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One of my readers, Tessa, recently left a wonderful comment asking me to share some ideas for parents who are just starting to analyze their children’s eating habits and try to change them. Specifically she said she would like to see ”recipes for kids who are used to eating pizza and hot dogs”. This is a hugely important topic because there are so many parents out there that allow their children to be nourished by a diet of pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and French fries. I think they have some idea of how BAD this kind of food is but they probably don’t know just HOW bad these foods can be. Convenience may also be playing a big factor in how they feed their kids.
But to me this is a very serious issue. When I was 18, I started working in a movie theatre while I was in college. For years I ate buttery popcorn and soda as meals…it was accessible and it was free. Then when I had my first baby and I started working in marketing and advertising I let my 60+ hours a week work schedule dictate our diet. Let’s just say my oldest child had a lot of Happy Meals. This went on for about 2-3 years and started to change for the better when I got pregnant a second time and quit working. As my life made a huge shift towards natural family living and my days were spent at home, our diet improved greatly. But it was already too late…I would be diagnosed with colon cancer not too much later and it was stage 3 so I had it for awhile and didn’t know it. I think I had everyone in my family shaking the naughty finger at me. We pretty much all knew why I got cancer. Needless to say I look at food a lot differently now and I LOVE to research as much as I can on the subject. Amazingly I found that 40% of all cancers are attributed to diet. Yikes!
Also, I wanted to mention that my son (who was injured by a vaccine) developed epilepsy by the time he was 3. The part of his brain that caused the seizures was actually damaged so Doctors held out little hope that he would ever be seizure free. He went on prescription medications as suggested by his neurologist but I also decided to see if I could control his epilepsy or even get rid of it by changing his diet. Within a few months of following a diet like the one I describe below, I took him off his meds and he has not had a single seizure. His Doctors are still scratching their heads over that one.
Here are some scary health facts about the healthy diet/kids connection:
* Autopsies done on children as young as 2 years old are showing signs of fatty cholesterol buildup in the arteries.
* Over 100 studies have been done that validate the theory that food dyes and additives are a factor in ADHD and ADD.
* It is estimated that 10% of 2- to 5-year-olds and more than 15% of children between the ages of 6 and 19 are overweight. 25% of those are obese.
* 14% of children now have type 2 diabetes, a condition that used to be pretty much specific to adults.
So what can you do? I don’t want to lay down a list of hard and fast rules here because well… different strokes for different folks but…in general the things most important to me when I feed my own kids are these:
* Organic foods – It is important that my family eats food with no pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, or chemicals in it. All of these things can accumulate in the body and cause health problems. For me it is issue of clean or dirty almost. Organic is “clean” food and I that is what I want to eat and what I want my kids to eat. I wrote an article last year about how to eat organic affordably.
* No food coloring – Synthetic color has no nutritional value whatsoever. Beyond that, the food colors approved for use today are in a class of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are universally suspect as carcinogenic (cancer causing). But according to the FDA it only causes cancer when it is injected into rats, not when they are feeding on it. Therefore, they conclude that it perfectly safe for humans to eat. Food coloring is also predominantly in super sugary foods that kids don’t need anyway. My oldest child can be VERY hyperactive after he eats something with food coloring in it.
* Unprocessed whole foods with no preservatives or additives – Many processed foods have chemical preservatives and additives in them. Some of them have been linked to cancer too. For instance, hot dogs, bacon, and deli meats are packaged with a preservative called sodium nitrite. In the 1970s it was discovered that sodium nitrite was not safe and it was linked to cancer. The government tried to ban it but food company lobbyists played hardball and in the end they got their way. These type of products are a no-no in my home unless they are preservative and additive free. Dedication to whole foods would also eliminate things like white breads and flours because they have been refined and left nutritionally lacking.
* No refined sugars – Refined sugars can really be bad news for my kids where behavior is concerned. This is especially true for my daughter. Give her a bit of sugar and she will be unbearable all day long with bad mood swings, crying, tantrums, and irritability. Refined sugars will send my oldest into hyperactivity and aggression.
