Dietary needs and Adhd

Add a Comment

15 Comments

Comment by Amanda Gray on April 9, 2009 at 9:03am

My favourite recipe book is called "Cooking Without" by Barbara Cousins. Some good recipes that cut out all the nasties (yeast, sugar, dairy, eggs, etc etc). Some very yummy stuff... though I must admit that I have had to adapt some of the recipes to make them suit my palate.

Comment by Bryan Hutchinson on April 8, 2009 at 3:09am

I just posted a short review of a book called: Gluten-Free Girl

You can check it out on my blog www.adderworld.com

Comment by Curtis_at_bCalm on April 1, 2009 at 9:46am

One plug about sugar...

they less you eat of the bad kind, the more the good kind tastes sweet!

I was diagnosed hypoglycemic (i.e. my body burns sugar really fast) and I try to avoid soda and related junk. Regular Milk tastes like liquid ice cream when you're not drinking Coke everyday!

Comment by Amanda Gray on April 1, 2009 at 2:27am

I am a special education teacher now working at uni teaching undergraduates about ways to include children with diverse needs in inclusive classrooms. I don't have ADD/HD myself, but I do have chronic fatigue and a similar range of food allergies etc. I have been on a sugar, dairy, caffiene, red meat and yeast free diet since 1997. Lately I have also had to take gluten off my list.... so hopefully I can add some ideas about good recipes and still enjoying eating when so much is off limits.

Comment by Talitha on April 1, 2009 at 2:13am

yeah it's a major avoid if you ask me. getting past the desire for such poison is very worth the effort. besides natural sugars, organic sugars, and stevia are much better ways to grab a sweet taste... you stay both satisfied and sane. win win!

Comment by Bryan Hutchinson on April 1, 2009 at 12:55am

Whew! This is a hot topic. For someone like me with food allergies = it's a pain in the you know what!

Remember that sugar also feeds any fungi with could be lurking in the intestines... that can seriously drain energy and create brain fog. At first you feel a rush of energy and then the crash becomes never ending making you crave more sugar, bread and other things it feeds on!

Comment by Talitha on March 31, 2009 at 10:38pm

any thoughts on white sugar? it practically creates my ADD. it makes me lose my mind. and i was so addicted to it. magically when i stopped eating it i stopped having meltdowns as well. white sugar depletes the body's vitamin b supply. vitamin b deficiencies contribute to a lack of stress coping abilities.

Comment by Belle on March 31, 2009 at 10:27pm

I do have to say because I have had it so long that I am more or less used to it. I also at times do get annoyed for having to spend extra time grocery shopping and scrutinizing everything, but it could be worse, I could be a diabetic celiac! LOL

Comment by Belle on March 31, 2009 at 10:26pm

I would have to say for me the hardest part of having celiacs is going out with friends to restaurants sometimes, as it gets hard to tell them 'I can't eat anything there', or lunches at school. It can be so tempting to get sick on pizza, however the reality of the severity of the reactions tends to be a preventitive. I do sneak a topping every now and again. I know of a lady who is intolerant and cross-contamination has sent her to the hospital for a week or so. Mind you there was one time I could have sued a restaurant and won, after asking them to make a ceasar salad from scratch with no croutons and no croutons picked out of it, but the cook did not take this seriously and I was eating the salad and ate a crouton accidentally that they had missed, and then found more and got sick! Needless to say it could have been a lot worse for them.

Comment by DistractedByShinyThings on March 31, 2009 at 1:56pm

Oh wow!! How awful that you were so sick when you were just a baby.

I never had a diagnosis because I tried giving up gluten first, felt a lot better, and THEN started researching. lol. I found out I'd have to be consuming gluten on a regular basis for quite awhile in order to have a biopsy done and not get a false negative. Since my job was literally hanging by a thread because of my inattentiveness, which became so much less of a problem after going gluten free (though is still not anywhere near good enough, to be honest, but is night-and-day different from how it was before), I have been too afraid to purposely allow myself to become worse again, just for the diagnosis.

I also get more irritable when I've been glutened, and fatigued so that I feel like a walking zombie. A walking, crazy-irritable zombie. Who can't think. LOL!

The most challenging part, to me, alternates between my paranoia of cross-contamination and the frustration that I can't just eat what I want, like other people do. When I'm in my "normal" frame of mind, though, I find it much less difficult, overall, then when I am feeling irritable or depressed. On a regular, day-to-day basis, it's just what I'm used to now.

What is the hardest part for you, Belle?

• 1
• 2