And in a really severe case, I might too.

When you start the diet the “Hard Way”, you should at least pull Gluten, and dairy  from the diet immediately.  As in, you get up tomorrow, you start feeding only GFCF foods.  You don’t give in to the whining, crying, food refusal, irritability (yours) and anger (probably theirs).

This is a tough. tough. tough. thing to do.  You can do each piece one at a time (pull just dairy, in 2 weeks then pull out gluten) so that you can see the changes in your child from each. 

So what did we do?

We did the diet the “Hard Way” with an occasional infraction (when you feed a gluten or dairy substance by accident or on purpose).  I first pulled out dairy and two weeks later pulled out gluten.  If I didn’t have a perfect GFCF substitute, I chose the most healthy non-gfcf food. 

But, I did gather up 3 boxes of non-gfcf food and hide it in the basement.  Soups, Kraft Dinner, flavoured rices, cereal, flour, crackers, chips….you get the idea.  Out of sight, out of mind.

The hardest part?  Finding acceptable pre-made GFCF products.  Followed closely by making acceptable homemade GFCF food.

Within 1 month, we were totally GFCF and we had already seen BIG changes in our little boy.  Eye contact, improved speech, improved gait, less fidgiting, more regular bowel movements, loss of the “stinky kid” label.

In part three, I am going to detail how to do GFCF the “easy way”.

Homework:  Gather up all your non-gfcf foods.  Put them in a box.  Even if you intend to do the easier switchover, this will get you in the habit of label reading.

Get familiar with all the hidden sources of gluten/dairy.  Don’t worry about memorizing the list, it’s too long anyways. 

The list you need is found on the For Beginners page.

Hidden Gluten Sources

Here is the hidden gluten list, borrowed from TACA. I use it all the time.

Abyssinian hard (wheat triticum duran)            Alcohol (unless distilled)
Avena                                                             Baking powder (verify ingredients)
Baking soda (verify ingredients)                    Barley
Barley flour                                                              Barley hordeum vulgare
Barley malt                                                                Beer
Bleached all-purpose flour                                 Bouillon cubes or powder
Bran                                                                              Bread flour
Broth, prepackaged                                               Brown flour
Bulgur (bulgur wheat/nuts)                               Caramel color
Cereal binding                                                          Cereal extract
Chilton Chorizo (read label)                                 Croutons
Coffee creamer substitute (grain based)       Couscous
Cracker meal                                                           Dextrin Durum, durum flour
Edible starch                                                            Einkorn wheat
Enriched flour                                                         Farina
Filler                                                                            Fu (dried wheat gluten )
Galactose                                                                   Germ
Glutamate (free)                                                     Glutamic acid
Gluten flour                                                              Graham flour
Granary flour                                                           Gravy cubes
Gravy mixes (unless homemade with cornstarch)
Ground spices (some contain gluten)            Gum base
Hard triticum                                                            Hard wheat
Herbs with wheat fillers                                        High gluten flour
High protein flour                                                   Hordeum
Hydrolyzed oat starch                                          Hydrolyzed plant protein (HPP)
Hydrolyzed vegetable protein HVP                Job’s Tears (aka pearl barley)
Kamut (pasta wheat)                                              Malt
Malt extract                                                               Malt flavoring
Malt syrup                                                                  Malt vinegar
Miso                                  Modified food starch (source is either corn or wheat)
MSG (made outside USA)                      Mustard powder (some contain gluten)
Oat flour

Oats (Oats themselves do not contain gluten, but are almost always processed with gluten)
Pasta                                                               Pearl barley
Potassium caseinate                                 Rice malt (contains barley or Koji)
Rice syrup (unless specified GF, it contains barley enzymes)
Rye                                                                     Rye semolina
Sauce mixes (read labels carefully, often contain wheat)
Seitan                                                               Semolina
Semolina triticum                                       Shoyu (soy sauce)
Small spelt                                                      Soba noodles
Sodium caseinate (contains MSG)        Soy sauce (unless specified GF)
Spelt                                                                  Spelt triticum spelta
Spices with wheat fillers                            Spirits (specific types, distilled is GF)
Starch (outside USA)                                  Stativa
Stock cubes (many contain gluten)      Strong flour
Suet in packets                                              Sulfites
Teriyaki sauce                                                Tritical
Triticale X triticosecale                             Triticum
Udon (wheat noodles)                               Vegetable starch
Vital gluten                                                     Vitamins (some contain gluten)
Vulgar                                                                Wheat bran
Wheat durum triticum                               Wheat flour
Wheat germ                                                    Wheat gluten
Wheat malt                                                     Wheat nuts
Wheat oats
Wheat pasta
Wheat starch
Wheat triticum aestivum
Wheat triticum mononoccum
Wheat
White flour
Whole-Meal flour

The following labeled ingredients may indicate the presence of wheat protein:

•Gelatinized starch
•Natural flavoring
•Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
•Modified food starch
•Modified starch – check with company
•White grain vinegar
•White vinegar
•Vinegar

Hidden Casein Sources

I’ve borrowed this list from TACA & put it here because I refer to the list on a regular basis. 

