Chapter 2, Don't Know Where to Begin

This website is basically a journal, documenting our ongoing investigations over many years.  As such, it is rather tangential at times, following false leads and wandering off into blind alleys.  Some people find this investigatory process interesting, but for others it is somewhat frustrating.

after reading all 90 chapters of this tome, which describes years of contradictory theories and inconsistent results, a hapless parent sent me the following email.

Your article is honest and well written.  I am now convinced that my daughter has a serious behavioral disorder, and that it will respond favorably to diet therapy.  Unfortunately I don't know where to begin.  You have tried so many things, and some of them helped, and some of them didn't.  I don't have the time or the patience to go through that process.  I need to learn from your experience.  What can I do right now, today, that will help?

With this sentiment in mind, I'm going to skip ahead to the end of the murder mystery and name the primary culprits.  If you like, you can read the rest of the document and see how we got there - all the things we tried - the things that worked and the things that didn't - and the emotional ups and downs of our journey.  But for now, here are some steps you can take, today, that won't do any harm. [Galen]  They might help, or they might not, but they won't do any harm.

If your daughter's disorder responds to diet, (and it may not), there is a big 3-prong fork in the road: she reacts to specific foods and/or additives, she is vitamin/mineral deficient, or she harbors a microbe that causes most of the trouble.  The approaches are vastly different, depending on these branches.  Unfortunately I spent years traveling down the "individual foods" branch, when there was really a microbe at work.  The unwelcome pathogen ate almost everything my son ate, and dumped its toxins into his blood stream, where they derailed the orderly operation of his brain.  If you've read all the usual books, you may be thinking yeast, but I think it's more complicated than that - a mix of bacteria, and yeast, and perhaps protozoa.  Battling a microbe is far more difficult than testing for a few food allergies, which is why we spent years searching diligently for answers.  I hope your journey is shorter and easier than ours.

The following recommendations attempt to improve the physical and emotional health of your child, whether she reacts to foods, additives, a vitamin deficiency, or an unwelcome microbe.  At some point you will have to decide which problem you are dealing with, because the treatments and protocols will diverge, but this is a place to start.

Some of these suggestions represent compromises for a child who lives in the United States, where junk food and fast food is ubiquitous.  We can't afford to be draconian in our efforts, or the child will simply sneak at school, and then we're getting nowhere.  I'm not thrilled about my son drinking pop, diet or otherwise, for example, but when the whole class goes to McDonalds as part of a field trip, what is he suppose to do?  An adult may benefit from a more restricted protocol, but we rarely have that option when trying to help our children, who must deal with the public school system, and other social situations, e.g. eating dinner at a friend's house.  So we do the best we can.

1. My first recommendation is by far the most important.  Drink water - distilled or filtered water if you can get it.  It's good for our pets and livestock, it was good for our ancestors for millions of years, and it's good for us.  No soda, no juice, no alcohol, no coffee, no sports drinks - just water.

   After you've tested it, and you know it's ok, a glass of milk once in a while is probably a good idea, for its calcium and vitamin D.  It also gives your child something he can drink at lunch, while others are drinking their corn syrup.  She doesn't feel so out of place in the school cafeteria.  But bear in mind, there are some kids who react to milk.

   Unless you are very unusual, unsweetened tea is ok.  And club soda with a bit of fresh lemon or lime is a good substitute for pop.  Other than these items, drink water, period.

   Soda pop and juices are particularly damaging.  Drinking sugar concentrate, even from real fruit, is like pouring jet fuel into your car.  Don't do it.  We're not built to handle it, especially as a baby.

2. Avoid refined sugars.  Again, this helps beat back the microbe, if there is one.  And if you don't have a microbe, well, you're less likely to get diabetes, and that's reason enough to avoid sugar.  There is some refined sugar in my son's cereal, because he won't eat Shredded Wheat, and occasionally he has a shortbread cookie or two.  No need to be microscopic about it - just don't eat foods like candy and chocolate that are mostly sugar.  And don't put sugar on/in things.

   Since ingredients can be deceiving, it helps to check the nutrition facts.  Watch out for high carb foods, and especially high sugar foods.

3. Don't eat artificials.  Especially avoid the feingold and glutamate additives.  For gums and preservatives etc, just use good judgment.  Some brands have fewer chemicals than others; read the labels and buy the better brands.

   My daughter reacts to MSG and red#40, while my son has to monitor his intake of sorbate preservatives.  And they are full siblings.  It's very individual.

   Some people have trouble with malted anything, and vinegar.  These aren't artificial, but they are the two most powerful promoters of yeast.  That's why they are found in so many breads.

