Category Archives: Diets

Thanksgiving: Vegan Alternatives to Turkey

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Thanksgiving: Vegan Alternatives to Turkey

On my first meatless Thanksgiving a dozen years ago, my family graciously bought my a “Tofurkey” so I wouldn’t be left out.  It was the most unappetizing act of lovingkindness ever.  Tofurkey back then was utterly disgusting.  And while Tofurkey products have since improved enough that I will now eat them again, I still don’t think of them as the perfect vegan/vegetarian turkey replacement.  So here are some better ideas!

Seitan

Grilled Seitan Skewers Kabobs with Green Goddess Marinade

Seitan is made from wheat gluten, so it is not suitable for the celiacs or gluten-free fanatic amongst us, but for those of us (like me) who love wheat, it’s perfect.  It’s chewy and versatile and is sometimes called “wheat meat” because it so perfectly replicates the texture of meat.  Plus, because it’s made from gluten, it is protein, which makes it a good meat substitute.

Seitan is in my view the perfect meatless meat.  It has the right texture and it kind of takes on whatever flavor you want it to.  If you’re making it yourself, mix herbs and spices in with the vital wheat gluten as you mix it to give it additional flavor.  Plus, if you make it yourself, you can probably make it turkey-shaped.  You could always stuff it with actual stuffing and pour some yummy vegan gravy over it if you want a traditional healthy alternative to turkey at your Thanksgiving table!

Of course there’s no reason why you have to restrict yourself.  Give thanks in whatever your culture is!  Cook seitan into a curry or stick some hot sauce on it and call it faux chicken wings.  Or, my favorite, stick it on kebabs and bake it in the oven covered in green goddess dressing!

Tempeh

You thought I was going to say tofu, didn’t you?  Well, I will, but it doesn’t rank as high on my list as tempeh.  Tempeh is made from fermented soybeans and you can generally still see the soybean shapes in the block of tempeh.  Unlike tofu or seitan, tempeh has a very distinct, nutty flavor.  Although it can’t be easily shaped into “turkey” form, I think the distinctive nutty flavor makes it a great vegan turkey alternative.  The nutty taste complements other traditional Thanksgiving foods like cranberry, green bean casserole, and apples.

Tempeh is also a good option if you have vegan and gluten free guests at your table.  It’s also considered low FODMAP and is acceptable on a high alkaline diet.  For a main dish, consider glazing the tempeh with a cranberry sauce, or a maple syrup.  Crumbled tempeh can also be deep fried as a crunchy high-protein topping on your green bean casserole if you have nut-free guests!

TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein)

Textured vegetable protein, or TVP for short, is made from soy flour and comes in all sorts of sizes, shapes, and textures.  It can be sold as flakes or in chunks.  It is relatively versatile, which makes it a good Thanksgiving meat substitute.  It’s more highly processed than seitan or tempeh, but it is still vegan, high protein, and healthy.

One of the most popular forms is in the shape of “mince.”  It looks like and has the texture of minced meat (I would guess beef, but it’s been a long time since I had actual minced meat!).  As a Thanksgiving substitute and main course, I recommend making it into a meatloaf, and substituting the normal ketchup on top for a more festive cranberry relish!

Tofu

Okay, it had to be mentioned.  Tofu does tend to be the classic vegan or vegetarian meat alternative.  However, the texture is often a challenge for people who aren’t accustomed to it.  It’s not my favorite turkey substitute, but it can still have a place at your Thanksgiving table!

If you have guests or children who you think might object to the bland taste of tofu or its unusual texture, try preparing it differently.  Drain the water from hard tofu by wrapping it in tea towels and placing a heavy plate over and under it and letting it sit for a half an hour or more.  Then marinate in flavorful sauces and bake to give it a good flavor, or deep fry it to change its texture.  Like tempeh, you can crumble hard tofu and deep fry it for a crunchy topping on savory dishes (if you want to do this, consider freezing the tofu first).  You can also crumble it to act a bit like TVP, although it might not be as convincing a substitute.

But to my view, much better than trying to use tofu as a Thanksgiving main dish is to use it in desserts.  Silken tofu can be used to create vegan versions of holiday puddings, cheesecake, and – of course – pumpkin pie!

