Need some inspiration with kids school lunches and morning teas?

Are you wanting inspiration as to what to pack for your kids' (big ones too!) lunches and morning teas that are free of grains, sugar and all processed food?

If so, follow me on Twitter or Facebook where I'll be posting frequent captioned photos of what wholefood morning teas and lunches I have packed for my kids on any given day.

Being a time poor mum, I guarantee that these are all super quick and easy to prepare (usually from the day before) and of course nutrient-dense. Due to the strict ban on nuts at both of my kids' schools, all of their mornings teas and lunches are  (somewhat regrettably) sans activated nuts (reserve those for afternoon tea or post dinner snack).

My basic go-to lunch "formula" is:

- assorted raw vegetables plus protein/fat source such as full fat cheese,  pastured deli meats like salami or jamon or ham, left over cook meats like roast chicken or beef strips,  dips such as tzatzki, or hard boiled egg (in nature, animal protein and fats come together in the perfect balance) - left over casseroles or soups (heat in saucepan that morning and throw into kids' thermos containers) - piece of frittata (made in bulk in advance and frozen and thawed out night before on kitchen paper to absorb moisture).

Some morning tea suggestions that are easy for kids to eat are:

- fresh fruit teamed with full fat cheese (avoid fruit by itself and never offer dried fruit which is basically sugar). - full fat yogurt dusted with one or more of cinnamon powder, vanilla powder and/or raw cacao powder - full fat yogurt with added chopped pieces of fresh fruit - hard boiled egg (halved and sprinkled with a little sea salt and paprika) - grated carrots, desiccated coconut, with a squeezed with lemon juice, and dusted with cinnamon powder - goats cheese (eg chevre) drizzled with olive oil, sea salt and Grecian herbs like basil and oregano

I only fill their drink bottles with filtered water with a pinch of sea salt. Never offer juice, energy drinks or soft drinks.

Got a fussy or picker eater? Read my suggestions on how to deal with that in one of my previous posts here.

If you want to know more about the fundamentals of good nutrition and get a better understanding of what foods we are biologically designed and not designed to eat, where to source wholefoods  at affordable prices, and meal planning, consider a one on one personal consultation with me. Find out more here.

If you have any wholefood lunch or morning tea suggestions I'd love to hear them. What are you having for lunch tomorrow?

I can't cut the apron strings....just yet...how to deal with kids' food on camp

My  7 year old son experienced his first school camp this week. Just 1 night 2 days. In the lead up to it, he was super excited about it. As was I. Ah, the sweet thought of not having to play referee to his fighting with his younger sister for an entire afternoon, or not having nag him about piano practice or getting dressed for school a little faster than snail's pace. He's fiercely independent and social so I knew homesickness would not be an issue. When these guilty pleasures stopped, mild panic hit. What are they going to feed the kids on this camp? If you read my blogs I think it's safe for me to assume that I don't need to explain why I would be even concerned about this in the first place.  From what I have observed to date, mainstream schools do not put nutrition centre stage (or even left of centre) of a child's development. It's the aspiring but lack-lustre actor that plays no role.

I asked one of the teachers about the food on camp who unapologetically said "The food offered is pretty bad.You know the usual stuff of boxed cereal, white refined bread, margarine, deep fried processed meat. I take my own food!" Bloody hell. I called the camp caterers who confirmed  that all of the food is processed, shipped into the camp site in packages and nothing is fresh other than a little fruit due to "budgetary constraints." And this is from one of Australia's top private boys school that summons a whopping $20,000+ per child per year. I was outraged but not surprised. My concern was that if Will was to eat this "non-food" for 2 days he would feel utterly sick and not enjoy the camp experience as his system is not used to processed foods. This is different to the one off small piece of junk-food consumed at a school birthday party. This is 2 days worth of refined grains, industrialised seed oils and refined sugar. Fortunately one option was to make and bring all of his food with the caveat that nothing could be heated as there were no stoves other than microwave ovens but the food could be refrigerated.

So here was my challenge: preparing 2 days worth of yummy food that Will would be proud to take and eat that could be consumed stone cold straight from a fridge. Microwaving is not a healthy option.