4. Avoid fake sugars.  When sweets are withheld you're going to be in withdrawal.  You're going to buy every sweet tasting sugar free item on the market.  Many of these have sugar alcohols, like manatol or sorbitol.  If you're fighting a microbe, these are no better than sugar, and they may be worse.  The bacteria can metabolize more sweets than you can, so avoid sugar alcohols.

   How about the synthetic sweeteners?  Sucralose is too new; I wouldn't trust it.  Saccharin is pretty safe, but hard to find, thanks to <Reagan and Rumsfeld>.  Nutrasweet is ok for some people, but not ok for others, so avoid it at the start.  And if it seems ok, limit one serving per day.  I know three people personally who were all right with it, on occasion, but got hooked, and started drinking/eating diet nutrasweet things all day long, and reacted badly to it in different ways.  My sister was up to 7 diet sodas per day.  It's a fake chemical; don't push it!

5. Avoid white foods, refined flours, white rice, white/sweet potato, and other forms of pure starch.  This is another form of jet fuel that our bodies aren't equipped to handle.  My son does better eating whole grains.  The fiber is important.  It regulates digestion, so the nutrients don't pour into his system all at once.  Beyond this, it feeds the good bacteria, which out-compete the bad.

   There are plenty of good whole grain cereals, and even whole wheat noodles for spaghetti.  Buy whole grain bread that has 3 grams of fiber per slice, and not a lot of added sugar.  Serve brown rice instead of white.  This also helps with vitamin deficiency.

   If you read the rest of this blog, you'll notice I spend at least a year doing, and championing, exactly the opposite.  I was following the failsafe diet, which promotes white flours and potatoes and white rice, and all the sugar you want - and I was convinced it was helping!  How could I have been so stupid?  I have two advanced degrees; how could I have been so blind?  The answer to this question, if there is one, is rooted in human psychology.  When we are desperate, we try many things, and if one of these "tests" is followed by a good day, or a good week, we glom onto it like a religion.  Of course good weeks happen, and bad weeks happen, for reasons that we don't understand, so we are deceived by false patterns and coincidences, and statistically insignificant data sets.  When I talk about the virtues of the failsafe diet, with its white flours and white sugar, and scarcely a fruit or vegetable in sight, realize that it was just an experiment, and nothing more.  It's "glorious successes" were not reproducible, and I have since moved on.

   "Science is a long history of how not to fool ourselves." - Richard Feynman

6. Avoid iron fortified foods.  This is only an issue if you are fighting certain bacteria.  See the November 20, 2004 issue of Science News.  Of course everybody needs iron, so check with your doctor.  Most Americans get enough, thanks to the ever popular hamburger.  If anemia persists, there's always liver and spinach.

   When searching for added iron, check the nutrition facts, as it is not always listed in the ingredients.  Be suspicious of a food (devoid of meat) that has more than 10% of the RDA for iron.  Even if the percent is low, scan the ingredients, searching for iron, ferrous, or ferric.

7. Eat whole raw fruits.  Not dried (e.g. raisins), not overcooked, not canned sitting in sugar or its own juice.  We are built to eat fruits.  Our cousins the chimps eat fruits all day long.  We need the fiber, along with the natural sugars.  This fiber is contained in the skin and flesh of the fruit, and is lost if you only drink the juice.  Whole fruits and vegetables, in variety, at least 2 or 3 a day.

   This also helps if you are vitamin/mineral deficient, because a wide variety of raw fruits and vegetables will give you the vitamins you need.  I know - some people say you can't possibly get your vitamins from food, and this may be true in some cases, but it runs counter to evolution.  Besides, they're trying to sell you supplements, so their motives are suspect.  Also, a vitamin supplement will probably <feed the yeast> more than it feeds you.  It could make you worse, and it's yet one more variable you have to track.

8. Eat veggies, cooked or raw.  Peas and green beans are good, as they bring in fiber for your good bacteria.  Carrots, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes; all good.  Don't serve a lot of red beans or broccoli, especially at the start.  If it gives me gas, it gives my son crazy brain.  Again, this is a bacterial reaction to the complex sugars that humans cannot digest.

9. If all these steps don't help, avoid the common allergens: wheat, dairy, corn, soy, nuts,citrus, artificials, and anything else that you eat on a regular basis.

10. It all comes down to evolution.  We're built to eat what our ancestors ate for the past million years.  That's uncontaminated meat, fish, fruit, occasional vegetables, and occasional whole grains and nuts.  I would say, after my 15 years of research, that almost anyone, with or without overt symptoms, child or adult, would do better and feel better eating the ancestral diet, though it's awfully hard to do when everyone around you is eating cupcakes.

And now for our story.  Let's start at the beginning, when we adopted two special needs children.