If your New Year’s Resolutions include trying a special diet with your special kid, the folks at TACA (Talk About Curing Autism) have a gift for you. They have recently rolled out a whole section of their website on the Gluten-Free, Casein-Free diet that helps so many children on the autistic spectrum.

Embarking on any diet is challenging, but one that removes all the casein and gluten is overwhelming. The TACA guide is comprehensive, including a “how to get started” section that breaks down the removal of gluten and casein into a 10 week process. There are shopping lists, links to websites that carry GFCF foods, and, of course, lots of recipes.

One of the keys to success on this diet is finding the ingredients in the grocery store. This is easier if you have access to a Whole Foods, Wild Oats or Trader Joe’s. We don’t have a Whole Foods close to us, although one is near our psychiatrist’s office, so we make a monthly trek and stock up. Meanwhile, some other grocery chains will order specific foods for you, if you talk directly with the grocery department manager. Our local grocery now carries the Tofutti cream cheese and yogurt, along with soups and some of the GFCF baking mixes. The TACA site includes a list of which products are generally available through Whole Foods, Wild Oats and other sources.

The other really challenging aspect of this diet is eating out. So TACA has a restaurant guide, listing both fast-food places and sit-down restaurants that have GFCF options. Because of the increase in Celiac Disease, many places have developed gluten-free menus. But watch closely, because these dishes typically contain cheese or other dairy products, which is not casein-free.

The folks at TACA even covered the topic of food budget. What you’ll find as you embark on this diet is that GFCF food can be very expensive, unless you make it yourself. So there’s instruction on how to do that…cook from scratch. I’ll admit that I am hard pressed to do that, even though I stay at home. There are times that I reach for that expensive box of “fake” macaroni and cheese (as LuLu calls it) and I don’t make my own rice milk, even though it would be very frugal to do so. But, maybe I will now that I have the instructions.

After all, it’s 2008 and time to try something new.

Photo Credit A picture of some gluten-free items at a bakery