When Kaelan Mann was three, he developed a mysterious stutter that doctors couldn’t explain. After months of elimination diets his desperate mum removed food additives from his diet as a last resort. Just four weeks later, the stutter was gone. Here, his mum Anna describes their quest to save Kaelan’s speech.
Kaelan Mann is your typical four-year-old: a busy, carefree kid who is happiest playing outside with his three brothers. He’s energetic and always on the go.
But as he learnt to talk, his mum Anna noticed he was struggling with starting his sentences, “M-m-m-mummy, I don’t want to go to bed now!”
Kaelan’s stutter was random: often it didn’t exist at all in the morning, and became worse later in the day.
After a few months, the local GP referred the then three-year-old to a speech therapist, who was at a loss to explain his speech impediment.
“In her opinion it was not a true stutter,” Anna says. “She said it might be caused by diet or other factors.”
And so began 10 long months of elimination diets and lifestyle changes to see what would work to change Kaelan’s speech habits.
“We tried putting him to bed earlier, and giving him a nap during the day, thinking he might be stuttering because he was tired,” Anna explains. “It had no effect, and his stutter continued.”
The breakthrough came after a birthday party for one of Kaelan’s brothers. “The day after, we could hardly understand him. He was so upset, because he just couldn’t get any words out.”
Anna and her husband Jordan put it down to all the sugar he’d had in the typical birthday party spread. But a week after taking sugar out of their diets, there was still no effect.
“We were desperate and only thought about removing additives as a last resort. My husband and I were really sceptical … after all, the rest of us were totally fine.”
Guided by a diet she found on food intolerance website fedup.com.au, Anna began the slow process of removing additives from her family’s diet.
“My husband and I cleared out the pantry and fridge, and started learning about the names and numbers of additives found in every day foods,” she said.
“We were shocked to see how additives were in nearly everything: from supermarket grapes that are sprayed with chemicals, to pasta sauce that has artificial preservatives added.
“Even fresh prawns are pumped with chemicals so they keep their pink colour.”
Within a month, Kaelan was a different kid. “The change was incredible,” Anna says. “He stopped stuttering completely, and now the only time it comes back is if he’s had an additive somewhere.”
Anna had an existing food business, Bake Me!, that she has now transformed into a preservative-free online store for others facing a similar predicament.
“I’m not a zealot: I wouldn’t have believed this could happen before it happened to me. I just want people to be aware of what preservatives can do to some people.”
The medical profession still can’t explain to Anna what in preservatives caused her son to stutter.
“I explain to people that additives made him hyperactive on the inside. It frightens me that every other kid has food intolerances these days, but we have to start wondering why. As far as I’m concerned, artificial preservatives have a lot to answer for.”
The use of additives and preservatives in Australia is closely monitored by Food Standards Australian and New Zealand, with additional scrutiny provided by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The latest data from the allergy unit at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital suggests around five per cent of the general population are sensitive to food additives. Intolerances range from minor symptoms that only bother the sufferer if they have way too much of something, to serious and chronic problems like asthma and more unusual symptoms like those experienced by Kaelan.
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