Forget the Substitutes

sweet potatoes with marshmallows

Why bother with substitutes anyway?  Just make an awesome vegetarian main dish.  Want all-American fare?  Make homemade veggie burgers with whole wheat bread rolls.  Or go for a more exotic main dish such as a vegetarian moussaka.

Or scrap the idea of a main dish entirely.  Many traditional Thanksgiving meals have more than one main dish anyway – like turkey, ham, and brisket.  Avoid the trouble by simply making an abundance of side dishes.  This gives you all the freedom you need to make whatever you want!  And lots of traditional Thanksgiving dishes, such as stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, can easily be made in vegan versions.

Happy Holidays!

Daviah with an apple pie

Just because you’re not having turkey at your table doesn’t mean you can’t have a traditional Thanksgiving… and you’re giving the turkeys something to be thankful about, too.

Happy Holidays!

Mercury: Dangerous for Kids’ Health

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Mercury: Dangerous for Kids’ Health

There are so many ways we try to protect our children.  We hold their hands when they cross the street, we watch them as they play on the playground, and we buckle them into their car seats.  But how careful are we about how they eat?  One way we can protect our kids is to reduce their exposure to serious known toxins.  Exposure to toxic chemicals can affect children in very serious ways, as they are still growing and developing.* One of the most common toxic exposures is to a metal called mercury.

What is Mercury?

Mercury is a heavy metal that is naturally occurring in the environment.  In fact, it is so heavy that just one quarter cup of mercury at room temperature weighs nearly one kilogram!  (Just over two tablespoons weighs one pound.)  It is a silvery color that you may have seen in thermometers.  Even though mercury occurs naturally in the environment, it can also be propagated by certain industries and causes serious environmental and health consequences.

How Is Mercury Taken In?

Mercury is pernicious in that it can be taken in in many ways.  It can be inhaled, consumed, and absorbed through the skin.  It can also cross placental barriers and be prenatally absorbed by a fetus.  It is important to begin protecting your child from mercury exposure as soon as they are conceived.

What Exposes My Kids to Mercury?

Some children are exposed to extra mercury because they or their families are associated with certain employment that uses mercury.  Ironically, the health care sector used to be a major route of exposure, through use of mercury in instruments and cleaning supplies, but fortunately this is no longer common practice.  Mercury is still used heavily in the mining industry (especially gold mining), power plants, crematoria, and the charcoal industry.  If you or your child is not exposed to these industries, then your child’s exposure to mercury is likely to be environmental: food, air, water, and soil.  Let’s look at the main routes of exposure in turn.

Mercury Exposure in Food

This is the most common way children are exposed to mercury and one of the most easily preventable.**  Mercury accumulates in the seafood food chain.  This means that top seafood predators, such as tuna fish, are highest in mercury.  By knowing what fish are highest in mercury and which are lowest, you can ensure that your child is eating fish with low levels of mercury.

Be aware that fruits and vegetables grown in mercury heavy soil or in a mercury poisoned atmosphere are also themselves high in mercury.  Today, fertilizers no longer contain mercury as they used to, so most people in developed countries do not need to worry.  However, if your produce is being grown next to a power plant, a plant that produces mercury cell batteries, a gold mine (you wish, right?), a cemetery, or a crematorium, you should be aware that the mercury levels in your produce might be high.

Some preservatives also contain mercury.  This is a good reason to try to buy things fresh and prepare your own food as much as possible.   In many foods, even foods purporting to be all natural or pure, the only additional ingredient is a preservative.

Mercury has also been detected in certain foods that are the byproducts of mercury producing practices.  The most notable one is high fructose corn syrup.***  High fructose corn syrup is found is so many foods today that it is almost ubiquitous.  Aside from the fact that it is incredibly unhealthy in general, it is also a source of toxicity.

Mercury Exposure in Soil

Kids play outside (or at least mine do – and I hope yours do, too).  But because kids are digging in the dirt, getting filthy, and putting their hands in their mouths, they are also exposed to anything the soil contains, including mercury.  Environmental mercury can accumulate in soil just from being deposited from the air.  Soil can also contain mercury from decomposing wastes, as well as from fertilizers containing mercury (which fortunately is less common today – but used to be used more).****

Other Sources of Mercury Exposure

Some mercury exposure is due to the customs of certain cultures.  If you do not participate in these cultural practices, then you do not need to worry about these things.

