No one wants their kids to be fat, diabetic or forever on a diet.  And somehow, according to the CDC, between 12 - 17% of children are obese. Without obsessing, I definitely try to make good choices and teach the children to do so as well.

Obesity is a serious health concern for children and adolescents. Data from NHANES surveys (1976–1980 and 2003–2006) show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%.^{1, 46}

While it would be great to eat all locally grown, farm fresh, homemade, well balanced meals three times a day (or six if you are eating smaller meals), life gets in the way of all that effort. According to CSPI, a renowned (or notorious) public health advocate, there are ten foods that really should be avoided.  Take the poll - how many do you regularly offer your children?

CSPI offers a top ten best foods too.

10 of the Best Children's Foods 

• Fresh fruits and vegetables (especially carrot sticks, cantaloupe, oranges, watermelon, strawberries)
• Chicken breast and drumstick without skin or breading
• Cheerios, Wheaties, or other whole-grain, low-sugar cereals
• Skim or 1 percent milk
• Extra-lean ground beef or vegetarian burgers (Gardenburgers or Green Giant Harvest Burgers)
• Low-fat hot dogs (Yves Veggie Cuisine Fat-Free weiners or Lightlife Fat-Free Smart Dogs)
• Non-fat ice cream or frozen yogurt
• Fat-free corn chips or potato chips
• Seasoned air-popped popcorn
• Whole wheat crackers or Small World Animal Crackers

So I feel a little relieved since we basically avoid most of the bad foods and tend to eat the good ones. We do eat hot dogs - but only kosher and those are apparently better.  We don't eat soda and very little juice. The children like chocolate and we avoid sticky candy except in rare situations. How do you keep your head straight about what's good and bad and teach your children to make good choices?

For the last 10 years or so, I've been on a personal crusade against High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  Recently, I added soy products to my list of scary stuff.  And today, I learned that Agave Nectar is just as bad as HFCS. Turns out, my husband's desire for us to have a kosher home (compliant with the Jewish Dietary Laws) is inadvertently protecting my family from a lot of bad "food products".

The problems with HCFS and Agave Nectar

One of the major health concerns for my family as for the country is obesity. Among our extended family, there are lots of people who fight this battle and we'd like to help our kids avoid becoming soldiers in that war. One of the major drivers of obesity is an "addiction" to sweet. I find myself craving sweet flavors - Panda's Sweet Fire Chicken, Dark Chocolate, Tropicana Orange Juice.  At least two of the three only use natural sugars.  And while I'm sure it would benefit me to reduce total sugars to 5% of my daily calories, the very fact that most of my family's sugar intake comes from natural, unprocessed sugars versus manufactured sugars and sweeteners is inadvertently biologically beneficial in the effort to give my children a great opportunity to have healthy bodies throughout their lives.

The Weston A Price Foundation, a non-profit committed to healthy foods, did a comprehensive analysis of the chemical differences between natural sugars. From their April 30, 2009 post:

Sugar is a disaccharide that breaks down into two monosaccharides—glucose and fructose—in the intestinal tract. After absorption, fructose must pass through the liver. Small amounts of fructose added to glucose in the diet increase the production of glycogen (stored sugar) and reduce the release of glucose into the bloodstream, an outcome that is theoretically helpful to those suffering from type 2 diabetes. However, large amounts of fructose in the diet rapidly turn into fatty acids—a process called “de novo lipogenesis”—which are then stored as fat or released into the bloodstream as triglycerides....

...Glucose enters the cells through the action of insulin; fructose enters the cells through the action of something called a Glut-5 transporter, which does not depend on insulin. This transporter is absent from pancreatic B-cells and the brain, which indicates limited entry of fructose into these tissues. Glucose provides “satiety” signals to the brain that fructose cannot provide because it is not transported into the brain.

And guess what HFCS and Agave Nectar are made of -

...the fructose in HFCS is free, unbound fructose, which is not the same as the fructose in fruit, which is bound to other sugars, and is part of a complex that includes fiber, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals...the fructose in HFCS is therefore not recognized in the human Krebs cycle for primary conversion to blood glucose in any significant quantity, and therefore cannot be used for energy utilization.¹³ Instead, these refined fructose sweeteners are primarily converted into triglycerides and adipose tissue (body fat).

This is bad stuff. For a lot of foods, it's the first or second ingredient.

• Sodas and fruit juices.
• It's in children's yogurt.
• It's in tomato sauce. 
• Most ketchcup is made of the stuff. 
• So is most "maple syrup" - unless its real maple syrup. 
• It's in salad dressing (just when you thought you were eating the right stuff).
• It's in breakfast bars.
• Obviously - it's in candy.

In fact, it's hard to buy stuff without this in it.  And you should hear our pediatric dentist rant and rave about the impact of this stuff on kids' teeth.

Because we have a kosher home, there is a lot of processed food I simply cannot buy. We have to cook it. And because I won't permit HCFS in the house, we have to cook our treats or eat chocolate (the torture). Most organic products use sugar (hopefully unrefined). Apparently, our shopping habits align with Food Rules - a new book by Michael Pollan of the Omnivore's Dilemma.

We don't adhere to all the Food Rules - and I know we should - but we adhere to some of them. It is somewhat marvelous that a 5700 year old set of food rules protects my family from 21st century health risks.  What food rules do you observe in your home? Where did they come from?

Its a shame that anyone - medical professional or layman - would make a mother feel guilty for taking care of her child.

