In another desperate attempt to help Ben’s anxiety and issues at school, we started a gluten free, dairy free, low refined sugar diet.

Home made lactose free yogurt

This time around we gave it a full month and instead of buying store bought gluten free flour mixes, I went to the ultimate source for recipe perfection – American Test Kitchen.

I spent a lot of time changing to rice flours and paleo recipes with cashew, almond meal and coconut flour.

Sam helps mix the America’s Test Kitchen Gluten Free All Purpose Flour

If this is something you are thinking about doing, I highly recommend trying both thier How Can it be Gluten Free and Paleo Perfected. I swear you’ll never miss gluten or dairy again!

Paleo pie crust

Most websites that I stumbled across while researching this said you will see results within 3 or 4 days, if there are any to be had.

The first week we tried it, both Sam and Jack were the same. We noticed Ben was slightly calmer. Aaron surprisingly had a perfect week.

Minimalist Baker’s 3 ingredient Peanut Butter Granola Bar

Then we went over to Nando’s Peri Peri, where the kids menu had an unlimited bowl of frozen yogurt for dessert.

For the next 4 days, Aaron was back to his usual whiny, tantrumy self and Ben became combative and argumentative.

Paleo Omelette

I had no idea if I was projecting or if the diet had any real effect, so I decided we were back on the strict diet the following week.

I was cooking and baking so much I started running my dishwasher 3 times a day.

During that time Ben showed little to no improvement and after a month I’m sad (and a little relieved) to say that diet is not a factor in his Sensory Processing Disorder.

I was secretly hoping such an easy fix would be the answer but unfortunately it is not.

In fact, last night we had a few friends over and let Ben eat as much gluten and diary as he pleased. We noticed he was playing hide and seek in the dark along with the other kids, acting just like all the other kids. In the past he could never hide, and certainly couldn’t play a game of tag. He has learned how to do this with his occupational therapy through many, many sessons of hard work, and no amount of gluten, dairy, or sugar could undo that.

Just one of the gang.

It wasn’t a total waste of time, though. Besides finding some great new recipes, we realized we had let too many processed foods with refined sugars creep back into our house.

When the ban was lifted, we decided to leave Nutella, a morning staple before the experiment, off our diet. Today at the grocery store I walked by the shelf stable cheese and crackers and decided if they want cheese and crackers, they can eat real cheese on real crackers from now on. I didn’t pick up the package fruit bars, granola bars and pop tarts either.