Significant exposure can come from certain ayurvedic medicine.  Yes I know ayurvedic medicine is supposed to be healthy, but certain medicines and practices contain mercury and it can be really dangerous.*****  Other religions like Santeria or Espritismo also involve mercury in their rituals.******

Another significant cultural exposure to mercury comes in the form of skin lightening cosmetics, creams, lotions, and other products.  In some cultures, especially Asian cultures, light skin is seen as highly desirable and there is temptation to use products to lighten skin tone.  However, many of these products contain mercury, which can be very dangerous.*******

What Harm Does Mercury Cause?

In children, mercury poisoning generally manifests in the form of acrodynia, or “pink disease.”  It is called pink diseases because children’s hands, feet, cheeks, and lips turn pink and painful.  They can also begin to lose their hair, teeth, and nails.********   Other symptoms of mercury poisoning include confused vision, hearing, and speech, and a lack of coordination.

Mercury poisoning is very serious.  Mercury kills neurons in certain parts of the brain, which makes it especially dangerous for babies in utero.  It crosses both the placental and blood brain barriers and is not efficiently excreted, so it can accumulate in the unborn baby.  These babies are born with neurological problems that resemble cerebral palsy, spasticity, and other reflex, visual, and convulsive problems.  All pregnant women, for the sake of their unborn babies, should not risk mercury exposure.

How Much Mercury is too Much?

There is no known safe level of mercury to consume.  Let me repeat that.  There is NO safe amount of mercury to consume.

In other words, any mercury is too much mercury.

To protect your children, reduce their mercury intake as much as possible.

How Can I Protect My Kids From too Much Mercury?

There are certain things you can do to reduce your children’s exposure to mercury:

  • If you feed your children fish, ensure you are feeding them low mercury fish.
  • Reduce your kids’ intake of mercury containing food additives like preservatives and high fructose corn syrup.
  • Avoid keeping mercury containing products like mercury thermometers and fluorescent light bulbs in your house.  If you do keep these items in your home, ensure they are kept safe and not in danger of breaking.  If a mercury containing item does break, safely clean up the spill, keeping your kids far away at all times.  (If you are pregnant and one of these items breaks, please leave the area immediately and do not inhale in that area.   You should contact an approved toxic spill company to clean up the toxins and test the air, as airborne mercury is highly toxic.)
  • Do not use ayurvedic or other ritualistic remedies that may contain mercury.
  • Do not expose yourself or your children to skin lightening creams, lotions, etc.

(You many notice that not vaccinating is not on this list.  There is no scientific link between the trace amounts of mercury contained in vaccines and autism.**********  In fact, elemental liquid mercury injected is less harmful than mercury in its other forms taken in through food, skin, or air exposure.***********)

Conclusion

I hope this information is useful.  I will follow up soon with more information on what fish and seafood are safest and most dangerous to consume, as well as more information about how children are exposed to mercury through seafood consumption.

*Jarosinska D, Gee D. Children’s environmental health and the precautionary principle.Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2007;210:541–6.

*Selevan SG, Kimmel CA, Mendola P, Pronczuk-Garbino J. Children’s health and the environment – a global perspective. WHO press; Geneva: 2005. Windows of susceptibility to environmental exposures in children; pp. 17–26.

*Weiss B. Vulnerability of children and the developing brain to neurotoxic hazards.Environ Health Perspect. 2000;108(Suppl 3):375–81.

**Al-Saleh IA. Health implications of mercury exposure in children. Int J Environ Healthc.2009;3:22–57

***Dufault R, LeBlanc B, Schnoll R, Cornett C, Schweitzer L, Wallinga D, et al. Mercury from chlor-alkali plants: measured concentrations in food product sugar. Environ Health.2009;8:2.

****United Nations Environment Programme-Chemicals . Global Mercury Assessment.Geneva: 2002. Available at: http://www.unep.org/gc/gc22/Document/UNEP-GC22-INF3.pdf.

*****Dargan PI, Gawarammana IB, Archer JRH, House IM, Shaw D, Wood DM. Heavy metal poisoning from ayurvedic traditional medicines: an emerging problem? Int J Environ Healthc. 2008;2:463–74.

