ADHD cannot be diagnosed by checking off a laundry list of symptoms because many disorders often cause similar problems. Celiac disease is one such overlooked disorder. You might have been aware that food intolerances and intestinal problems have a hand in causing ADHD symptoms. Celiac disease is a condition where a person is intolerant to the plant protein gluten, which is found in wheat and wheat products. When a child with celiac disease eats pizza, pasta, or any food with wheat in it, the immune system reacts by damaging the upper region of the small intestine. The initial damage only amounts to minor inflammation but if the child continues to eat foods with gluten, painful symptoms and impaired nutrient absorption can occur.

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Getting your kids started on a gluten-free casein-free diet (GFCF) or the Feingold Diet can be difficult. After all, these diets forbid children from eating candy, cookies, pizza, and other foods they love. ADHD diets make cooking and doing the groceries difficult for parents too; gone are the days when you can just buy bags of potato chips or whip up a plate of pasta to ease your children’s hunger pangs. But you don’t have to come up with gourmet dishes to cook for ADHD kids, and implementing an ADHD diet does not mean restricting your children to bland, uninteresting food while their friends feast on tasty morsels. With the help of these ADHD cookbooks, your kids can eat delicious, nutritious meals without becoming uncontrollably hyperactive and inattentive after.

The Kid-Friendly ADHD and Autism Cookbook: The Ultimate Guide to the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet

This book is an excellent primer for parents who are new to the gluten-free casein-free diet. Not only do the pages contain kid-friendly recipes without milk or wheat, but the authors also explain how and why the diet works. The ingredients used in the recipes are also explained, along with tips on how to find them.

The Autism & ADHD Diet: A Step-by-Step Guide to Hope and Healing by Living Gluten Free and Casein Free (GFCF) and Other Interventions

Yet another useful guide for parents who are unfamiliar with the GFCF diet. This book also contains advice on where to buy GFCF foods, tips on avoiding cross-contamination, understanding ingredients labels, and how to make the GFCF diet work for your child and your family.

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In the UnRitalin Solution, we place a lot of importance on diet and proper nutrition as a key to overcoming ADHD. Research shows that artificial additives and certain other food substances can aggravate the trademark symptoms of ADHD, including inattention and hyperactive behavior. These foods cause adverse reactions that impact the brain wave patterns in specific areas of the brain, which in turn triggers the ADHD-like symptoms.

Although very few researchers have looked into the actual mechanisms by which food allergies affect ADHD symptoms, a small study done in 1997 was able to document the phenomenon well. Researchers from Australia’s Institute for Child Health Research investigated the changes in brainwave patterns when participants with ADHD ate foods they were allergic too. The results are very telling and support the theory that an intolerance to certain foods are responsible for ADHD-like behaviors.

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