Autism, Schizophrenia And Nutrition: An Expert Agrees
By RICHARD ZWOLINSKI, LMHC, CASAC & C.R. ZWOLINSKI

[See parts one, two and three of one mom's fight to help her autistic
son.?Therapy Soup's interview with Kathleen of?Pickl-it continues...]

An Expert Agrees

Seated in front of the desk of of a world-renowned pediatric
neurologist and brain-development??Dr. Martha Herbert,?researcher
who?specialized in autism research, my husband and I waited while she
scribbled a quick note, straightened and shifted papers to the side of
her desk, and then centered her gently-folded hands on the desks
gleaming wood. Leaning forward, her eyes locked onto mine.

Tell me, she invited, in a welcoming voice.

I took a deep breath and began, as I had so many other times over the
years. She listened. She nodded. She confirmed several of my ideas
with, Yes, thats right, which further emboldened me to share what
others had mocked as fantastical notions. Several times, the doctor
momentarily signaled for me to pause. Turning towards a note-taking
intern, tucked away in an obscure corner of the dimly-lit office, the
doctor said, Thats importantthat last point she made. We listened,
fascinated, as she translated what Id said, into science-speak.

Forty-five minutes later, I had said everything Id come to say,
everything that I needed someone with her knowledge to hear for
verification, correction, or erudition.

Do you know what you are? she asked, after a few moments of silence.
My mind fired off a wide-range of responsestired, inquisitive, weary,
tenaciousbut before I answered, she continued.

Do you know youre not alone? You have peers, a large team of
researchers just like you. I have a name for all of you
Poopologists. Its not a fancy name. But it is a noble endeavor,
and one for which I have the deepest, most profound respect and
admiration. You are practicing important science. Im just here to
back you up, to attempt to validate, find the science to explain what
you already know.

If you think of it as a brain disorder thats a miswiring from birth,
then what the parents are doing is utterly insane or incongruous. But
if you think of the brain as being affected by the whole body, then
when you affect the body, you can affect the brain. And thats the
rationale of what parents are doing. The parents are doing, in my
view, systems biology. I think that parents have beat medicine to
systems biology.?-?PBS Interview with Dr. Martha Herbert

An Introduction to Possible Biomedical Causes and Treatments for
Autism Spectrum Disorders, published at the Indiana Institute on
Disability and Community, under the auspices of Indiana University,
Bloomington, is an example of readily-available information to help
todays parents find assistance and understanding when building their
team of experts.? If your medical or educational experts lack
understanding, interest, or resources to delve into these issues, walk
away. Keep walking. Keep looking. Keep asking. Keep connecting, for
your childs sake.

Kathleen, tell us how you created your home-fermentation jars.

When Matthew was nearly five years of age, I discovered a line of
beneficial enzymes and probiotics, specifically for autism spectrum
disorders. They were created by a doctor who paid attention, listening
to the observations of mothers concerned about the digestive and
immune-system health of their children.

When I described how I was implementing a nutrient-dense whole-food
diet, his enthusiasm was contagious. Instead of loading me up with
supplements from his product line, he did quite the opposite. Dont
buy anything from menot yet, anyway. Wait six months and see if you
need to tweak it. Theres nothing better than real food, especially if
you make your own kraut.

Oh, to have stood by the side of my maternal grandmother when she made
her kraut! Id benefited from eating her food, at the very least, Id
trained my sense of taste and smell. Using those skills to guide me, I
set out to recapture the lost art of lacto-fermentation, practiced by
my European ancestors for multiple generations.

In place of a crock, I used a modern mason jar, following the
instructions in Nourishing Traditions, which included the addition of
wheyan inoculate artificially lowering the pH, raising aciditymaking
the brine inhospitable to for the development of botulism. A dozen
batches later, and I still couldnt find any hint or flavor or texture
that had anything in common with the clean, crisp flavor of my
grandmothers kraut.

My whey-less adventures fared no better. Out of a dozen batches, one
worked. One! And wouldnt you know it, my family noticed, asking, Can
you do that again? Please? That one tasted great! I was more gifted
in growing thick carpets of oxygen-loving yeast and scary looking
black mold, then healthy-looking or health-tasting pickles.

I realized the problem wasnt my cabbage. It wasnt my salt. It was
the fact I was using mason jars which are never going to be anaerobic
unless they are processed in a water-bath. And if that occurs, all the
the beneficial lactic acid bacteria, enzymes, heat-sensitive
nutrients, antioxidants, bacteriocins (everything good, in other
words), will be killed off. So why bother?

I began experimenting with wire-bail jars. Some worked, and some
didnt. Only those that stated hermetic and were produced in Italy,
were air-tight and worked, creating textures and flavors that were
much closer to the my grandmothers foods.

