A number of years ago, (maybe 10) a colleague of mine convinced a parent of a particularly troublesome student to change his diet to eliminate processed foods and the night shades to see if his behavior would improve. He took these steps after talking extensively to the parents and determining that even the mom noticed that when ever the child ate apples, or potatoes or things like that his behavior went down the tubes. My colleague had been researching the affects of processing foods and eating different things together for his own health and saw dramatic changes.
Having had this same child in my classes, I was absolutely amazed at the difference in the boy's behavior, memory and attitude after a week of a more healthy diet. He continued on the restricted diet for about 2 months and then decided to see if it really was the food and ate an apple one day. He was right back to his out of control self - he even noticed it and went immediately back onto the diet.
So, while I think this study definitely includes more people than I had previously heard of, the understanding that our food causes different reactions in different people is not really all that new.
It would be great if it got more attention paid to it, especially from the food manufacturers!
