Autism Treatment Center of America Forum

[SimonaSchoemetzi]

Hi there,

at the moment I am going over my daughters (5) diet. To start with, we are vegetarians. For the last few weeks we have abandoned dairy products which works very well but brings us pretty close to vegan.
Since then Irina has stopped complaining about her tummy hurting (before, I never knew where it came from). Only when she insisted on eating daddys yoghurt the pain was back. So she now has decided for herself, not to eat dairy products anymore.

Now I'm thinking about gluten. The only time Irina mentioned her tummy hurting again, eventhough she hadn't had any milk, was after she ate nothing but white wheat bread for supper. Normally I bake my own bread from wholegrain spelled and rye and having the white bread was an exception.
Now, spelled and rye actually contain gluten, too.

Does anyone have any experience with varied cereals? Is it really gluten we have to avoid completely? Or could just avoiding wheat be helpful, too?
Has anyone watched kids have different reactions to different cereals?
Or is it that they either tolerate all cereals or none of them?

I would be very grateful if anyone would like to share their experience.
Thanks in advance!
Tanja

[kathyfoster]

Your child's stomach lining is probably inflamed due to intolerances of food due to her not digesting properly. How is her stools? That is a really good indicator.

We do a GAPS diet which is void of gluten and casein and is done in stages, so it can heal the gut lining.

[SimonaSchoemetzi]

Hi kathyfoster!

Thank you for you answer!

I have been looking at the GAPS diet, too, but, beeing a vegetarian, I don't really like it. It seems to be based mainly on meat, fish and eggs. I wouldn't want it and I'm not going to force Irina to eat it.

Does anyone out there have any experience with vegetarian or vegan diets?

Thanks
Tanja

[Shannon]

I'm VERY late to this thread, but yes. We're vegetarian and we have celiac disease (all 5 of us). We're also dairy free and corn free. I do allow fish - it's a good sustainable choice where I live.

It can be done, and it can be done with health in mind. It's not easy though. Quinoa is fantastic, and the kids will usually eat it. Brown rice. GF Oats. Millet. It's doable.

[SimonaSchoemetzi]

Hi shannon,

thank you for your post!

It can be done,...

What do you mean with "it"? Vegetarian? GAPS? On the GAPS list I was looking at, Quinoa and Rice were not allowed, but we eat both of them. I agree with you: Quinoa is fantastic!
I was also surprised that many fruits are not allowed. But Irina loves fruit, she can live on fruit and cucumber for several days.

We have eliminated all dairy products for 2 months now and Irina is not complaining about any pain since then. I haven't put away gluten completely. I just use wholegrain rather than white flour and replace wheat with spelled. Some of our vegetarian friends love "Wheaty" saussages, which are basically made of pure wheat gluten. I avoid those. I always prefer foods in their original form rather than highly processed or extracted.
We are doing pretty well like this and for the moment I think GAPS doesn't really suit us.