Nutritional epigenetics education improves diet and attitude of parents of children with autism or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Table 9 Feedback from parents who completed online nutritional epigenetics tutorial

Survey questions	Feedback
Did you find the cupboard surveys and other activities helpful in preparing healthy meals for your family? Why or why not?	Yes. I’m trying to buy more organic foods after the tutorial. I was in denial before the tutorial
	Yes. Learned to pay attention to food ingredient labels
	Yes, it made me look at what I currently have and evaluate it. A lot of the items I had in my pantry I had no idea had some of the “toxic” ingredients. It made me look at it immediately instead of just thinking, “I’ll look at it later.”
	Yes, it is very helpful because I learned that I need to check the contents of the food before serving it to my family
	I thought it was a good way to really ‘see’ what you’ve been buying
	Yes! It forced me to take a difficult look at what I was feeding myself and my family. It’s one thing to understand a concept in a book, entirely different thing to see it in real time in your own kitchen and on your children’s dinner plates
	Yes, it makes you accountable for what is in your pantry
	Yes, the surveys/activities made me take the time to go through my food items and see how good/bad they were for my family
	Yes, the cupboard surveys were very helpful. The surveys allowed me to take an inventory of what I was feeding my family. It has also helped me be more aware of the food labels when purchasing food from the grocery store
	Yes. It made me really look at the things I was feeding my kids
What did you learn? How did the tutorial change you or your family’s diet?	I should purchase organic grains and avoid cereals. I’m considering purchasing a bread machine so that I can make my own organic bread
	We changed to an organic more Mediterranean type diet
	I learned specifically what toxic foods/ingredients are put into our foods and then what foods will help counteract the negative effects of them. It changed our diet by making me change not only what I take out of our diet (like as much HFCS as I can, and processed foods in general), but also what I can add to improve negative reactions (like how Brazil nuts have selenium)
	This helped me a lot especially when it comes to serving food to my child with autism. He’s a very picky eater but thank God he’s improving right now
	This really opened my eyes to things that should have been obvious but weren’t
	I learned so much! It has absolutely changed the way I buy and prepare foods. I’m also inspired to live more sustainably, growing and preserving our own foods
	As a family we have become more aware of what we eat and the ingredients in our food. We are trying to make more health choices, including not choosing flavored milk at school
	I learned that most processed/packaged food contains ingredients that are detrimental to our bodies, regardless of what the nutrition label says. Eating fresh-grown, organic produce and meats seems to be the only way to go
	I learned that the food available for consumption, although it may taste good, is not always good for us. The tutorial has taught me more about the dangers of certain food ingredients. As a result of the tutorial I have changed my family’s diet by serving less of those ingredients and in most cases eliminating many of them
	I learned a lot, and I have made modest changes along with changing my husband’s views, which is big

HFCS: High fructose corn syrup.