Thursday, February 18, 2010

Advice on Feeding Our Children and Ourselves


photo source

Children love to eat real food if given the chance, though if they're used to eating junk-in-a-box it could take many times of trying something real for them to say "yum, more please!".

The Pai Paraguayan child pictured above is eating meat and yucca, and relishing it! His meal may look different to us but I am sure we would seem curious and very odd to a person that has thrived on a whole foods diet, who has never seen a box of not-so-lucky-not-so-charming cereal.

I could not have said this better myself, so I won't try to! Please read the following wonderful, illuminating article from Richard Morris:

"...Advertisers know well how much power a child has to influence which foods are consumed in the home. This is why so much advertising is targeted to children. They don't have money or cars with which to buy and transport food, but they do have something far more potent -- power over you, the parent. The result is that today, it is the children who are the Lords of the Manor.

The final reason is that children can't be expected to make good nutrition decisions when their parents lack the skills and the motivation to make good decisions themselves. One of the more common phrases we here when discussing the necessity for parents to educate themselves about nutrition is, "I don't have time." I often wonder what is there in the lives of so many people that is more important than their health and the health of their children? I don't doubt that most people love their children dearly and would stand against an army of darkness in their defense, but then there's that troubling reluctance to read and understand what's in a box of cereal. Parent's, what's going on?"...

Quoted from the website Bread and Money

Another gem from the author, who wrote the book "A Life Unburdened: Getting Over Weight and Getting ON With My Life":

"If the anti-dietary fat, high carbohydrate, highly processed food diet that the experts have championed for the past 30 years has not worked for us, isn't it time we started asking questions? Better yet, isn't it time we began looking for another solution."



Pictured above is my daughter Eliza, trying plain whole milk yogurt and apparently, liking it!

I'm sharing this post with Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Real Food Wednesday!
Posted by at 7:43 AM

7 comments:

  1. Your little girl is just too cute! I wish I had know more about Real Food when my boys were babies. We've never eaten terribly (I've always cooked from scratch), but my eldest is a carb addict and he is carrying extra weight because of it. It's so hard to break the cycle once the habits are established. Oh well, at least until he sheds the extra pounds he is as strong as an ox and very healthy otherwise. One step at a time. :-)

    I'm passing along a Beautiful Blogger award to you: http://greensensearchives.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-have-been-blessed-by-my-friend.html

    Thanks for sharing your story.
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  2. Laurie-

    It's never too late to learn new truths, I am constantly discovering new information in regards to feeding myself and my kids the best I can. It is easier to start 'em off right as babies of course. The reality is, we don't live in an isolated tribe in Mongolia, my kids go to public school where teachers give candy as rewards, and we have relatives who don't necessarily have the same foods we have at home. There's no perfect bubble we exist in. While the kids are at our house we eat lots of healthy meats, seafood, whole dairy products from grassfed animals, orange veggies, leafy greens, and healthier treats like dark chocolate and fresh fruit. Inevitabely the children go out into the world and that's the way it is...
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  3. love this post emily!
    i too wish i had fed my older two children better when they were babies. it is difficult (but not impossible)to get over and change these cravings and habits. slowly but surely they'll get there. my little fella, on the hand, is quite the lover of whole foods. when he sees me with my green smoothie, he immediately reaches up for it :D
    thanks for another great post!
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  4. Since I have no children of my own (yet) I feel like this is a topic I have no credibility around. However, I do know that my mother made me eat real food and never let me have soda and I'm a better person for it today. Thanks, mom!
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  5. those are great quotes. It's really unfortunate that kids are given so much power to choose unhealthy foods. Even though I don't let my kids eat that kind of food, my first grader notices that her lunch is different than her friends.
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  6. I have a second grader, and in first grade she refused to eat things I sent that were healthier choices because of what other kids said. I'm finding it difficult to give the food I'd like her to eat...would love ideas on how to get around the peer issues.
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  7. Amanda- that is hard. my kids have, on occaision, told me that people made fun of the way thier food was packaged! because i don't use plastic baggies all the time and bought these cute Snack Taxi's reuseable bags. anyway, of course i suggested ignoring rude comments like this but that doesnt always work. you have to decide what is worth fighting for. for me, it is worth it to pack a nutritious lunch, but it isnt worth it to waste good food on more "wierd" foods for lunch at school, that may come home uneaten.

    however, on that note, my solution now is that what my kids don't eat during school, they are encouraged to eat in the car as an after school snack, so long as it still appears edible!
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