CHENNAI: For upcoming chef Kavya Verghese, teaching the young chefs at Vidya Sagar was a different experience. They threw the dough in the air, rubbed it on their faces and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of cooking, while learning about gluten free diets at the same time. “The process was almost therapeutic. The children enjoyed the process, and we also wanted to make them more independent through this, “ says Shirin Mammen, the training coordinator for the children with autism in the day-care centre of Vidya Sagar. “We want them to be able to make their food by themselves.”
The children prepared puttu, an authentic Kerala dish, made of powdered rice, layered with grated coconut and then steamed. A Gluten Free, Casein Free(GFCF) diet is one that is strongly recommended by some experts for a person with autism. Although it remains in theory with varying opinions, some studies have been done to see the benefit of a gluten-free/casein-free diet, based on the theory that children with autism may be allergic or have sensitivity to foods containing gluten or casein, and that they process peptides and proteins differently from other people. “We strongly encourage the GFCC diet here, and have seen positive reactions. We encourage rice which is the staple for much of South Indian food. And milk did not have so much focus in the earlier days, we can avoid it for them,” says Shirin.
The school uses a multiple intelligence approach, where they identify the intelligence where the child has high capability and help them build on it. The intelligences, as proposed by Howard Gardner, include ones like visual-spatial, linguistic and mathematical. The multiple intelligence, they say, could even be seen in the way the children were preparing their puttu- some with more excited about making the measurements, some wanted to write the recipes, some wanted to use their hands.
“It was really nice working with the children, they thoroughly enjoyed each stage of the preparation,” says Kavya.