"Food for thought";
This is a story i found while surfing around and reading through the yahoo health, nutrition and food columns. I wanted to share it with all of you, regardless if you have children or not, it has some 'food for thought' for everyone.
Nancy's Story
"One vignette caught my eye."
I was watching the movie Super Size Me and there was one vignette that caught my eye. It was about a school for adolescents with behavioral problems. This school had to have police officers in the building because the behavior was so bad. Then the school changed the food system to a system that was all natural, organic, and whole grain foods. As a result there was a complete turnaround in the behavior of the children at the school. The kids were calmer. They were learning. And the police were no longer involved.
I went to school to study holistic health, and at the same time I started making changes at home. These were small changes. We've always eaten pretty well at home, but my kids were more than happy to have junk food, sugary snacks and all of that. As I started learning more about how a growing, changing body handles bad food, I started cutting out things like partially hydrogenated fats. This wasn't easy. Partially hydrogenated fats are found in so many different foods! It's the ingredient that makes the food more shelf-stable, so we would find it in places that made no sense to me at all. Almost every baked good, every cookie, every cracker, every cake and basically anything and everything that is pre-packaged and put on a supermarket shelf had hydrogenated fats.
"I actually disguise vegetables to get them into meals."
Macaroni and cheese is a big favorite in our house. The first thing I did was I started cooking it from scratch, which is surprisingly easy, then I would take a zucchini and hide it in the cheese sauce. My kids barely noticed. Kale, a leafy vegetable, very healthy, is not always the most appealing for kids. I cut it into small pieces, added a little olive oil, a little salt, put it in the oven and baked it till it was a nice, crispy, crunchy, salty thing. I experimented with plenty of things that I won't make my kids try again. It takes almost 15 tries to get a new food into a kid's diet--a food [he or she] will eat. There have been spectacular failures and that's fine. That's the only way to learn.
"If I explain to my kids why I'm torturing them it makes it easier."
I get much better results when I show my kids why I am doing something. One of my favorite examples is when I took a 12-ounce can of soda, and I asked my kids to tell me how much sugar they thought was in a single can. Then I showed them. After I poured 12 teaspoons of sugar into a glass bowl, they were amazed. It doesn't mean that they're not going to go off to a party and not have soda. It means they're aware that they are consuming that amount of sugar. And they know it's not just mom being nuts; it's mom being concerned.
"It really matters what you know about yourself."
Physically I feel much better. Some people can eat a pound of sugar and feel fine; I can't. I think the kids have more energy. I think they feel better. My son was always bothered by Eczema and allergies. Now the Eczema is gone and the allergies are much better.
"All of this knowledge has made me a better parent."
Now I have the facts behind me, I have information I can use to show concrete examples. It's opened up a lot of dialogues with me and the kids. We talk a lot about these kinds of things. At the beginning of my schooling, they just were like: "Oh great. What's she going to try on us now?" That's gone away. They may not like it if I bring some strange new food in but they're willing to talk about it. And that's been great. We're working together as a family, we're doing it together.
Copyright © 2007 Procter & Gamble Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Nancy's Story
"One vignette caught my eye."
I was watching the movie Super Size Me and there was one vignette that caught my eye. It was about a school for adolescents with behavioral problems. This school had to have police officers in the building because the behavior was so bad. Then the school changed the food system to a system that was all natural, organic, and whole grain foods. As a result there was a complete turnaround in the behavior of the children at the school. The kids were calmer. They were learning. And the police were no longer involved.
I went to school to study holistic health, and at the same time I started making changes at home. These were small changes. We've always eaten pretty well at home, but my kids were more than happy to have junk food, sugary snacks and all of that. As I started learning more about how a growing, changing body handles bad food, I started cutting out things like partially hydrogenated fats. This wasn't easy. Partially hydrogenated fats are found in so many different foods! It's the ingredient that makes the food more shelf-stable, so we would find it in places that made no sense to me at all. Almost every baked good, every cookie, every cracker, every cake and basically anything and everything that is pre-packaged and put on a supermarket shelf had hydrogenated fats.
"I actually disguise vegetables to get them into meals."
Macaroni and cheese is a big favorite in our house. The first thing I did was I started cooking it from scratch, which is surprisingly easy, then I would take a zucchini and hide it in the cheese sauce. My kids barely noticed. Kale, a leafy vegetable, very healthy, is not always the most appealing for kids. I cut it into small pieces, added a little olive oil, a little salt, put it in the oven and baked it till it was a nice, crispy, crunchy, salty thing. I experimented with plenty of things that I won't make my kids try again. It takes almost 15 tries to get a new food into a kid's diet--a food [he or she] will eat. There have been spectacular failures and that's fine. That's the only way to learn.
"If I explain to my kids why I'm torturing them it makes it easier."
I get much better results when I show my kids why I am doing something. One of my favorite examples is when I took a 12-ounce can of soda, and I asked my kids to tell me how much sugar they thought was in a single can. Then I showed them. After I poured 12 teaspoons of sugar into a glass bowl, they were amazed. It doesn't mean that they're not going to go off to a party and not have soda. It means they're aware that they are consuming that amount of sugar. And they know it's not just mom being nuts; it's mom being concerned.
"It really matters what you know about yourself."
Physically I feel much better. Some people can eat a pound of sugar and feel fine; I can't. I think the kids have more energy. I think they feel better. My son was always bothered by Eczema and allergies. Now the Eczema is gone and the allergies are much better.
"All of this knowledge has made me a better parent."
Now I have the facts behind me, I have information I can use to show concrete examples. It's opened up a lot of dialogues with me and the kids. We talk a lot about these kinds of things. At the beginning of my schooling, they just were like: "Oh great. What's she going to try on us now?" That's gone away. They may not like it if I bring some strange new food in but they're willing to talk about it. And that's been great. We're working together as a family, we're doing it together.
Copyright © 2007 Procter & Gamble Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved
posted by todd at 9:26 PM
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