I breastfed 3 children for 12 months each because I both wanted to (important) and my body cooperated (important). Because my children were in day care starting at 9 weeks or so, they were also bottlefed (happened to be breastmilk, but bottle sanitation is as important).

When expecting mother's ask me about how to do it, here's what I tell them:

1. Breastfeeding is NOT intuitive for you or your baby. Expect it to be something you both need to learn and will take practice. Share this gem of wisdom with your partner.
2. Breastfeeding doesn't always work and the more anxious you are about it, the more likely it is to fail. Try to relax. And it still might not work - so be glad you have other options.
3. Milk production requires sleep and water. Do everything you can to recover from pregnancy and delivery. This is not the time for supermom behavior. Even if you don't breastfeed, you need to recover to be a good Mom.  Drink a lot of water.
4. Most of our generation was raised on formula and we're fine - if it doesn't work, don't make it more than it is.
5. You will feel judged for every parenting decision you make. The sooner you believe in your own (with your partner, if you have one) judgement, the better your parenting life is going to be.

Hope it helps.

Read the original article -

SUNDAY MAGAZINE | July 22, 2009
Motherlode: In Support of Bottle Feeding
By Lisa Belkin
Although breast feeding should be encouraged, doctors urge more assistance for mothers who choose bottles.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/in-support-of-bottle-feeding/?emc=eta1

My eldest, Benjamin, is a proud, picky eater who traces his pickiness lineage right to his maternal grandpa. The doctor isn't worried, but that doesn't stop us from trying to instill healthy eating habits. It's the right thing to do, but it's led to some nasty food fights - which might just be over.

My mother always said she wasn't a short-order cook and I've adopted this philosophy. Benjamin learned how to cook SmartDogs in order to feed himself - which was fine until I read Better Safe than Soy about the impact of how much soy is in the American diet (think cows and chicken feed). With our family cancer tendencies, I knew I had to reduce the daily consumption of SmartDogs.

Thus began the family food fight - the battle of wills. I don't want to fight with my son every night. Long term, I cannot win this fight because he has to make healthy food choices himself. And frankly, I was stumped until yesterday.

After taking Taylor to the track yesterday, I wasn't sure if running a mile is a good thing for a 5 year old to do - so I looked at CrossFit Kids for the kids WOD. Suffice to say - a lot less than one mile.

CrossFit kids has a section called "sane nutrition for kids in 150 words". I read it out loud to Taylor. Benjamin heard it. And this morning, Benjamin went running with me (only let him do 800M). After running, he told me that he needs to start eating healthier if he wants to run faster and further. The 150 words made sense to him!

Here is Sane nutrition for kids in 150 words" from CrossFit Kids (emphasis mine) -

Our goal with kids isn't to get them on the zone, but to get them to think and make good choices about what they eat. Our goal is to teach them very basic concepts, sugar is bad, protein is good and you need to eat some in every meal. Nuts and seeds are good fats. Eat them, don't avoid them. Pasta, white bread, and white rice are not that good for you, stuff that's red, yellow, green and found in the fruit and vegetable aisle is good for you. Eat a lot of it.

 

 

Look at your plate, make a fist, eat that much meat every meal; turn your hand over and fill it with nuts and seeds, eat that much good fat, fill the rest of your plate with stuff you found in the fruit and vegetable aisle. Fill your plate this way at every meal, don't eat more.

Try reading it out loud with your kids sometime you aren't fighting about food. Let me know if it works for you. I'll let you know if Benjamin follows through.

Turns out that our garden grows mutant large produce. And lots of it. Our first clue was the sugar snap peas that took over the fence. The next clue was the sunflowers...

We grew the sunflowers from seed. We started half indoors and half in the bed. We bought a breed that grows to 10-12 feet because we thought that would be cool. The seeds created seedlings and we transferred them to the garden. Around the same time, we planted corn, tomatoes, zucchini, basil, lettuce and artichokes. We were ambitious and experimenting. My husband had prepared the soil with 50% compost. I built an automated drip irrigation system to ensure that we didn't have to think about the garden.

The sunflowers began to grow - looking pretty normal. By the third week, they were three feet tall. We began to wonder what was happening as they sprouted to 5 feet during a week of vacation. At eight feet, the zucchini started to be edible (and continued for a month). Still no flowers. At twelve feet, we decided to brace them so they didn't fall on the tomatoes. Still no flowers. At eighteen feet, we saw blossoms. Truly - enormous flowers enjoying the sun. And when they were done, we let them dry out. We'll revisit them on harvest day.

On the vacation where the sunflowers grew 2-3 feet, the zucchini were inspired. We returned home and noticed that one of the zucchini had grown beyond a foot in length and 6 inches in diameter. check it out. Even more impressive was that a week later - there were three more giant zucchini. Trying to keep up with the sunflowers.

On harvest day, we chopped down the sunflowers (after all, the artichokes and tomatoes need some room). We realized that we could harvest the seeds that the birds had left us and had a couple of thousand seeds when we were done. Now I need to roast them...

The sweetest part was how much the kids enjoyed our backyard gardening. They ate the lettuce, enjoyed the sweet corn, experimented and liked artichokes and zucchini - and are pretty psyched about sunflower seeds. Over dinner on Monday, we ate our last corn and had some zucchini (every day) with steak. Benjamin remarked that we grew everything we ate except the meat.

"Mommy, can we grow meat?"
"No honey, meat needs too much room."
"Why?"
"Meat walks around...and this meat on your plate used to say 'Moo'".

Laughter and discussion of other things to grow and where food comes from ensued. Good fun.

Enjoy!