******U.S. Environmental Protection Agency . Task force on ritualistic uses of mercury-EPA/540-R-01-005. Washington, DC: 2002.

*******Al-Saleh I, Al-Doush I. Mercury content in skin-lightening creams and potential hazards to the health of Saudi women. J Toxicol Environ Health. 1997;51:123–30.

*******Hursh JB, Clarkson TW, Miles EF, Goldsmith LA. Percutaneous absorption of mercury vapor by man. Arch Environ Health. 1989;44:120–7.

********Palmer RB, Godwin DA, McKinney PE. Transdermal kinetics of a mercurous chloride beauty cream: an in vitro human skin analysis. J Toxicol Clin Toxicol. 2000;38:701–7.

*********Bjørklund G (1995). “Mercury and Acrodynia” (PDF).Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 10 (3 & 4): 145–146.

**********Doja A, Roberts W (2006). “Immunizations and autism: a review of the literature”. Can J Neurol Sci 33 (4): 341–6.

***********Clarkson TW, Magos L (2006). “The toxicology of mercury and its chemical compounds”. Crit Rev Toxicol 36 (8): 609–62.

Beyond Carnism by Melanie Joy

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Beyond Carnism by Melanie Joy

Carnism TEDx Talk by Melanie Joy

On this blog, I generally focus on health and the science around health and diet for kids.  I believe we can change the world by changing the foods we feed our kids.  Not only can we ensure that the next generation faces lifelong good health, but in doing so we can also help them grow up to face the world with joy.  Part of the joy that comes from eating a healthy diet comes from the attendant good values that come with it.  So it is that I wanted to share with you all this TEDx talk by Melanie Joy.

Melanie Joy, Ph.D., Ed.M. is a Harvard-educated psychologist, professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a celebrated speaker, and the author of the award-winning book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. Melanie is the eighth recipient of the Institute of Jainology’s Ahimsa Award, which was previously awarded to Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Her work has been featured by numerous national and international media outlets, including the BBC, Germany’s ARD, ABC Australia, the New York Times, and Spiegel Online. Melanie has given her acclaimed carnism presentation on five continents, and she is also the founder and president of the project Karnismus erkennen and of Carnism Awareness & Action Network.

 

What is Carnism?

Carnism is the name Melanie Joy has given to the belief system that justifies human consumption of animal flesh.  This is the belief system most of us have grown up in, which conditions us to think of it as okay, as “normal, natural, and necessary” behavior.  And yet, most of us think it is perfectly acceptable to eat a pig or a cow but not our pet dog or cat.  So we do not think it is normal to eat any and every animal, just certain ones.  Why?

Carnism and Health

The consumption of animals is incontrovertibly detrimental to our health and wellbeing.  For children, whose bodies are growing at a rapid rate, it is even more important to eat a healthy diet as the foundation for their futures.  Feeding our children meat hurts them.  In the words of Melanie Joy:

We pay for our carnism with our health, as eating an animal based diet can lead to serious disease, while eating a plant-based or vegan diet can optimize health.

It is for this reason that I think you will all benefit from watching this video.  Older children and teenagers can also benefit.  Watch it and then have a discussion about what you have seen – your children may have some very interesting insights!  (Please be advised that there are some graphic images in this video that may be unsuitable for younger viewers.)

Beyond carnism and toward rational, authentic food choices by Melanie Joy at TEDxMünchen

Visit Melanie Joy’s Beyond Carnism website to learn more

The Banting Diet: Dangerous for Kids

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The Banting Diet: Dangerous for Kids

In my last post, we looked at if the Banting Diet is safe for children.  It most certainly is not a safe diet for kids.  Youths, who are still growing and developing, are especially sensitive to changes in diet.  A healthy diet can do them an enormous amount of good and an unhealthy diet can do a tremendous amount of damage.  The Banting Diet is downright dangerous for children and teens.