Here was my tactic: get Will's buy in and get him involved in the menu designing process. As a parent and having been a child myself I am very conscious about my children not feeling different from other kids or being ostracised about the food they eat. Life is already tough enough. Remember the film Wog Boy? When Nick Gionopoullos unpacks his table-sized spread of assorted Greek mezethes for lunch and was made fun of by the "Anglos" holding their white bread vegemite sandwhiches. Well, that was me growing up in Qld in the 70s- little mono-browed Soulla, the only wog at her school, eating moussaka and tazatziki for lunch.... feeling more than a little different amongst the blonde-haired blue-eyed surfie crowd. I don't want that for my children- I want them to participate FULLY in all social activities that they want to, and to feel part of the crowd. To the extent that an aspect of that activity (eg 'food' offered) negatively affects their health, my answer to date has not been to withhold them from the activity in its entirety (which my parents would have done) but to offer them a more healthy food option. This has been the strategy to date with birthday parties (of course you can go to Luke's party but is it ok if you eat these yummy snacks instead, and feel free to offer them to the other boys too...).

As it turned out, buy in from Will was no problem. He's so used to taking his own yummy snacks to birthday parties and appreciates my concerns about the effect of processed/toxic food on growing bodies. So he was totally fine about taking his own food to camp and was delighted at my idea to design the menu together. I explained that there would be a few other boys taking their own food due to allergies and some of the teachers are also taking in their food, so he wouldn't be the odd man out. Had I not got buy in from him, it would have been a totally different story. I also tried to not make too big a deal of the fact that he was taking his own food and spent the weeks/days leading up talking about all other aspects of camp life such as the water slide, canoeing, bush walks, mangroves, connecting with friends and with nature etc.

Here's the menu we put together: hopefully some or all of these meals could inspire you with your own school / work / picnic lunch or snack ideas where heating food is not an option. I've also listed where I bought the food from to help you with sourcing. I packed each meal in a  disposable recyclable plastic container individually labeled to make it super easy for him. Everything then went into a soft pack eski with icepacks to last the 1-2 hour bus trip before being refrigerated. I wanted to ensure that all of the foods that we consume on a daily /regular basis at home were incorporated into his meals. Apart from bone broth (which is difficult to consume cold unless in jelly form), all other nutrient-dense staples were included in the menu:

Day 1 Morning tea: small tub of wild berry Alpine goats yogurt  (from Bondi Health Emporium)

Day 1 Lunch: smoked wild salmon tossed through a garden salad that included sauerkraut and salmon roe (salmon and roe from The Canadian Way)

Day 1 Afternoon tea: piece of fruit (BU Organics) with chunk of goats brie (About Life) plus bottle of whole milk (Lettuce Deliver)

Day 1 Dinner: slices of veal schnitzel (Feather & Bone; home made crumb from activated herbed buckwheat) with roasted veggies cooked in butter and coconut oil (BU Organics)

Day 1 Dessert: 3 home made coconut date balls (made with raw cocoa butter, coconut oil, dessicated coconut and dates). I had initially made a chocolate hazelnut slice with a dollop of cream but when he tried it the night before he found that the raw cacao powder was too strong so opted to take nut-free coconut  balls instead.

Day 2 Breakfast: a piece of left over tomato and herb omelette (eggs from Egganic which I buy direct from farmer), small tub of strawberry Alpine goats yogurt  (from Bondi Health Emporium) plus bottle of whole milk (Lettuce Deliver).

Day 2 Morning tea: piece of fruit (BU Organics) with chunk of gruyere raw cheese (I buy cheese wholesale direct from importer)

Day 2 Lunch: sliced ham (Feather & Bone) with assorted veggie sticks and cherry tomatoes  (from Just Organics on Oxford street- directly opposite About life).

Result: success. Will thought the food was great. Everything was eaten. And no one made a big deal about it. He came home happy, relaxed and had an awesome time. We focused on how he connected with people and nature and all of the exciting things he did (rather than ate).

Ongoing concerns: for how much longer I can adopt this strategy is entirely another question. The older children become the more pressure there is to not be, or seen to be, different. And presumably the longer the camps will be. In year 9 under his school curriculum he will be doing all of his schooling for an entire semester at Glengarry  in rural NSW. There are certainly challenges ahead as my children become more entrenched in mainstream society and my only hope is that I can face each challenge in a spirit of creativity, courage and /or acceptance as the situation requires.

