Today it is harder than ever to raise our children with a
"whole foods" mentality. What is even harder is changing the
game on them after it has already started. Try switching
out pop tarts one day for fresh fruit and whole grain bread and see what I
mean. The sugar, salt, fats and oils, preservatives, colors, peer
pressure and billions upon billions spent on fun character advertising geared
toward your child are difficult to compete with...BUT, there is good news!
YOU are the parent and the closest person to these little bodies.
It is not too late!
So, what are "whole foods" anyway? This term gets
splashed around on bill boards and coveted in talks, but what is it?
Whole foods are defined as foods that are
unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible
before being consumed.
Let's just start with some basics and run down
the line, shall we? The first question of course, is...
WHY WHOLE FOODS?
"Can't I keep eating my Doritos, Diet
Coke and Hamburger Helper? I get great coupons for them!"
Have you ever looked at an ingredient label
for those things? If I put those individual things in front of you and
asked you to make it, you wouldn't have a clue and you would most likely be is
a hazmat suit in a lab somewhere. Not cool. Though we have all been
fooled with the onslaught of advertising this past century it has not always
been like this. What did your grandmother eat as a child? She probably
ate things a little closer to the original, closer to the land.
Dr.David Katz, the founding director of Yale University’s
Prevention Research Center, says, "This may be the first generation of
children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.”
And Dr.Bill Sears,
America's Pediatrician and author of too many books to list here,
says, "75% of all chronic disease is preventable with nutrition."
I know the changes I make today will help them
make better decisions as they grow. When they are teenagers and out with
friends maybe they will think twice before downing that 20oz. because they will know what it is
in. Maybe, just maybe, they will understand that we loved them enough to
give them the richness of whole foods and not incomplete, or even harmful foods,
so they could live lives with fortified bodies and minds. This will pass
down as years pass when they are young adults and my grandchildren will
have better health as well. That is enough of a why for me to change my
eating habits and those of my children.
WHEN SHOULD I MAKE THE SWITCH?
The answer to that is simple. Now! This is not an
all or nothing switch. My family has been on a journey toward
clean eating for eight years now and I am not sure there is an end point. It is more like a continuous road with check
points along the way. Start with one change and go from there.
HOW?
This is the fun part! A great way is to introduce gardening
to the family! You can be a small gardener or a go all out, but get the
family involved. The more they are a part of it, the more they will take
part in eating it too. We have our back yard filled with edible plants,
but we do fight with watering, pests and bugs in the summer grow season.
Worth it? YES! But, our favorite tool we use for
gardening is our Tower Garden!
These are designed by Tim Blank who designed The Land at Disney's
Epcot Center and wanted to get the technology into homes, schools and small
business as well. Year round organic fruits and vegetables, indoor and
outdoor. We LOVE our towers so much that I began helping the company spread
the word. I couldn't stop sharing about this amazing vertical garden that
uses NO soil. So, there is NO tilling,
NO weeding and uses 90% less water and land than conventional gardens. We
are a little Tower happy over here.
Because it is difficult to get in enough of those raw, fresh
fruits and vegetables every day (current USDA recommendation is 7-13 servings a
day) we also use something called Juice Plus for our family, which are fruits
and vegetables in a capsule or chewable for kids.
Another great thing is exploring Farmer's Markets. These fun
weekend mini food fairs are a rainbow of eye candy for the kids, but they are
not skittles, just fruits and vegetables. It is a great way to expose
them to variety and find the fun in whole foods.
Explore the produce department at the store. Stick with
organics when possible and necessary and try some new things like star fruit
and claw fruit. Kids get a kick out of that stuff and have them choose
what they would like to bring home. Giving them power in decision helps.
Change the mindset of "Fast Food".
It doesn't have to mean a drive through, but can mean a bag of carrots, a
banana, apple or cucumber slices. Add a fun dip if they want. My
daughters love raspberry honey mustard right now to dip anything!
WHO IS THIS
FOR?
You. Right
now, reading this. I write this for you.
Take a step at a
time and allow for inaccuracies and inconsistencies, but allow whole foods to
become the norm and all the other things to be the exception. This is
your life, how are you going to live it? This is just the beginning of
your child's life and what do you want for them? I think when given the choice
if we want our family's health to be incomplete or whole we would choose whole.
Now, it is just time to make the choices to make that happen.
(If you would like
more information on either the Tower Garden or Juice Plus please contact me at
nellie@hardenfam.com and I would be happy to share what has transformed the
health of our own family with you)
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