May 07 2008
Casein-Free Diet
Many biomedical experts recommend the GF/CF, or gluten-free/casein-free diet for individuals on the autism spectrum. I did not try gluten-free for a long enough period of time to determine if there would be any benefit from it for our son, but we’ve been on a dairy-free diet for over a month now.
It’s amazing how many things that dairy products can sneak into: pancake batter, bread crumbs…things you’d never expect, so reading labels is of utmost importance.
Another thing to consider is getting the appropriate amount of calcium (for a child, 800mg a day should be good). We’ve attempted to get our son to drink non-dairy milks like soy, rice and almond milks, but he’s refused them all. They all come in chocolate or vanilla flavors, but he won’t tolerate those either. So we get calcium into him from fortified orange juice, fortified apple juice, and calcium supplements. Caution should be taken with supplements too. For example, Viactiv is made with milk.
Two things that we give him routinely are soy yogurt (Silk makes a delicious yogurt), soy ice cream and fortified pastas (Ronzoni Smart Taste has a good amount of calcium and lots of fiber as well).
These are just a few strategies for making the casein-free diet work. And while I haven’t seen a huge difference in our son, he does seem more ‘tuned in’ to the world and that’s good enough for me to continue with it.