One of my favourite quotes immediately springs to mind: "to have the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I often contemplate shaking up the system with small steps by getting directly involved in my childrens' schools and educating the power brokers about the flaws of the standard food pyramid and the importance of nutrient-dense food to growing bodies. But my small attempts to date have not been well-received. Unless meaningful changes come from the government level, schools will continue to adopt the standard food pyramid promoted by the government as opposed to a nutrient-rich traditional diet. As one close friend recently reminded me "your job is to change the health of your family, not to change the world." And that has been my approach to date. I do hope, however, that by this blog, ongoing community education and cooking classes/workshops that I offer, I can inspire other parents to make positive changes to the health of their family and to feel more empowered to take a stand where food supplied by external sources is less than optimal for their child. The more and more parents do this, perhaps institutions will one day sit up and listen, although the larger and more powerful the institution, the slower it will turn.

Now I would like to hear from fellow parents- what do you think about the approach I took? Would you consider making and packing all of your child's food for a 2 day camp? How have you dealt with similar situations?

I inadvertently forgot to take pics of the food Will took to camp but below is a photo gallery of food I pack for my kids lunches/snacks which is not too dissimilar:

The Perfect Human Diet- DVD review

I recently watched a documentary film (rented from iTunes) called ‘The Perfect Human Diet’ (not to be confused with the book called ‘The Perfect Health Diet’ by Paul Jaminet, although the subject matter is very similar). The film was released as a DVD on 1 January 2013.

The film looks at evolutionary and scientific factors to determine what we are biologically designed to eat. The upshot: we are genetically programmed to eat a diet of the type eaten by our paleolithic (hunger gatherer) ancestors 2+ million years ago- essentially a diet rich in animals (muscle meat, organ meat and fat) and plants (including nuts and berries).

On the whole I give this DVD a big thumbs up. It’s is a terrific introduction for anyone new to ancestral (primal, paleo) diets who would prefer to watch a DVD instead of reading a text or scouring websites. It’s also great for anyone who is familiar with a paleo diet but would like confirmation of it from an evolutionary and scientific basis. And of course paleo-anthropology geeks like me would relish it.

Here are some of the salient points that emerged from the DVD:

• Journalist CJ Hunt (the narrator) suffered from a near death experience (heart attack) at 24 while running. At the time he was eating according to the USA food pyramid guidelines (ie a conventional diet) and felt constantly hungry. He then embarked on a quest over the next 10 years to find, in his words, “the perfect human diet”. To this end he experimented with a range of nutritional philosophies such as vegetarianism, blood type diet, vegan diets etc (does this journey sound familiar to you?? Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt….). He then came across the paleo diet and started doing his own research. What transpires is a marriage of science and evolution in determining what we are biologically designed to eat.

• Modern diseases and illnesses are a result of a departure from what our genes are biologically designed for (including a departure from an ancestral diet). “We are so far off base from what we are genetically designed to eat”.

• The film features many international paleo heavyweights including Loren Cordain (author of The Paelo Diet), Robb Wolf (author of The Paleo Solution), Gary Taubes (author of Good Calories, Bad calories), Michael Eades (author of Protein Power),  and the work of Price Pottenger Nutritional Foundation (which supports the work of nutritional pioneer Weston A Price).

• The paleo diet is not a fad or a trendy movement. Or, if it is, it is a 2.6 million year diet- in fact the oldest human diet.

• There’s been a steady decline in human health since the agricultural revolution (which started 10,000) with the introduction of grains into the human diet for the very first time. Much emphasis was given to the fact that wholegrains are just as bad as, if not worse than, refined grains because they block the absorption of minerals.

• Early dietary advice from medical and scientific community (about 100 years ago) was a low carb/sugar/starch diet. However that nutritional philosophy was turned on its head with the low fat movement starting 50 odd years ago. When fats are reduced, carbohydrates inevitable increase. With this change in macronutrient emphasis, human health really started deteriorating.

•  There was great myth busting around the notion that dietary fat doesn’t make you fat and in fact high carbohydrate loads are responsible for fat gain.

• The conventional food pyramid is essentially a “feedlot pyramid” as farmers follow it to fatten up cattle.

• Nutrient-dense animal foods doubled early human brain size.

