The Personalized Autism Nutrition Plan: Nourishing Hope for Kids with ASD, ADHD, Anxiety, and Neurodevelopmental Delays

A Roadmap That Removes the Overwhelm of a Personalized Autism Nutrition Plan

It can be awfully confusing for a parent to know which dietary changes to make for their child with autism, ADHD, SPD, developmental delays, anxiety or depression. Julie’s book removes the overwhelm of this process because it is based on over 20 years of Julie’s research (here and here) and clinical experience in improving symptoms of children with these conditions.

Personalizing Your Child’s Nutrition Plan

There’s a reason why Julie’s program to teach other clinicians is called Bioindividual Nutrition: Everyone is different. Everyone has a different genetic makeup and different environmental exposures. So how does a parent know which therapeutic diet to use for their child? The answer lies in the holy grail of therapeutic diets, a chart entitled Therapeutic Diets and Symptom Improvements (pp. 38-39). In this chart, therapeutic diets are laid out in a grid to show which ones are most effective at lowering symptoms such as mood and behavior symptoms, learning symptoms, digestive symptoms and health/physical symptoms. A parent or practitioner can look at this chart and determine which, if any, therapeutic diet is the next logical step to trial, based on symptoms.

For most of these specialized diets, Julie provides tips for implementing the diet with lists of foods to avoid, foods to add and a sample meal plan. She also guides the reader with information about how to determine whether one of these diets is right for your child. Julie writes:

Foundational First Steps

Julie recommends adding in the following foundations before implementing any further therapeutic diets:

• Address picky eating
• Eliminate gluten, casein and soy
• Take care of yourself

These first steps take into account some of the most common problematic issues with the Standard American Diet as well as food sensitivities and intolerances that are almost universally common for children with these chronic health conditions. These steps help to alleviate a large part of a child’s total load by improving digestion and detoxification while avoding adding in common food-related stressors.

What’s nice about these first steps is that parents can do them without having to do any kind of testing or consultation. They can be done at home, and they empower parents to see that some foods can contribute to symptoms while other foods are healing. Usually once parents start to see results after making these foundational changes, they become empowered and want to know more ways to help their child. Julie recommends being a food detective and keeping a daily journal, such as this one, along with photos and videos to track your child’s progress. It may take a few months to get these changes under your belt, so patience and taking care of yourself is necessary in this healing journey that is often described as a “marathon, not a sprint”.

(Side note: If you have assembled enough documentation of your child’s healing journey, we encourage you to fill out this form, which our research team will review and could potentially publish, as we did with twin girls with autism who reversed many of their autism symptoms.)

Next Steps

Most children will often have an abatement of some symptoms after following the foundational first steps listed above. To go further in personalizing your child’s nutrition plan, Julie suggests the following steps in this order:

Implement a Low-Salicylate, Low-Amine and Low-Glutamate Diet

As far as we know, this combination of low-salicylate (similar to the Feingold diet), low-amine (found in aged and fermented foods; similar to the low-histamine diet) and low-glutamate diet is a unique contribution to the field of autism nutrition by Julie. She calls it the “SAG diet” for short and notes that about 75% of her clients with autism do not tolerate these compounds well. Another goldmine of information is found in a chart on pp. 150-151 that shows the overlap of symptoms for those with salicylate, amine, histamine and glutamate intolerances.

Julie suggests simply observing your child after eating any foods containing these substances. If you notice a change, try removing the problematic foods for a week to a few weeks (depending on type of food being avoided; see book for details), then add them back in to test. Julie notes to “remove only those foods that you notice are causing negative reactions”. Because children with autism are often picky eaters and have a limited number of foods that they will eat, Julie believes that it’s better not to overly restrict their diets.

She also recommends supplements that can help with the process such as Epsom salts baths, a phenol enzyme such as N0-Fenol by Houston Enzymes, a DAO enzyme, baking soda, activated charcoal, methylated supplements and magnesium.

Check for Common Food Sensitivities

A child following Julie’s advice will already be gluten-free, dairy-free and soy-free as well as avoiding the SAG foods mentioned above. Other common foods such as corn, sugar, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanuts, tree nuts, chocolate (sadly, yes) and citrus can also cause immune system dysregulation known as an IgG food sensitivity. Therefore, it’s a good idea to trial an elimination diet of these foods, then test them with reintroduction, all while keeping notes in a food journal.

Consider a Grain-Free Diet

Children with autism typically have gut dysbiosis, which not only can lead to uncomfortable gastrointestinal symptoms but also affects how well the brain works. Diets such as the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, the GAPS diet and the Paleo diet are all grain-free and can help alleviate many of these symptoms. They likely don’t need to be followed indefinitely, but it may also take years or months of following them for true gut healing to occur.

Trial the Low-Oxalate Diet

A 2012 study found that every child tested in the study had oxalate levels. High levels of oxalate can contribute to pain, inflammation, hypotonia, yeast overgrowth, anxiety, poor coordination and brain fog, among other symptoms. Common sources of oxalates are foods such as spinach, almonds and chia seeds, and Julie notes that “a single serving of these foods can have five times the daily total for healthy individiuals.” She also writes that it takes about three to six months to bring oxalate levels down to be able to see improvment and that the low-oxalate diet may need to be a long-term diet.

Consider Other Therapeutic Diets

Diets such as the low-FODMAP diet, the Body Ecology Diet (BED), the ketogenic diet, a nightshade-free diet, the autoimmune Paleo diet, a lectin-free diet and a low-sulfur diet are other diets that can be implemented in addition to previously mentioned diets to address your child’s specific needs.

What Else Is in the Book

A nutrition plan book wouldn’t be complete without recipes, and there are 50 recipes in this book. Recipes are tagged by type of diet with tips for how to modify for certain diets, which makes this very helpful for parents starting out on a new diet.

The book also contains information about relevant factors beyond food and nutrition that may be contributing to your child’s symptoms such as EMFs, mold, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, PANS/PANDAS, insulin resistance, toxins, detoxification, testing and how to work with an integrative practitioner.

In Conclusion

Get this book now! It will save you time, money and headaches. The information in the book is backed by peer-reviewed science, and these articles are referenced for those wishing to know more. If you can’t convince your healthcare practitioner that therapeutic diets are a necessary part of improving health by showing them information in this book, get yourself a new, integrative practitioner that will listen to you and take your concerns seriously.

About Julie Matthews CNC

Julie has been featured by Price-Pottenger, honored by the National Association of Nutrition Professionals and sits on two scientific advisory boards including the Autism Nutrition Research Center. She founded Nourishing Hope in 2005 to stand for the efficacy of improved diet and nutrition for autism, and the BioIndividual Nutrition Institute in 2014 to share the synthesis of her knowledge with cutting edge clinicians to help improve their effectiveness with therapeutic diets.

She published Nourishing Hope for Autism: Nutrition and Diet Guide for Healing Our Children in 2008 and The Personalized Autism Nutrition Plan: Nourishing Hope for Kids with ASD, ADHD, Anxiety, and Neurodevelopmental Delays in 2025. She is a co-author of Comprehensive Nutritional and Dietary Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder-A Randomized, Controlled 12-Month Trial. Nutrients. 2018 Mar 17;10(3), and she is the lead author of Ratings of the Effectiveness of 13 Therapeutic Diets for Autism Spectrum Disorder: Results of a National Survey.J Pers Med. 2023 Sep 29;13(10):1448.

You can find out more about her work at her websites nourishinghope.com, bioindividualnutrition.com and nutritionforpregnancy.com.

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