But the fact is, we ALL have this “knowledge” of nutrition when it comes to knowing what is best to eat! Just focus completely on the foods that Nature GIVES us!!!!
This is NOT complicated!
If it comes in a box or a wrapper, then it is NOT “live” food. “Live” food is where the nutrients live.
And for people with Asperger’s, autism, ADHD, Tourette’s, etc., think of it like this: Although we ALL do better on “live” foods, these individuals are “sensitive” to anything BUT live foods!
To be sensitive is similar to being allergic to a food, except that the reaction occurs much LATER in the digestive process.
Picture what happens to food you eat: all foods digest by breaking down into Smaller Units in the gut. But the Smaller Units of “processed” foods are different from the Smaller Units of “live” foods; and these Smaller Units are actually harmful (and addictive) in a body with a “food sensitivity!”
These harmful Smaller Units are quite often crossing over the blood-brain barrier into the brain and cause autistic symptoms such as obsessive thoughts, brain fog, food addictions, high anxiety, and many others. We with “normal brains” experience this too to a certain degree, but when you possess a food sensitivity, your experience of this is MUCH more pronounced and problematic!
The ONLY way to help a person with food sensitivities is to STOP eating (or severely limit) all “processed” foods.
And YES, this means that it’s best (and easiest in the long run) to stop them all at once, “cold-turkey,” so to speak, no matter HOW much resistance you get from the person with these sensitivities!!!!
Foods taste different when one is hungry, and the body WILL NOT LET itself starve! So in fact, the bodymind gets to this point of “opening up the mind” for more food choices after hunger sets in. Let this process work in your favor as to WHEN you introduce new foods. (I personally think it helps if you all pretend that you have moved to a foreign country where the foods are ALL “different” and you can no longer access your “old standbys!”)
So that’s it! This is your new holistic nutrition therapy plan! As “simple” as that! Ha ha.
Here are a few “practical” suggestions to all of this . . .
With Claire, I knew of her “addictions” to the “whites” of sugar, pasta, and breads; so of course those were the first foods that had to go.
Instead, we now serve meals with brown rice. And although we limit the grains overall, we still serve foods with oats, barley, millet, and lots of seeds and nuts that are usually able to be substituted for the traditional grains.
We have increased the vegetables . . . the oh-so-wonderful world of SO many vegetables! We not only chop up the many colors of them into all of our meals, I also have a juicer, so I quickly introduced her to the “comfort food” of a fresh vegetable juice with the added sweetness of one piece of fruit (although it is still ME that has to “think” of the vegetable juice as a comfort food for her)!
We have also increased Claire’s consumption of proteins.
We add whole eggs (freshly and lightly cooked) into her diet, with a few hard-boiled for a quick meal or afternoon snack. We use freshly cooked meats instead of processed lunch meats. We use beef from a cow that came from our local animal fair, which we butchered and then stored in our freezer (but only after we knew it was raised by a young Boy Scout who was very proud of his work). And we use fish and seafood whenever we feel it is free of mercury contaminants, (but yes, we are very aware of how difficult THAT is)!
We do NOT use much soy as a protein source, however, because soy acts as a “sponge” of many healthy nutrients so that they are no longer available for YOUR use. We include some fermented soy food products, like tempeh and miso, because fermenting breaks down the enzyme in soy that is causing the “sponging.”
Claire happens to enjoy cooking, so I like to engage her with the online research of coming up with lots of new ideas. (But yes, it is usually ME who finds the HEALTHIER ones [wink, wink]).
That said, though, we do enjoy letting Claire uncover some “sweet treats” that are SO MUCH better for her sensitive body than the “old familiars!” She is learning to work now with agave nectar and sweet fruits, for example, and she is having some amazing results!
I also had to teach Claire the importance of WHEN to eat. She used to skip breakfast and almost starve herself with a “healthy salad” during the day so that she could then eat her one heavy meal of pasta, breads, cheese (and of course desserts) later in the day.
This eating pattern had caused her body to go into “storage” mode, so that her body was no longer the svelte, athletic body that she had experienced as a child. In the days when Claire had been on Ritalin to help her with the focus of her mind on school work, she was told by the doctors to eat all the sweets she wanted so that she would GAIN weight!
Of course, don't ask me NOW what I think of THAT solution!!!
So our new routine for Claire is to eat a full breakfast, lunch, mid afternoon snack, and a healthy but lighter dinner and NOTHING ELSE within four hours of bedtime. She quickly lost 10 pounds in four weeks and is very happy about this!
But I don't want to forget to tell you about perhaps the MOST important “food” of WATER!!!
Water is the often overlooked ESSENTIAL “food” of our time. Claire is now scheduled to drink water (just plain water) throughout the day, and can drink various teas too as long as they are NOT sweetened with ANYTHING – not even honey or that agave nectar I mention above!
It is important to find drinks that are enjoyed without any sweeteners or dairy – not even (and ESPECIALLY NOT artificial sweeteners)! Claire’s favorite seems to be hot peppermint tea with a pinch of cloves! And of course now she has ME drinking it too!!! YUM!
Speaking of dairy though, I WOULD let her have dairy if I could go back to my resource for it that I could buy in the form of RAW milk. Raw milk, when safely monitored, is handled completely different by the body from pasteurized milk.
But since my raw source has since “dried up,” I have introduced Claire to the many substitutes of cow’s milk (like PLAIN/UNSWEETENED versions of almond, oat, and/or rice milk – but NOT soy milk) and her favorite of those seems to be almond milk. 
The “secret” of helping a person to LIKE (and thus transition into the use of) these milk substitutes, is to make sure they are served COLD the first time, as well as put on or in something “loved” like a smoothie or a bowl of cereal. After that, the “fear” goes away and they just begin to use it like they once did the jug of “regular” milk.
Do NOT get caught into the belief that you must start with the sweetened or the chocolate versions in order to get an individual's “buy-in” on a “different” kind of milk. This is NOT true and will instead create another whole addiction (to the sugars)!!!!
One more important bit of information on the BEST foods for individuals with Asperger’s, Tourette’s, Autism, ADHD, etc., is . . . “FATS are your FRIENDS!!
HEALTHY fats, when consumed through HEALTHY preparation, are NOT the problem with ANY of our chronic health issues.
It is the PROCESSING of any and all fats that are dangerous!
I am saddened by the fact that so many people fear fats. And I am even MORE saddened by the fact that they are eating even the HEALTHY fats in ways that are making them DANGEROUS.
But read on! Again, this is NOT complicated!
Simply understand: Many of our healthiest fats (like olive oil) are FRAGILE, and should NOT be used for cooking. They should only be WARMED right before you serve them guilt-free on your dish.
Other fats that are also healthy are the “saturated” fats!!!! They were once PROCESSED by being “hydrolyzed” and got a bad name for themselves. But the fats that come “naturally” in free-range eggs, coconuts, walnuts, seeds, and many other sources such as these, are GREAT for your body because they digest SLOOOWLY . . . as long as you don't eat them with SUGAR, FLOURS or similar FAST digesting foods!
So EAT these foods in your home-made recipes! Or by themselves! I have Claire even adding chia and/or flax seeds to her common, everyday meals. They are filled with healthy omega-3 fats. AND the part she liked most was that I told her they were the "secret" to healthy weight loss!
Eat LOTS of foods “in the buff” and you will find that you are treating your body with the most NATURAL form of medicine given to us by Mother Nature Herself! And if you have more questions, you might try looking through my postings on my Nutrition Blog that I devote only to nutrition issues.
ENJOY ALL "real foods"!!! I sure do!!! And I am happy to report that Claire is enjoying them all TOO!!!
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