Ingredients to avoid are: Sugar · Brown sugar · High Fructose Corn Syrup (or HFCS) · Glucose · Fructose · Corn sweetener (HFCS) · Corn syrup · Dextrose · Fruit juice concentrate · Invert sugar · Lactose · Maltose · Malt syrup · Sucrose · Syrup
To sweeten things in my home we opt for raw honey, stevia, raw agave nectar, raw sugar cane, coconut milk (on rare occasions), natural maple syrup, raw yacon syrup, and fruit… like figs.
* An abundance of raw (uncooked) foods – Raw foods are living foods with their life giving enzymes still in tact. Heating and cooking foods kills those enzymes and renders them useless so eating raw food is important. Cooking also kills off a large portion of the vitamins and nutrients, approximately half of the protein content, and it causes fats to become rancid. I like to make sure my kids have lots of raw fruits, nuts, and veggies in their diet. Check out my previous post on the benefits of raw food and my recipe for raw peach cobbler.
* Raw (unpasteurized) milk and cheeses – They might be hard to get in your area but the benefits are wonderful. In fact raw milk is the only milk I can drink. Check out the Real Milk site for all you could ever want to know about raw milk and where to find it in your area. I also prefer raw, organic because I don’t like pesticides and growth hormones like rBST in our milk.
* Limited meat (except fish)- I like to limit meat for a variety of reasons…one is environmental impact. Meat eating is a big time contributor to pollution. Organic meat can be expensive and is therefore less likely to be the heavy on my grocery bill. Also, since I like to emphasize raw foods as much as I can this usually leaves meat out. I won’t prepare raw/very rare meat dishes in the home but when we go out we will enjoy a good steak tartare and we LOVE sashimi and sushi. Usually once or twice a month the whole family will head out to our favorite Japanese market for fresh sashimi and we usually have one or two cooked fish meals a week.
* Superfoods -These are the foods that are considered to be nutritional powerhouses. They are generally rich in antioxidants, nutrient dense, and they help the body fight degenerative conditions and diseases like cancer. We like blueberries, Goji berries, seaweed, Spirulina, and cacao beans among others. Just throw some seaweed, green powders, or Spirulina in a fruit smoothie and everyone is getting a big boost of healthy nutrients.
Of course these are my choices for health. I have other sticking points that are more ethical in nature such as eating local when we can, growing our own food, and I guess organic falls in under the ethics category too. It is a heck of a lot to consider for a someone who is just beginning to question the standard American diet but baby steps are okay. My outlook on food as outlined above was not an overnight thing. Try picking one thing above, do some research on your own and see how you can make some changes. When you have that aspect under control switch gears and start again. This is one area where you may never stop learning…I know I haven’t. The end goal is worth it though…the health of our children. You are what you eat.
Be sure to check out the recipes section of this blog…and these related articles:
Healthy School Lunches | Healthy Snack Ideas | Easy Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables | Natural Family Recipes
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I just joined my local Holistic network and would love to win a copy of the book. Thanks for the great post.
I am slowly switching our diet over to more organic, local and homemade foods myself. Sounds like a great book – I would love a chance to win it!
Thank you for all of the tips! I”ve been trying to move my familie’s eating habits to a more local, organic, raw, meat free diet for quite some time now. I can be over-whelming but I”m taking it one food at a time so to speak. Your book would be wonderful to have!
Sonyia’s last blog post..Shrewd as Snakes but as Innocent as Doves
I’m making baby steps towards the food habits you describe. Your children are incredibly fortunate to have a mom who cares enough about them to feed them well.
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Thanks for the post, I am always looking for ways to provide healthier foods. The book looks like it would be great for us, as my daughter is starting to eat more and more finger foods!
Thank you for addressing this subject. I am the mother of 4 boys, one of which has attention issues. Doctors want him on meds and I need help with diet etc. to keep him off those horrible medications. Keep up the good work. Thank you again.
I’d love to enter for a chance to win the cookbook. I linked to this post in the sidebar of my blog.
Michelle Lane’s last blog post..Don’t Be Bitter… Don’t Be Bitter….
I’d love to win! We *know* what is healthy but 5 years of my son being corrupted by other family, even school…. its a lot to “undo”. I’d like some tips on changing that but in the meantime I keep trying new foods, new recipes just trying to find something that he loves as much as chicken nuggets (I’ve even made my own but Tyson always wins darnit!).
The book sounds great! I’d love a copy.
Our family started small by switching to organic for the fruits and veggies that are the “worst” in terms of pesticide residue. We also buy all local meats and poultry and frequent our farmer’s market in the summers (not always organic, but always locally grown). We are also big fans of organic (but pasteurized) milk and eggs year-round, despite the additional cost. We also started a little garden ourselves this year using square-foot gardening and a wonderful book called Bountiful Containers. It’s been almost a two year journey for us to get to this point and now we’re considering a little farm to raise our own chickens and such!
Good luck to those readers who are just starting out. In addition to better health, you’ll soon be enjoying tastier foods!
Kansas Mom’s last blog post..Pre-Easter Celebration
Have you ever read the book Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson? It is an all natural, vegetarian cook book. Includes a GREAT recipe for whole wheat chocolate chip-oatmeal cookies (they are made with raw sugar, too!)
Even without having a family, I would love to win this book! Thank you for your blog – you have great ideas!
I’ve found also that you can provide all of this great food, but it doesn’t mean kids will actually EAT it.
If you can get your children INVOLVED in making the foods: get them to the CSA or farmers market; or involved in growing their food – they are more likely to eat it (and snack on these yummy foods as they make it). Plus they learn skills that help them later.
We made lasagna and salad a few weeks ago and even though my 2 year old didn’t eat the finished product, I knew he was full from what went into it – organic, non-BST, homemade food.
It takes a little more time to get dinner on the table, but I can assure you it’s mighty tasty when everyone pitches in! ~H
Love the tips and would love to win this book!
wow, enter me please!!
Since having our first child my husband and I have slowly started to change our ways. We are eating healthier and some organic. We are starting to compost and our own garden this year! I would love this book for more ideas to make life healthier for my family!
These issues have become more important to me over the past year or two–I’m learning slowly, and would love a copy of this cookbook for our family!
Thanks for posting about this. It can be so hard to have a healthy diet in our culture. My husband and I don’t allow our children to have any of the foods on your list, and we’ve faced resistance from more than one place, including family. The key for us has been to make our way of eating the fun way and the creative way. If we go to a birthday party, I bring an alternative treat for us to eat. If my kids are in Sunday School where a snack will be served, I pack a healthy alternative for them. It helps if the whole family is unified in the quest for a healthy lifestyle. My kids have never had fast food pizza, but I love making homemade pizza from scratch. I enjoy coming up with healthy versions of favorite recipes, and I like to blog about my “creations.”
It’s great to see people commenting here and sharing their desire to change their lifestyles. It *is* possible. You can do it!
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I love your blog and this article is a good reminder of how we should eat. When I do buy things like pizza, hotdogs or chicken nuggets I buy them from places like T Joes where the list of ingredients is smaller, less fat and they have nitrate free hotdogs. I am in a business that creates sweets high in all the bad stuff, but we don’t eat these every day – its fine for a once a year celebration.
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[...] Sounds great, no? Go enter!!!! [...]
Sounds like a great book! Congrats on changing your family’s eating habits… Could you also comment on hard-wired taste? My first is/was a much better eater than our 2nd kid and I want to figure out how to adapt without feeding him a limited diet…
I’ve grown up eating crap with my parents and developing some major health problems as a result. I have my own daughter now and I don’t want her to have the same problems that I got. However, she’s developing into a picky eater, so it would be very beneficial to have a cook book that was about the types of foods that I give her and that we eat.
I have made great progress converting my family to healthier eating, but there is so much more to learn and adapt. I definitely need more cookbooks, I would love to win this.
I really enjoy your blog Tiffany, it is nice that you find and share all of this valuable information. Thank you!
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Thanks for the outline. Very helpful as I’m in the process of really trying to make better choices for my daughter and honestly the whole family.
Beth’s last blog post..Avery’s Outfit for Today
Wonderful post. When my son started on solid foods, I made a commitment to him (even though he does not understand) to keep him eating healthy, which has improved the overall diet of our entire family. I became so frustrated with his daycare that I send his meals daily. I am the “crazy lady,” but I don’t care. My 15 month old son will chose fruit over cake every time.
That being said, there are times when he (and all of us) eat a “special treat” via dining out or at friends’ places, but those cases are rare, and most of the time, he doesn’t eat as much.
Anyway, thanks and I’d love a chance at the book!
I really enjoy your blog! Thanks for offering the book!
I would love to put my name in for the book
Thanks for having such great giveaways!
Hi Everyone,
I am pregnant with my first and while my husband and I already eat this way, I am worried about our children and would love any words of wisdom from you: My husband keeps saying to me, “you cannot be a fanatic with our kids” and while I understand that every now and them it’s okay for them to have a something that contains the hazardous ingredients, I would like to show and convince my husband that it is possible to raise your children to make healthy choices when they’re out.
I don’t mind being known as the “crazy lady” among my friends, I already am, however, what can I do to help mny husband with this concept when we’re out with other people and the children?
Thank you for your wisdom and help.
This is definitely an issue for all parents, thanks for the great information.
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Thanks for the informative blog. I can see that your messages will be a valuable learning for me!
Jessica
http://www.practicalnourishment.com
Excellent, excellent post. I’ve been doing organic, whole foods with my family for years. You gave excellent information.
Great topic – thanks for the ideas and motivation to eat and live as healthy as possible.
Thank you for this blog! My MIL is quickly trying to push McDs on my not yet 13 mo son. I don’t think that my husband or MIL understand just how important a GOOD diet is for his health. HEaring it from other sources besides just me is sure to help.
I, too, changed my own eating habits when I became an at-home Mom. It is nice to have confirmation of many of the things I already do and some that I am working toward. I have a major barrier though, my husband – eats junk food, insists on having it in the house, continually picks arguments with me over food, makes family dinners difficult,etc. Also my 5 yr. old has a nut allergy so that leaves out a great category of raw foods for us.
These are ALL great ideas! My girls know that they need to avoid things like HFCS – in face my youngest comes home wondering why her teacher and classmates “Love High Fruit Corn Syrup” as she calls it. We are members of a CSA farm down the road, and grow our own fruits and veggies as well.
Having a friend who had a cancerous tumor removed 2 years ago (she was 30, like me) had a huge impact on our family. Our diet was already fairly good, but it has improved greatly since then – although I will admit a weakness for pizza!
The only thing that I can’t do is the raw milk – my hubby won’t allow it in the house. I bought a small jug of it a while back, and my daughter ended up with e-coli. The health dept. chose to blame the raw milk (which I disagreed with, I had more than her & was fine) so it’s banned unfortunately.
I would love to read Growing Healthy Families – I’m always looking for new food ideas to feed our girls – and to send with them for lunch each day. I’m the granola of the extended family, and I’m slowly influencing the rest of them – one sister is joining the healthy bandwagon, but the other still feeds her kids chicken nuggets & ketchup for almost every meal – ugh…
Thank you (again!) for this blog – you send out so much wonderful info, and I eagerly read it every day when it hits my inbox! Keep up the good info!
Jennifer
I would love the book. My 16 month old daughter is a pretty good eater. She’s not crazy about vegetables but will try them and she LOVES blueberries and strawberries, bananas and some other fruits but those are her staple fruit. Blueberries and strawberries can be expensive but I’ll pay the price for her to eat them year round. My 3.5 yr old son will chose sweets over fruit any day (he’ll eat some things like clementines, bananas, apples) and he won’t try stuff which is the frustrating part. So I just keep trying. We even participated in a CSA farm last summer. He loved going and watching the pigs and he even picked a raspberry and ate it we also went blueberry picking but it didn’t make him want them even though his friends were eating them. He has a really sensitive sense of smell and I wonder if that makes him pickier about foods. Who knows. It’s frustrating and I am trying so hard not to give in to chicken nuggets and hot dogs, etc. He likes pastas with red sauce so I’ve started sneaking veggies in there and that makes me feel better. But it’s still a constant battle at meal times trying to figure out what to prepare. Thanks for the tips.
Hello, What a wonderful giveaway! What family doesn’t need to read this?! We all need healthier eating habit and ideas! Please enter me in your drawing. I appreciate it….Cindi
Healthier Kids – Moving Beyond Pizza and Hot Dogs…
So many parents out there that allow their children to be nourished by a diet of pizza, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and French fries. I think they have some idea of how BAD this kind of food is but they probably don’t know just HOW bad these foods can…
I just joined a local CSA and am so excited to make healthy meals for my family this year. This cookbook would be a great jumpstart! PICK ME!!!
This was my first visit to your blog. I absolutely must add it to my favorites list. My family is currently in the process of changing our diet. Over the last few months, we have had wonderful changes. None of my children have been sick for 8 months! For us that is quite a miracle. No more infections, no more asthma attacks and we have more energy. Though the kids still have more energy than me, lol! Who knows maybe I will be able to keep up in a few more months; I’m still healing. Continued healthy blessings for you and your family.
Growing up on a farm, we ate “organic” almost everything and didn’t even realize it. Now that I live outside NYC and not near my parents farm, I have tried to make good decisions on what I feed my family. I love to cook and would love to try the recipes in the cookbook.
Thank you so much for the ideas and tips on getting kids turned on to better, more natural eating. I strive to keep my three year old from having the worst stuff. I can proudly say that she has never had a Happy meal, but alas, not candy. Thanks a bunch.
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My husband and I try two eat very healthy, we feed our son the same things we eat and to this day my son has never had a chicken nugget or a hot dog because we don’t eat that kind of food. Love the blog!
I would love a copy of the cookbook! I shop and cook organic all the time, and it gets hard when you feel like you serve the same meals over and over again….. I need new ideas
thank you for this post! Also, could you recommend some raw food cookbooks as well? I want my family to eat more raw foods, but I never seem to come up with anything more than gazpacho, lol!!
I believe you live in ohio now? I live in columbus and I’m curious what do you spend monthly on groceries to eat so healthy and are you feeding two kids and two adults?
thanks and take care!
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Thank you so much for all your very informative blog. I look forward to reading them. Kind of scary – all the terrible kids my kids have been eating!! Are there any risks to drinking unpasteurized milk?
Your post came at just the right time for me – my 8 month old breastfed daughter is having some GI problems that may be linked to my diet. The more I read, the more convicted I am that the whole family needs to cut out foods with preservatives/coloring and embrace whole foods.
Thanks for the post! Excellent information. I agree with everything there, and wish I could enforce those same dietary guidelines in my household. I know I wouldn’t have the support I need to do so, but am slowly working towards it!
I love this post and would love to win a copy of the book! My husband and I have always worked hard to be healthy, but now that we have a child it is so much more important.
I love your blog and look forward to it everyday. Since my first son had reflux and blood in his stools as an infant, I completely changed my diet in order to continue breastfeeding. Since then, I have learned a great deal about diet, but still have a long way to go. Your knowledge and suggestions are extremely helpful. Your children are lucky to have such a great Mom!
I don’t even care about the giveaway this time, this is just what I needed to get my husband to eat better! (I’m forwarding this to him as soon as I’m done typing this!) Hopefully he’ll listen to someone else…it always seems to work that way
Thanks for such a great summary though, especially the natural sweeteners part, I’ve been sorta stumped there!