Artificial butter flavor Butter Butter fat Butter oil Buttermilk Casein (casein hydrosylate) Caseinates (in all forms) Cheese Condensed milk Cottage cheese Cream Curds Custard Dry milk Evaporated milk Ghee Goat’s milk Half & Half Hot dogs Lactalbumin Lactalbumin phosphate Lactic acid starter culture (may contain milk) Lactoferrin Lactoglobulin Lactose Lactulose Low fat Milk fat Lunchmeat Magnesium caseinate Malt Malted Milk Margarine

Milk (in all forms including condensed, derivative, dry, evaporated, goat’s milk, and milk for other animals, low-fat, malted, milkfat, non-fat, powder, protein, skimmed, solids, whole) Milk cheese lactose Milk powder Milk protein Milk solids Naturlose (sweetener derived from whey) Non-dairy creamer butter Nonfat milk Nougat Powdered Milk Pudding Rennet casein Sausage Skim milk Sodium lactylate (may or may not contain casein) Sour cream Sour cream solids Sour milk solids Tagatose (sweetener derived from whey) Whey in all forms (including sweet, delactosed, protein concentrate) Whole milk Yogurt

 

Ingredients which may contain milk protein flavorings: 

• Caramel coloring 
• Brown sugar flavoring
• Bavarian cream flavoring
• Coconut cream flavoring
• Natural chocolate flavoring 

 

Please Make Note:
Lactic acid is found naturally in sour milk but also commercially produced from whey, cornstarch, potatoes and molasses. Therefore, if listed on a product as an ingredient, you must verify its source. 

 

There are some ingredients that sound a lot like casein but aren’t. 

• Calcium lactate
• Calcium stearoyl lactylate
• Cocoa Butter
• Cream of Tartar
• Oleoresin
• Sodium lactate
• Sodium stearoyl lactylate

Making the Decision to Start

This is Part 1 in a continuing series on the Gluten Free Casein Free diet. There is so much more to “biomedical” than just the diet, but for the time being, we’ll start here.

“The best time to begin the GFCF diet was last year. 

The second best time is today.”

Making the decision to try a GFCF diet might be the hardest part. It looks scary because it is. The first thing you wonder is “What will my child eat?” The second thing you wonder is “Can we ever eat take-out again?”

Fortunately, the answer is “lots” and “probably”. We’ll get to all that.

Everyone has their own path to hearing about the GFCF diet. Perhaps you found it in a late-night Google session? Maybe, like me, you read a book by Jenny McCarthy? (She has three of them now, all good) Maybe you even dismissed it as the insane ravings of a blonde bimbo? (Guilty.) Except, then your child was officially diagnosed. And no one would help you.

No one.

So, you borrowed that tattered copy of Louder Than Words from the Library again. What did she call that treatment? You googled. Maybe you even joined the GFCF Kids Yahoo! group & lurked for awhile. You read stories of children who stopped flapping, started talking, made eye contact, started having regular, normal bowel movements, among many other things.

And you started to wonder – could this diet help my child too? The Autism Research Institute parent rating suggests a 66% success rate.  That’s pretty high right? 

At this point, I was willing to try just about anything to help my son & if you are here, you probably are too.  So, now you’ve just made the hardest decision – to begin a lifestyle change.

Homework:  Now that you’ve decided you will give the GFCF diet a try, you need to know what foods your child is eating.  Sit down and record everything you remember your child eating over the last 2 weeks.  Then, record each meal for at least a day, preferably a week.  This is going to help you offer appropriate substitutes next week.

Also, record any behaviours (toe walking, head banging, leaning over objects, arm flapping etc) and bowel movements (loose, constipated, smelly, undigested foods) that you can.  This is going to give you a record of things to change.  Gather up any professional assessments and recent testing your child has done.  Again, this will help you find your challenges.

And stay tuned.  You can do this!

Oatmeal Cookies

The best thing about these Oatmeal cookies is that I took a “regular” recipe and converted it to GFCF. They make soft, moist, wonderful cookies and no one knows they are Gluten free. Be sure to try it with the applesauce, it is even more moist and flavourful that way!

Oatmeal Cookies
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup cf margarine
1/2 cup shortening (or applesauce)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 cups GF oats
1 cup GF flour blend
1 cup: raisins,or chocolate chips, or other

Mix all together except oats, flour and raisins. Once well mixed add remaining ingredients. Drop by rounded spoonful on parchment lined baking sheet. They will never, ever stick this way! Bake at 375 for 9-11 minutes.

We love these & they stay moist and soft for days. Be sure to keep in an airtight container.

Some Additional Changes

I’m updating my Welcome Back Nathan post with a couple other thoughts:

In the past week, I have noticed he is calmer. More mature & less likely to hit. This is not to say he’s quit whining (a totally normal-kid behaviour), but he is using his words much more than his anger. He spent considerable time with his 3.5 year old cousin, who is very, very three right now.

Nathan did not get mad, he shared very well and he was accepting of cousin’s bad behaviours. He didn’t even retaliate when the cousin hit him. He moved and played somewhere else. It was obvious to the adults that he knew “better” than to hit a smaller child back.

Point two: his language has exploded again & he was singing. Better than that, I started humming a favorite song of his, it was stuck in my head & he started singing the next part of the song. I have never, ever heard him do that before. Yes, he will sing, but never just pick up a tune & “run with it”. Amazing. He has improved his sentances and his imaginative play is also becoming more mature. I would guess him to be at the 4-4.5 age, since he is playing very similar games to his brother.

Point three: he is clearly detoxing & seems to know it. He spent quite a bit of time in his Epsom Salt bath, without complaining for a change. He also got very relaxed, which for him is a sign that the bath is doing its job. He had an Epsom salt bath Sunday and Monday night. I think we will try another one tonight & see if we can’t continue this process.

So, there’s a few more improvements since restarting supplements and being more strictly GFCF.