Sometimes it just seems that you need a little chocolate to get through the day - my DW is often quoted as saying “there isn’t enough chocolate in the whole world” after an especially trying day with Dorthy. When first going GFCF, chocolate was one of the things I missed the most - which is why these chocolate chips were truly a find. They are, of course loaded with sugar, and contain soy - so they are a sometimes treat for me and not an everyday staple. (GFCF soy free chips are available and I’ll review them soon, but they are a bit waxy compared to tropical Source). Sunspire has made Christmas and my birthday just a little bit nicer, with a GFCF chip that tastes even better than Hershey’s. They make candy bars as well, but I’ve only found them online by the dozen, and I don’t think I have enough willpower to ration them, so I haven’t tried them yet - once a bag of chips is opened it never lasts more than a day - even if the recipe only calls for 1/2 a cup…

We have enjoyed so many other Enjoy Life products that I thought I’d give their “granola” cereal a shot.My first surprise was that the cereal was black - they looked very much like crumbled asphalt. I didn’t expect that at all, but it wasn’t enough to throw me off my mission. (this may bee enough to make them a no-go for a child who judges food more by look than by taste).

After adding ricemilk, I took a bite. It felt as if I was eating crumbled asphalt - they were as hard as rocks. No problem, I thought - I’ll just let them soak a couple of minutes. Five minutes later I tried again. It was like eating crumbled asphalt with an 1/8″ layer of soggy cereal on it. The box could definitely claim “Stays crunchy in milk!”.

You might think from what I have written so far that these were a dud in my book. Quite the contrary - they were actually very tasty once you got over the hard texture! We ate the whole box in one sitting. After trying the Cranapple Crunch (it was much more like traditional granola), I decided that we just got a batch where the ‘clusters’ were way too big (each one was 1/2 - 3/4″ in diameter) their crusherator must have been on the fritz.

Dorothy had a big, overnight, school trip out of state recently, and one of the big challenges to her going was the food (of course!). She is on a strict GFCF diet, and is allergic to 40 other foods - making her ability to eat at the buffet or fast food non-existant. In order to allow her to go on the trip, we provoided all of her food for her. The lunch below is a great example of what we packed for her:

Everything was packed in small ziplock bags (we normally use Reynolds Cut-Rite Sandwich Bags as they are waxed paper and Dorothy is allergic to plastic - but for the sake of not spilling went with plastic bags for the trip).

Here you can see the contents:

We packed rice cakes (as our local store was out of GFCF bread…) with GFCF mayo in a squeeze, lunchmeat, and some lettuce for an instant sandwitch (that isn’t soggy), carrots, pumpkin seeds, a pear, and some chips. Not the paragon of nutrition, but way better than McRonad’s…..

This is how we get our kids to eat hard boiled eggs, even though they ‘hate’ them! Check out our GFCF Lunchbox Ideas page for more great ideas.

According to this research, heavy TV indulgence before the age of three is associated with an increase in autism. The paper suggests that TV could be a trigger for those with a genetic predisposition toward the condition.

My guess would be that this is a chicken and the egg equation - do the kids watch a lot of TV because they are autistic, or does watching the TV trigger the autism.  My guess would be the former.

Ozma has been suggesting that I should post about my experiences to being on the GFCF diet for a while. I have been GFCF for just over two years, and I can honestly say that it has been one of the best decisions of my entire life (it falls just after deciding to ask Ozma to marry me!)

About two or three years after Dorothy started the diet, Ozma started pointing out the physiological symptoms that were gone in her that I still had (horrible bloating, migraines, ‘foggy’ days, and more). After several years of gentle suggestions, I decided to try the diet. I decided to give it a try for six months, and planned on having a pizza, cake & ice cream party for my birthday to see if the diet really made a difference for me. I went totally GFCFSF (Gluten Free, Casein/Dairy Free, and Sugar Free) (more…)

I think this is such a cool idea! Anyone who has dragged a bewildered autistic child through the security at an airport will appreciate the beauty of this idea. If you are planning a roadtrip with the holidays approaching, I have some ideas for GFCF snacks/meals on the run that you might be interested in here.

This article grabbed me because autistic persons have much the same problem. I know many people who have “autistic” traits, but they are walking around, living their regular lives and don’t need pharmaceuticals. I am also not a fan of labeling because it gets in the way of treatment. I generally refer to my daughters condition as autism. She is specifically diagnosed with Asperger’s. I have found though, that doctors/teachers tend to minimize the autistic aspects of her illness, and focus on her social problems, since “social problems” is the approved definition of Asperger’s. I have to remind them that she is sick, that she has sensory problems. For more on my take on this see here.

This kind of thing makes me crazy. The drug company even admits that it does nothing to treat the disease, and yet they are marketing this thing to treat autism. When our daughter was first diagnosed with Asperger’s we dilligently did everything the neurologist told us to do. She suggested putting her on paxil. It seemed to take the edge off her, but it really only masked her symptoms. It didn’t do anything for her pain, her stomach, or her sleeplessness. After a while it stopped working altogether. The doctor put her on a never ending cycle of ratcheting up her dosages and going to different flavors of Prozac. It never did much of anything. The best thing we ever did was to stop drugging her and start getting to some of the roots of her problems. Some of the roots included the GFCF diet for her stomach, anti-inflammatories for her pain, and melatonin for her sleeplessness. The best thing we ever did was to visit Dr. Bradstreet. I can’t sing his praises enough.

It looks like the medical community may admit that a vaccine caused neurological problems. This is interesting to me because the people receiving the shots were teens trying to ward off meningitis. The big deal here is that these people could report their reactions- babies can’t- and for some reasons doctors completely discount the observations of a child’s parents. All of my children had horrible reactions to their shots. One of my children has autism. One of them would cry for hours and his leg would swell to the size of a grapefruit. One of them ended up in the hospital, and his doctor says with a smile, it looks like no more pertussis shots for you! No one would ever believe me when I would report their reactions. I am a fairly intelligent, level-headed person. I do not panic in an emergency generally. Yet I was treated by the medical community like a hysterical hypochondriac. When will the madness end? These are children, not interesting cases. Perhaps my children are more sensitve than others, but we are not the only ones. The problem is that vaccines have been incredibly helpful in the past. This is the wrong path to take. We are only trading one problem for another, usually worse and uncurable. We are preventing chicken pox and causing autism. We are preventing meningitis and causing paralysis. Who knows? When the research is done are we going to find that we warded off the flu only to give seniors alzhiemers? Doctors need to find another avenue- they need to give up on vaccines, at least in their current incarnation and method of treatment for something less harmful. Doctors should DO NO HARM. I have avoided vaccinating my youngest (the one who shouldn’t have any more pertussis) and I am worried about him contracting something horrible that there is a vaccine for- but I am more worried about him contracting something that there is no cure for. If you or a family member has a bad reaction to a vaccine, report it. It is going to take alot of people to change things.