The problem with the hermetic jars? They were like babies. Every two
hours they burped. And unlike babies, if you missed a burp, the
hermetic jars blew up. Matthew was in the midst of his auditory and
visual hallucinations, waking up in night-terrors, seeing flames
crawling up and down his walls. And then the wire-bail jar, loaded
with pickling beets, exploded in the kitchen at 3 am. Glass shards
were everywhere, embedded in the wall, sprinkling the floor. Let me
just say that beet juice on sunny-yellow walls is not a great
combination. And it was months before I could talk Matthew into coming
back into the kitchen. I promise you, as the Lord is my witness,
there are no wire-bail jars that will explode

So, we experimented. We punched a whole in plastic mason jar cover,
popped in a petroleum, non-food safe grommet we bought at the local
hardware store. Worthless. Plastic covers are gas permeable, so oxygen
easily travels in and out of the cover, in addition to the threads of
the cover allowing gas to easily flow in and out of the jar. If you
see brine leaking out the side of a jar? That is your proof that gas,
a much smaller particle, easily travels the same path. And who wants
their cooking.net">food in contact with a petroleum, non-food grommet?

The solution was to combine the airlock with the wire-bail jar. Weve
been using our glass airlock jar for many years, often giving it away
for cost, to other mothers of special need children. At the urging of
friends who were thrilled at finally being able to create what they
called clean fermented cooking.net">food that didnt require having to skim off
mold or scum which occurred with their other equipment, we began
selling our product, which Matthew named Pickl-It, two years ago,
after making sure that he would be able to function fairly
independently in our homeschool.

The real proof that properly-fermented, true anaerobic foodthe food
of my ancestorscalms the raging gut-beasts of autism, was when within
30-days of providing Matthew with probiotic-rich cooking.net">food at every meal,
we saw real changes. His bowel movements became solid, for the first
time in his five years of life. He was calmer, more focused. Two weeks
into the diet, he announced, Im going to bed early, and slept
through the night, continuing that pattern every single night. We were
so relieved, that we talked about not even daring to hope the changes
were real, or would last. We didnt have a very long break from
stress.

The school noticed, too. The assistant director of special needs
phoned us, accusing of us of placing him on medications without first
informing them.

Commanded to appear at a meeting with our sons school
team (teacher, aid, therapists, school nurse and administrators), we
presented them with a copy of Nourishing Traditions?and its dietary
guidelines. Not only did the teacher and therapists confirm our sons
new calmer, gentler, more easy-to-teach nature, but the nurse admitted
that while she was still breaking our rule, allowing him to use her
private bathroom (its scented products locked away from his reach)
she noticed something: Amazing that his stools are hard! I had never
before seen a kid with such awful diarrhea, so whatever you are doing,
keep doing it! Even now, all these years later, we still need to
remind him to flush.

We removed Matthew from school, choosing to home-school him. With the
help of a wonderful team of doctors at Cambridge & Harvard, who
encouraged us to follow a nutrient-dense whole-food diet, and were
very supportive of the health-giving properties of fermented foods,
Matthews nutritional {*filter*} panels were, Abnormally normal!

Where he was once headed towards a diagnosis of schizophrenia, he is
now steady, focused, the auditory and visual hallucinations
extinguished over six years ago.

If we had walked out of the adoption agency without him, when the
adoption agency director labeled Matthew, high-risk, and sent him
back to his sugar-water, soy-formula diet, I know, beyond a shadow of
a doubt, he would not be the same child as the one we have the
privilege and honor to share our lives with today.

Nutrients offered by real food, fresh, off-the-farm, and nutrient-
dense, played a huge part in helping to pull our son from the abyss of
autism. He still has moments, when hes tired, that some of his
quirks appear, but theyre manageable. Those quirks are what some
might use to identify him as autism spectrum disorder, but they are
also what makes him brilliant, funny, sweet, thoughtful, kind, and
most important, deeply bonded with a keen desire to love and be loved.

Learn more about the health benefits of fermented foods at Pickl-
it.?Youll find recipes, products and informative links.

For more about naturally healthy nutrition (with a Jewish twist) visit
C.R. at healthyjewishcooking.com. Learn about the benefits of
sourdough bread, sprouting, organically grown foods and more.

Richard Zwolinski, LMHC, CASAC is the author of Therapy Revolution:
Find Help, Get Better, and Move On Without Wasting Time or Money and
is an internationally licensed psychotherapist and {*filter*}ion
specialist with over 25 years experience as well as a consultant to
organizations and companies in the fields of mental health and
{*filter*}ion. Learn more about Richard here.

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