Another Chemical Free Step

I have heard that persons with autism should only eat organic foods. My thought was, that's nice, but who can afford that? I began washing our produce with special wash from the health food store and took pride in the fact that I had washed off waxes, sprays, and other contaminants.
I recently read this book:
The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier
by Steve Meyerowitz, and it's a great find on Amazon for under $10.
For being a short read, it explains a variety of topics concerned in the choice of whether or not to buy organic. I found the chapter on labeling very helpful. He tells the many reasons organic foods are better for us, and why all those nutrients in healthier soil makes the food taste better.
I took it for a test. I have been buying organic apples for weeks now. I can honestly say that I enjoy apples more now that I have found apples that are generally better tasting. Knowing I am avoiding chemicals and contaminants probably doesn't make them taste worse, either. :)
Now I want to buy nothing but organic. It is true that it does not always happen. Organic varieties are not always available, or always affordable. However, my family and I are taking steps to make it more of a priority to buy organic. Right now it is all of our produce, plus other products here and there. Here is a little collection from my own kitchen.
My efforts to provide organic foods for my family are in an effort to lessen the chemical burdens on my son. I believe that his predisposed little body contracted autism under the burden of environmental contaminants. Anything I can do to lessen the load on his sensitive body makes him a happier boy.

The Face of Autism

This is just a fun little project that included everyone in the family. My husband shot this photo while doing an Eli "photo shoot," meaning stalking him with a camera until a picture of his face is obtained. (He also managed to get one with a big smile!) I did alittle photo editing on the photo. (I did tons of photo editing in college... already getting rusty!) It is still overexposed, etc, but I found the end result with his little gaze to be pretty meaningful. I can also imagine my brother at this age looking at me with his own gaze which somehow still looks at me and through me at the same time.

Immunizations

I had an experience afew weeks ago that I have been thinking about ever since.

I went to see a friend who is an autism sibling like me who had a new baby, about one month old. That little guy was such a doll, and so aware. He could tell that someone that was not mom or dad was holding him, but he decided he could tolerate me after afew minutes. I felt such a connection with the little guy, with the exception of weight and looks, he was just like my little boy at that age... behaved in the same ways. I was so excited I told my husband all about him when I got home. Then he asked me, "Have they been doing immunizations?" And that was all it took for me to sit on my couch and cry for awhile. My husband understood what was wrong and just lovingly sat there with me.

I've spoken before about how I sometimes think about things I would have done differently as a parent in my Mother's Day post. Immunizations is one of those things. I wish I had not been so unaware. Maybe my son would have had less symptoms and had been able to enjoy life more from an early age if I had waited and watched him for symptoms first, waited for safer immunizations, or simply avoided immunizations all together.

Eli has been in biochemical intervention for one year this month. Biochemical intervention has made a difference, even though we can't afford even half the therapies we wold like to have him in. None of his therapies are covered by insurance, and his diet and supplements are hard for us to keep up with. Despite this, Eli can interact in ways he couldn't before, and finds happiness in things he didn't before. (During the drafting of this post he signed "dance" along with a verbal approximation and he grabbed my hands and we danced around the living room!)Previous to Eli seeing a DAN! doctor, his father and I read "Changing the Course of Autism" by Dr. Bryan Jepson. The experience of reading this book was amazing. It is such a compilation of research. It explained to me things that I saw going on with my son and my brother, and the autism community in general, and I was instantly converted.

Now understanding the connection between genetics and autism, and also immunizations and autism due in part to heavy metals, I am appalled to admit that Eli has had the "full schedule" of shots up until the age of 24 months, flu shots, plus he was enrolled in one immunization study. (The doctor, who had children of his own, said that the study was one he would do, and I was way too trusting back then.) My son now has an immunization waiver which allows him to attend public school.

To all the people reading this thinking, "this girl is off her rocker," I want to tell you something: I was once you. Consider the big business that has been built around the immunization program, and what the business implications may be to said big business if each child in the country had one less mercury infused immunization. Consider the government all these years in supporting this big business by requiring children to have a full schedule of immunizations in order to go to school. Then consider that the CDC can't seem to recognize the evidence right in front of them. So I put it to you, I am not a professional after all. Tell me, do these dots deserve to be connected?

Here's an interesting video of CDC accidentally admitting there is a link between autism and immunizations. (I am indebted to Ginger's blog, www.advenduresinautism.blogspot.com for this link.)



Parents, please educate yourselves. Let your mother/father instincts guide you.




"The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief [. . .] of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense."
Elizabeth Bennett in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice