Almost two years ago I made a conscious decision to cut out partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and food dyes from my family's diet. I would say we are successful with this about 85% of the time, and I'm happy with that. My son became an avid label reader, and for a while even dictated to me the sugar grams in every packaged food he came across. It was spurred by the desire to be proactive instead of reactive when it came to my children's health. Again, my son has been the primary motivator for this, since he was the fussy baby. Not wanting to pump his little body full of anti-gas formulas, I cut out dairy and certain vegetables from my diet. After chronic ear infections in his second year of life, we began taking him to a chiropractor. Not only has he had maybe one ear infection since then, I also truly believe that regular adjustments helped him with his developmental delays, in conjunction with the other arsenal of modalities: speech therapy, occupational therapy, clown therapy, music therapy, special needs preschool, and social skills groups. With all this work I was doing with him, changing the way we ate was more than I could take on when he was younger. But once we got out of the forest a bit and got him in to kindergarten, I was determined to put healthier things into his body.
My daughters are great eaters. They love most fruits and vegetables and will try about anything I ask them to try. Although what he is eating is limited in range, what my son consumes is pretty good for him. I make fresh salsa for him a couple times a week and on the back of an organic corn chip, he gets his vegetables. Right now his fruit is limited to green or purple grapes. I'm hoping he'll eat the banana waffles I make from scratch tomorrow morning, if he assumes they're just plain old waffles. Moms have got to be sneaky.
There are several cookbooks out about how to sneak healthy things in to your kids' food. I've tried them, but my kids are purists. They like their meat, their vegetable, their starch, all in their separate corners of their plate. No sauces with eggplant mysteriously mixed in, not even baked goods with chickpeas disguised as butterscotch chips. That's fine with me. I like the idea of exposing them to whole, real foods and if they don't care for them now, we'll try again later.
I want my kids to have a good relationship with food. They pretty much ask permission most of the time before they eat anything and although I sometimes feel like the snack police, I like having that control over what they put in their bodies. It's not always going to be like this. But that's why I keep the focus on health and fueling our bodies, so when they're out with their friends they can make better choices because they are educated. That's not to say I deny them treats. They have plenty of those, and my youngest daughter is quite a junk food lover. I don't want to forbid these foods because that can backfire and they'll binge the second I'm not monitoring them. Heck, even I like to sit down with a box of girl scout cookies and a glass of milk once in a while.
And to look at my kids, they look like healthy kids. Of course, my aggressive use of sunscreen on the girls' milky white skin keeps them quite pail all year 'round (my son has that beautiful skin that picks up a warm glow as soon as the temperatures warm above 60 degrees). Their body types are quite different, but they are lean, strong, flexible kids. I hope to instill the value of a strong body in them so as they develop in to preteens/teenagers/young adults they can resist the pressure to keep up with the magazine covers and the hottest pop star. That is an ambitious goal--I struggle with that as a thirty-something mom. But I tell them (and tell myself in doing so) that this is the body God gave us and it's our job to take good care of it. We can't make it taller or shorter, we can't move a freckle, we can't pick different ears. As Forest Gump said, "I am as God made me." We need to be grateful for our limbs, our senses, and our full range of abilities. Put healthy things in our body, keep it moving, and it will serve us well for a long time.
peace, love, and an organic apple a day...
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