Eating for Autism: The 10-Step Nutrition Plan to Help Treat Your Child’s Autism, Asperger’s, or ADHD Paperback – April 28, 2009

I have three kids and one (7 yrs old) with a metabolic disorder who is currently in the GFCF diet. I purchased this book because it included recipes for my child. Since I was experiencing the same side effects of the disorder (bad temper, angry, no tolerance etc) with my first boy (9 yrs), I decided to test him and the results came positive for the same disorder. I agree with the author of the book that many of our kids are not getting the essential nutrients and minerals they need for proper nutrition. My second child was diagnosed by one psychologist and one psychiatrist with ADHD and they were ready to medicate him but I decided to explore other options like providing him with proper nutrition and going to the geneticist. I can say that after two years in the proper diet my son is a 4.0 student doing great and with no medications at all. He was just missing the right amount of nutrients required for proper functioning. It is just plain and simple we are not eating right. We need to be very careful of what we feed our children because sometimes their behavior might be due to just an allergy or bad nutrition. This book was really an eye opening for me and believe me, I already recommend it to all of my girlfriends with children.

My son was a client of the author about 8 years ago. Her approach has helped my son who has Autism to get significantly better. He is calmer, has no behavior problems and is doing very well compared to before. He has friends, works three volunteer jobs and is dating now. It helps to follow the recommendations very closely.

My daughter has a chromo disorder, apraxia and epilepsy with some features similar to ASD. We have been looking at nutritional approaches to improve symptoms including low glycemic index, omega-3's etc and vitamin/mineral supplements. Our physicians have stated there is not solid research evidence through sound clinical trials to support nutritional therapy and parental anecdotes are not enough, not all bodies are equal in amts/types needed. The book explains this situation pretty accurately. Docs/dieticians so far are okay with us giving supplements at RDA preventive levels as this will not hurt, but beyond that there is not much support. This book helps in that it puts together in one place all the vitamin, mineral, omega, etc information out there on RDA amounts and upper tolerable amounts for parents to use as a guide pending clinical trials (which the author points out as being difficult and costly to achieve, and may be years out yet). I haven't evaluated the recipes much as more in need of the supplement information, but glad to have them as a start.

I got this book recently as a research tool to try and find ways to help my 20 year old brother with Asbergers syndrome. While a lot of the information is geared towards children, it really has a wealth of information in regards to nutrition, from very basic concepts that would be useful to anyone wanting to improve their health, to autism spectrum-specific ideas. Since my brother thinks of himself as an "adult" and wants to make many of his own decisions regarding food he eats; and my mom (his sole caretaker and number 1 champion) works a full time job and has a limited budget, the "gluten-free, casein-free" diet often recommended by autism specialists is a bit unrealistic. However, this author, instead of insisting that readers jump right into all of that, suggests a 10 step plan, that involves gradually changing the whole family's diet over time, so you can start with the basic steps, and then stop there if you're getting the results you want and/or the rest seems too challenging for your lifestyle. Overall, it's been very informative as I've studied the intro and first 3 chapters over the last few weeks. I passed it on to my mom tonight with parts I thought would be useful highlighted. I'll post another review with more details about my brother's progress once she has had a chance to implement some of the suggested changes.

what a great read and a wonderful place to start for food therapy. My son with aspberger's has now been GFCF for 8 months and it is a dramatic difference for him. The little light in him just got brighter and brighter. Results began happening for him with in the first two weeks. If your son or daughter is on the spectrum, please consider this treatment for you child.

I'm not in to a lot of self help books but I really enjoyed this book. My son has severe ADHD and I was desperate for help where medications were failing us. I have been very pleased with the suggestions and implemented almost all but gluten free diet. The suggestions on eliminating red food dyes & certain preservatives made a huge difference for us. The format is easy to read over a period of time in short increments and very easy to understand. My friend who is a licensed nutritionist recommended and said that she has been using quite a bit in her practice with great results. The author gives background on how the body functions and metabolizes different substances and the mechanics of why some of the vitamins and neutraceuticals work to improve body functions. Highly recommend.