How to get kids to eat nourishing food- don't give them a choice!!

I’m constantly asked by mothers of “fussy” or “picky” eaters how to get their children to eat a broader range of foods. My advice-  offer up the food you want them to eat over and over again and they will eventually eat it, enjoy it and love it! I don't subscribe to the view "it's better to give them something else even if it’s less nourishing (eg bread, pasta, crackers, muffins, sweets etc) than see them eat nothing at all".  This is teaching them that if they don't eat what's served their parents will cave and give them something else. My second child Michaela didn’t start out with the hearty appetite of broad-spectrum wholefoods she has today. It took years (literally) of offering her eggs morning after morning before she eventually got the idea that eggs for breakfast are not negotiable and in fact they are not only nutritious but bloody delicious. Now she asks for them.  Their choice is simply eat what’s offered or don’t eat at all. Mummy’s not making different meals for different people. We all eat the same thing at each meal. And if you don’t want to eat it, that’s fine but there’s nothing else – and certainly no dessert. When faced with this choice, a bacon and egg brekky starts looking mighty fine when compared with starvation. In most cases I have found from my friends/clients that kids relish the migration to a nutrient-dense diet because their bodies are thirsty for the nutrients that a wholefoods diet offers and because the food is so mouth-wateringly palatable (….think butter, bacon, eggs, lamb chops, spare ribs, meat and veggie casseroles, rich broths, cream, coconut oil, creamy egg yolks, cavier, wild fish, well ripened fruit, sea salt etc)…this is the food that we are biologically designed to eat. Our genes literally expect the nutrients from this food so our taste buds are alive to accepting it. The problem in my house…..when to stop the kids from overeating???

Another avenue that often works is to get the kids involved in the cooking process. There is something rewarding about eating the fruits of ones labour. Make them feel proud that they have contributed to the meal.  I have a saying in my kitchen "whoever helps with the meal gets first serve".

In the press….not all studies are the same!

The shortcomings of the current food pyramid and the benefits of a (once universal) nutrient-dense ancestral diet are slowly bleeding into the mainstream. We are seeing more and more articles and books on the dangers of sugar and trans fats and more recipe books on wholefoods or paleo diets gracing the shelves of bookstores. But for every celebratory step forward there seems to be a sobering backward step. Take for example, the “study” demonizing red met conducted by Harvard University that made the press recently. The blogosphere went crazy that week.  I think Robb Wolf summed it up so eloquently when he said “This study SUCKS. It was a waste of time and money, the study design is atrocious and it elucidates NOTHING that has not been (poorly) investigated previously.” My initial reaction to the article in the SMH was “oh the outcomes of the study would be different if they used grass-fed meat as opposed to industrial feedlot meat.” But as Robb Wolf pointed out, to even make such a statement is giving the study far more credit than is due. If they did the same study and used grass-fed meat, the results would mean little as the data collection and basic study design was so fundamentally flawed.

What this shows us is that in the same way that we need to always consider the underlying source and processing of the foods we eat (not all meat is the same, not all fat is the same, etc etc), we need to consider the underlying robustness of any given study especially those that hit the mainstream media before we start parroting the results or altering our eating habits. Don’t believe everything you read or hear (or in my case, don’t even comment) until you dig a little deeper……

As a corollary to the red meat study conducted by Harvard University I refer to above (and to balance things up somewhat) I will leave you to ponder a scientifically robust study reported in January 2010 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that showed that intake of saturated fat was NOT associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, or cardiovascular disease. This was a 5–23 year follow-up of 347,747 subjects. It is strangely uncanny that THIS scientifically robust study didn’t hit the mainstream papers don’t you think!?! Is it maybe because the results are a little inconvenient for the Australian dietetics association, the Australian Heart Foundation and the vegetable oil industry??

My favourote quote of the month came from a spokeswomen of the Australian Heart Foundation who, in a bid to defend sugar, said “"If we were to look only at sugars in a food, it would mean foods like breakfast cereals, yoghurts and even fresh, canned and dried fruit would appear to be poor choices as they can be higher in sugars than other foods despite providing vital nutrients for good health."

When is the penny going to drop?!? That’s the point love: boxed breakfast cereals, commercial yogurts and fruits (esp dried fruits) are exceptionally high in sugars and are in fact NOT the best foods to eat for robust health and longevity. They are not in the same ballpark as pastured meats, bone broth, organ meats, pastured eggs, lacto-fermented foods and fresh vegetables.  To read the full article click here.

Reflect! ...on Nora Gedgaudas

Last November I went and saw Nora Gedgaudas, the author of Primal Body Primal Mind, during her Australian tour. It was an all day seminar at UNSW. While I have the utmost respect for her as an author, and I found her book very insightful, I couldn't help but feel a tad disappointed when I later reflected on the seminar. I was disappointed that she was not very specific in answering my friend's question on the need for supplements. Nora said that she thought that supplements "have a role to play" but didn't specify the circumstances in which they have a role ie in all circumstances or only some? I was disappointed that she couldn't answer my question on dairy consumption. I asked whether our ice-age ancestors consumed dairy to which she answered no, so when I asked her whether we should be consuming it she skirted around the issue saying "well there's a big question mark around that". I'm sorry but I think that's a bit of a cop out answer on such a significant issue for someone who holds themselves out as knowledge in the field of nutrition. She really avoided dealing with the whole dairy issue. (For what its worth I actually couldn't agree more with Chris Kresser's view on dairy that simply because something wasn't eaten by our hunter gatherer ancestors doesn't mean that we shouldn't eat it- we can PROVIDED 3 conditions are met: (a) its nutrient-dense - which whole unprocessed pastured dairy is, (b) its non-toxic - and whole unprocessed pastured dairy is not toxic- unlike grains/legumes which do contain toxins in the outer husk and (c) you body has the enzymes to digest it. And I'd probably add a fourth being (d) you like the taste of it and enjoy eating it.... if so then BRING IT ON!! She also couldn't answer my question on what proportion/percentage of macro-nutrients (fat, protein and carbs) a typical meal could comprise. She took a hard line on 100% avoidance of grain consumption (ok, I get that) but didn't state what the consequences were  if you very occasionally consumed it if you are not showing any untoward symptoms of grain consumption. Try as hard as you may it is virtually impossible to raise a child on a completely grain-free diet in modern society (the minute they step foot outside the house its basically the main staple of what is given to them eg at restaurants, friends houses, preschools, birthday parties etc). Nora doesn't have kids of her own so this explains her "there is no room for error"/ "you cant be half pregnant" approach. We are all human and as a parent in particular I make mistakes or bend the principles on my journey all the time, and wont the consumption of nutrient-dense foods 99% of the time compensate for the consumption of properly prepared grains the other 1% of the time? For those who saw Nora too- what were your thoughts? (Leave comments below!) Despite my above disappointments it was awesome being immersed in a community of people aspiring to raise consciousness and I made some new contacts and connected with others I hadn't seen in a while.