• Good discussion on protein releasing slow steady state energy throughout the day in contrast to carbohydrates which cause energy spikes and crashes.

• A tour of a supermarket showed that most of what is sold is not consistent with what our genes are designed to eat. Boxed cereal in particular is no better than eating straight sugar and you would only do so if there was nothing else to eat and you were on your death bed and imminently needed glucose to the brain. Man, and to think I grew up on the stuff thinking that all that granola and puffed wheat was good for me.

Here are what I thought were the 2 main shortcomings of the film or what I thought needed further clarification:

1. While it was great to see the film really emphasising the dangers of sugar and refined grains, there was interestingly no mention at all of what I call public enemy number 3: industrial seed oils (eg canola, cottonseed, vegetable oil, margarine etc). Maybe it’s case of “slowly slowly catchy monkey” i.e. let’s get the public comfortable with the dangers of sugar and refined grains first before we explode their brains with another ubiquitous component of modern diets- processed oils. It would, however, have been prudent in my view to have had at least passing mention to this third category of dietary toxins.

2. The film takes what I call a very strict paleo view of the human diet ie no milk post weaning, lean meat, no grains even if properly prepared. Taking  each of these in turn:

• on the issue of milk, the strict paleo view is that hunter gatherers did not drink milk post weaning and ergo humans are not designed to drink milk. I have thought long and hard over the past few years about the relevance of milk in the modern human diet and after much research I concur with the views of Chris Kresser on this subject: just because our paleolithic ancestors didn’t consume a certain type of food doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t consume it if 4 conditions are met: (a) it’s nutrient dense (b) it’s non toxic (c) you have the relevant enzymes to digest it and (d) you enjoy consuming it (the last condition is my contribution!). In relation to milk, like all food, everything come down to its source and processing as not all milk sold on the market is the same. For more information on this issue I suggest you speak to me in person or click here and here.

• there was mention a few times to the importance of eating “lean” meat. I find the reference to lean meats (which often pops up in the paleo text books) confusing and contradicts the references to the importance of eating fat and in particular the brain and other organ meats of animals which are naturally high in saturated fat. Hearing references to lean meats might confuse the public into thinking that we should be eating a low fat diet. Perhaps the reference to lean meat might have something to do with the fact that the wild animals hunted down by our hunter gatherer ancestors were leaner than the farmed cattle we consume today. Or perhaps lean meat refers to muscle meat as opposed to fat and organ meats and bones which should also be consumed. My view is that if you eat the whole of the animal – like our ancestors did-  then you can’t go wrong. If anyone can explain to me why paleo heavyweights refer to lean meats I’d love to hear it.

• Grains, even whole grains, are touted as being strictly out on a paleo diet for they were cultivated as part of the agricultural revolution a mere 10,000 years ago when our hunter gatherer ancestors abandoned nomadic lifestyle to an agrarian one. The film explains that grains block the absorption of minerals leading to bone density loss (there was no mention in the film that “phytates” primarily found in the outer husk of grains are responsible for this damage to our osteo skeletal structure).  However, nuts get a tick on a paleo diet but there was no mention of the fact that nuts also contain phytates. Phytates are significantly reduced by proper preparation through long soaking and dehydrating (today called activating nuts), sprouting or fermenting. Dr Weston A Price in the earlier part of last century discovered that all traditional societies the world over prepared grains, legumes, seeds and nuts through one or more of these proper preparation techniques to reduce the phytate content. My view is that if nuts are going to be consumed, they too must be properly prepared otherwise I wouldn’t recommend their consumption. Secondly while I don’t personally consume grains (as I don’t think they are very nutrition dense for all the effort involved to properly prepare them) I do think that the occasional consumption of properly prepared grains (eg sourdough, sprouted, long soaked) is fine if you don’t have blood sugar issues or allergies and if you favour the gluten-free grains (eg rice, buckwheat). In this regard my nutritional philosophy is more aligned with the Weston A Price foundation than strict paleo.

One of my favourite quotes from the film:

Q: Is a paleo diet convenient? A: It’s hell of a lot more convenient than diabetes, cancer and cardio-vascular disease.

Click here to view the film’s website including trailer.

Now I’d like to hear from you. Have you seen The Perfect Human Diet? If so what was your view? Do you agree with my comments?