Special Recipe Saves the Day for Boy With Autism

Company adapts recipe of discontinued waffle, only food Jerico Roman will eat, for home use
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 8, 2021 3:08 PM CST
Company Finds a Way for Autistic Boy's Waffles
   (Getty/zkruger)

A Canadian company has come through in an unusual way for a boy with autism in British Columbia. Nature's Path has adapted its recipe for a discontinued brand of waffles so the family of a 9-year-old boy who eats little else can make them at home, reports Global News. The mother of Jerico Roman brought the issue to light last month after Nature Path announced that it was no longer making its organic maple cinnamon waffles, explains the Vancouver Sun. As it turns out, those specific waffles are the only solid food the boy will eat. Jenna Roman makes Jerico two smoothies a day with fruit, vegetables, and vitamins, but the waffles are the only solid food he will tolerate because of what the Sun describes as "complex eating challenges." The company got wind of her quest for remaining boxes of the waffles through her GoFundMe page.

Nature's Path managed to find eight cases for the family, but “the situation got us thinking, what would happen when Jenna and Jerico ran out of these waffles?" says a spokesperson. "These were the last ones ever made." The company's R&D team set about converting the commercial recipe to one that could be duplicated with ingredients easily found in grocery stores, a feat easier said than done that took about a month. But now Jenna Roman has the recipe in hand, along with the necessary ingredients. She says she hopes this raises awareness of the plight families face when a child has an eating disorder as severe as Jerico's. "It’s a situation most parents (in her position) are quite quiet about because of the harsh judgements people make," she previously told the Sun. "A lot of people don’t understand fully why kids are like that." (More uplifting news stories.)

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