Wheat & Milk-Free Diet

The wheat & milk free diet is referred to as the gluten-free casein-free diet (GFCF diet). Adopting a wheat & milk free diet is be a step-by-step process of supplementing familiar foods, learning to understand labels and expanding your food options using a growing wealth of resources. The GFCF diet is under discussion in the autism community as a possible alternative treatment to help control symptoms.

Basics

In order to remove wheat and milk from your diet, it's important to understand which foods contain the proteins the diet intends to exclude, gluten and casein. A few of the foods that contain gluten and gluten-like proteins include wheat, oats, rye, bulgar, spelt, barley, kamut, couscous, semolina, most soy sauces, some vinegars, and artificial colorings and flavorings.
A milk-free diet is designed to remove the protein casein, which is in milk and foods that contain milk, including cheese and whey, as well as in non-milk products that contain caseinate such hot dogs and soy cheese.

Acceptable Foods

The wheat & milk-free diet may seem confounding at first. The list of foods on the "no" list is long and food labels can be frustrating until you're familiar with the various forms of wheat and casein. But the market of gluten-free and casein-free diet cookbooks is rapidly expanding, as well as accessibility of the products you can eat. The acceptable foods list includes rice, meats, nuts, eggs, vegetables, soybeans, buckwheat flour, quinoa and potatoes, among other products that can be found in the resources section below.

Considerations

A few of the health benefits of eating a wheat & milk-free diet include weight loss, management of food allergies and an increase of overall energy. Since the body can take up to six months to rid itself of gluten, advocates recommend newcomers to try the diet for at least six months. It's also useful to be aware of non-food sources of gluten, such as cosmetics, toothpaste and some ground spices. When in doubt, many product packages include a phone number that you can call and find out whether a product contains gluten or casein.

Medical Research

Research into the connection between autistic children and a wheat & milk-free diet continues, but has already shown that in an autistic child, gluten and casein leak into the gut undigested and connect to the brain's opiate receptors. The effect is morphine-like, and many children with autism are addicted to milk and wheat foods as a result. The impact of removing gluten and casein from an autistic child's diet may improve digestion, eye sight and behavior.