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To increase mood stability, improve learning and memory, gain communicative ability, and retain more nutrients, the single most influential factor is almost always food. In general, processed conventional foods make things worse, and whole organic foods make things better (especially when they are diverse, fresh, and in a rotation diet --> button to rotation diet). While many of us find change difficult, the more informed and prepared we are, the easier it is to manage the change (button to Change Management).

When the body begins to receive the materials it needs -- first for maintenance, and then for repair -- changes can happen quite quickly. Behavioural and learning challenges at private educational institutions have markedly dropped within weeks on changing to a healthier daily diet. More interesting still, challenges reappear -- sometimes within minutes, but often within hours or days -- after consuming chemically contaminated or processed conventional foods. Some of this effect is caused by lack of nutrients for maintaining normal functioning, and some by allergies or sensitivities to particular foods or contaminants of the foods, such as pesticides, colours, preservatives, and other additives (button to Allergies & Sensitivities)

 

 

The Processed Food Challenge
The number of calories in a food serving tells you how much heat it will produce, but to our bodies, a food's real value is in the number of nutrients available to help our bodies perform optimally. Most of what we call "processed food" has anti-nutrients. Anti-nutrients rob the body of the materials it needs to maintain and repair itself, because they cause damage to the tissues beyond what any real nutrients provided can support in the way of tissue repair. Good foods leave us lively, focused, peaceful, strong, full of stamina, and coordinated. Anti-nutrients leave us irritable, sleepy, anxious, gassy, disoriented, forgetful, insomniac, clumsy, uncomfortable, emotionally volatile, overweight, crampy, and craving. In general, the more processing a food has undergone, the less nourishing it is.
Convenience foods almost always contain one or more of the six most common foods for sensitivities or allergies (wheat, corn, sugar, caffeine, dairy, and chemicals). Preservatives, colours, and flavours can be derived from petrochemicals and coal tar. Even if a product is labeled "natural flavour", this may mean that sawdust has been bacterially fermented to a particular taste, which no value to the body's needs whatsoever, never mind whether or not it has been tested adequately for harm -- and food additives often have not. Products laced with unpronounceable ingredients are usually also full of sweeteners and rancid fats, their staleness disguised to enable a profitably long shelf-life. Whether or not an allergy or sensitivity is present, the stress that processed foods cause your immune system impairs your ability to absorb any nutrients they may contain.
Real food makes your body work properly, and makes you feel healthy and happy. Real foods contain high quantities of nutrients, so that the metabolic costs (of breaking nutrients down through digestion) are abundantly overpaid. Nutrients are most densely packed in proteins, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and high quality oils. Unfortunately, how and where the food was grown, how much it has been processed, how it is stored, and how it has been cooked can negate this advantage. Try to eat organically-grown whole foods, which on average have significantly higher nutrient levels. Try to store foods, both cooked and unprepared, in glass and stainless steel containers, to preventing leaching of plastic derivatives into food. Try to cook lightly through boiling, baking, steaming, slow-cooking, or drying, to leave nutrients as intact as possible. Try to eat a wide variety of foods, because repetitive consumption of the same foods stresses the immune system. But mostly, try to start noticing how you feel after you eat, and adjust your diet accordingly.

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Why Eat Organic?
Because children are growing, they eat a lot more food (relative to their size), and thereby take in more toxins. Developing cells are especially vulnerable to allergens, carcinogens, mutagens, neurotoxins, and hormone-disrupters such as pesticides, fungicides, and chemical fertilizers. People with compromised immune systems (the elderly, the pregnant, the ill) are also at greater risk from this parade of toxins, but frankly, even the healthiest people notice they feel better when they switch to eating whole organic foods, in my experience. The main difficulty is that many toxins are fat-soluble, and aren't easily separated from our tissues once they're inside us. This means that we accumulate them over time, and while any single dose may not be enough to disrupt memory or cause cancer, the cumulative effects can be much larger and more wide-spread. There is significant evidence that what we call the normal process of aging, here in North America (loss of sight, loss of hearing, loss of bone mass, loss of joint mobility, loss of memory, etc.), is actually a product of toxic lifestyle choices, and especially foods.
Organic growers and processors don't use chemicals, and don't use genetically modified foods (which have no testing for long-term effects on human health, species diversity, or food safety). This means that the soil the food is grown in has to be healthy (or the food won't grow), and healthy soil produces nutrient-dense, flavourful foods. Organic farming doesn't pollute the soil, the air, or the water, all of which can travel and cause harm far from the contamination site. So when you're eating organic food, you're not only supporting your own health, but the health of the planet and all its biota.
If organic foods aren't readily available, grow your own if possible. If not, be aware that some foods are much more hazardous than others, and should not be consumed at all if not available organically. Be especially wary of grapes (also in juice, wine and raisins), peanuts, strawberries, apples, peaches, peppers, green beans, apricots, canteloupes, pears, celery, cucumbers, spinach, rice, oats, and soy products -- and be even more careful if they're not grown locally, since nutrient-density decreases rapidly over time (i.e. distance), and Canadian chemical regulations are more stringent than almost everywhere else.

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The Meat Debate
Bio-accumulation is the process by which, when one animal eats another, and the animal it eats carries a fat-soluble toxin load, the one who eats gains hard-to-expel toxins exponentially faster, with every meal. Because conventional farming now puts animal parts into the feed for farm animals, farm animal are accumulating not only the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, hormones, heavy metals, and antibiotics which are directly fed to them, but are also accumulating the ones fed to the animals of which they are consuming waste parts. This means that conventionally farmed meats carry an ever-greater toxin load.
Fish food chains (the shrimp eat the flies, the fry eat the shrimp, the medium fish eat the fry, the big fish eat the medium ones...) tend to be much longer than land-based food chains, so bio-accumulation is even more of a concern, especially for fish that live in rivers, estuaries, inbound lakes, or industrial coastal areas. Since I was 11 and discovered that my belly ached about 90% less if I avoided meat (including fish and fowl), I have almost entirely avoided it. However, recent experimentation with deep sea fish and organic meats (the safest animal protein sources), in minute quantities, leaves me wondering if it was the meat, or the chemicals, to which I was reacting.
Because many people in the autistic spectrum have disrupted digestive function, and proteins (as well as fats) are the most difficult foods to digest, it may be worthwhile trying a vegetarian diet. Many adults in the spectrum are vegetarian, partly from ethical, and partly from health concerns. However, with organic meats becoming increasingly available, it may be feasible to maintain behavioral stability, optimal brain functioning, and body-system integrity as a meat-eater. I look forward to reading further research.

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