Angels for Autism

When I heard the news recently that Bette Hagman (aka “The Gluten-Free Gourmet”) had died, I looked over at my cookbook shelf and sighed. I have a shelf in my kitchen which has become my daily resource library for The Prince. On it are GFCF cookbooks, autism parent guides, books about sensory diets, better known as OT. The three most prominent authors on that shelf are Bette Hagman, Bernie Rimland, and Elaine Gottschall. And in the past year or two, all three have passed away, but I like to think of them as the guardian angels of our ASD kids.

I never met any of these folks, though I spoke with Bernie once on the phone, but they are my heroes. Three grand-parently figures whose passion was to help improve the quality of life for others. Bernie is the “godfather” of the DAN! Movement and founder of the Autism Research Institute. Without him, mothers with ASD children of my generation might still be doomed to be called “refrigerator mothers” and our children stuck in institutions. Bernie knocked Bruno Bettelheim’s theories out of the park and showed the world that autism is a neurological, biologically-based disorder—not the result of poor parenting. (If you don’t know who Bruno is, Google him. He's a bad meanie, in my humble opinion, but GFCF Mommy is too much of a lady to say what she really thinks, and besides, she promised not to get political!)

Elaine, intrepid researcher and bio-chemist turned foodie, had a sick daughter herself and left no stone unturned to help her. Her Specific Carbohydrate Diet helped many people with a variety of GI disorders, and in later life, Elaine realized her diet, which is also GF, could help ASD kids. Elaine came to know Bernie and spoke at DAN! Autism Conferences. After her death, The Gottschall Autism Center was opened.

Then there was sweet, grandmotherly, Bette Hagman. Bette’s cookbooks, it seemed to me, offered a wonderful combination of down-to-earth comfort and gourmet-taste. In The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Comfort Food, she even has a short essay on the GFCF Diet and autism with a brief “how to” section. At one of her talks, Bette was approached afterwards by several moms of ASD kids who said the diet had helped their children and that her recipes were a great foundation. I don’t know, but I can guess who those moms might have been: Lisa Lewis and Karyn Seroussi, also friends of Bernie. Without Bette’s test kitchens and intuition, the convenience ready-mixed flours that I rely on for my cooking would not have existed.

So though I feel so sad at the loss of the folks, I am glad our kids have them as guardian angels.