Dangerous for Children and Teens

Actually, low carb diets can be dangerous for anyone.  Cutting out an entire nutrient group is not ideal to the human condition.  But children are especially sensitive, as they are growing and developing.  In fact, it could actually be downright dangerous.  Dr. Fuhrman, a well-known medical doctor, points out on his blog just how dangerous low-carb diets can be for kids:

Most recently, a sixteen-year-old girl who had no history of medical problems died after two weeks on the Atkins diet. When the paramedics arrived, she was pulse-less, and the electrocardiogram revealed ventricular fibrillation (a usually fatal loss of normal heart rhythm). Her emergency room evaluation showed electrolyte imbalances that occurred as a result of eating a diet of meat, cheese, and salads for two weeks. She was doing the diet together with her mother.

Of course most cases won’t be this extreme!  But the fact is that low carb diets of any kind can be dangerous and a high animal fat diet like the Banting Diet poses even greater risks.  The “low fat” diet that was touted as healthy for so many years has now been shown not to be the fastest way to lose weight, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly switching to the opposite extreme is the best reaction.

Animal fats are saturated fats, which themselves carry lots of disease-causing potential.  Saturated fats “have no double bonds between carbon molecules because they are saturated with hydrogen molecules.”  Their chemical structure means that we digest them differently than unsaturated fats.  This can lead to the development of high cholesterol, which is showing up in younger and younger populations. It is also a major risk factor for heart disease.  Indeed, reducing saturated fats specifically (as opposed to fats overall) is the most effective way to prevent coronary heart disease in women.  The American Heart Association recommends limiting intake of saturated fats to no more than 7% of your diet – well below what the Banting Diet insists on!  It is no coincidence that kids placed on a balanced vegan diet showed drastic improvement and major reductions in their heart disease risk factors.  Those kids were eating basically the exact opposite of the Banting Diet!

Bear in mind that the Banting Diet is doing more than just restricting carbohydrates and promoting animal fat consumption, the dangers of which we have already discussed.  The Banting Diet is also restricting the intake of other foods, too.  The whole long list can be found here.  We’re not just looking at a diet that cuts out wheat, like in a gluten-free diet.  This is a diet where corn, peas, agave, and any kind of fruit juice is absolutely forbidden.  Fruits are also on a highly restricted list, so you can have them, but only in small amounts.  For example, three small figs or one small banana is all the fruit you’re allowed each day.  Notice I said ‘or’ – not ‘and.’  This is not much fruit for a child, who needs that nutrition to thrive.

Children need a balanced diet in order to get all of the vitamins and minerals they need for their bodies to develop.  Lacking enough of certain nutrients can have long term effects even beyond what science can currently fathom.

What Do You Want For Your Children?

After reading all of this, what do you want for your children?  Hopefully you want to provide them with a balanced, healthy diet.  Hopefully your goal is to reduce their disease risks and give them the foundation they need to grow and develop optimally.  Doing so will help them live a healthier life, regardless of what choices they make later in life.

The Banting Diet is dangerous for adults and doubly so for children.  Tamzyn Campbell may be a nutritionist, but just having a piece of paper with your name on it does not mean you are always right.  Similarly, not having a piece of paper with your name on it does not mean you are wrong.  I hope I have made a strong case here for why Tamzyn Campbell, nutritionist though she may be, is wrong, dreadfully wrong, and therefore dangerous.

But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Here are the words of Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. (whose father is one of my top nutrition idols):

One of the best examples of the low carb misconception is the Atkins program and Paleo both of which emphasize  meat which is so deleterious  to health.  And certainly not for children.

You are right to be alarmed about the Banting Diet……for anyone, especially children.

Do what is right for your children and choose a healthy plant-based diet.

The Banting Diet: Is It Safe For Kids?

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The Banting Diet: Is It Safe For Kids?

This week an article came out touting the Banting Diet for children, starting from the age of 6 months.  The Banting Diet is yet another trendy Low Carb, High Fat (LCHF) diet, emphasizing eating lots and lots of animal fat.  The nutritionist in the article claims this is a healthy diet for kids – but is she right? Is the Banting Diet really safe for kids?

What is the Banting Diet?

The Banting Diet is a Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet.  It is similar to other carbohydrate-restricting diets in that most carbs are forbidden but it is different from diets like Atkins because instead of emphasizing eating lots of protein, the Banting Diet emphasizes eating lots of fat, particularly animal fats.

In fact, the number one rule of the Banting Diet is to eat a lot of animal fat.  Eating lots of animal fat is the number one solution on the Banting Diet.  Hungry? Eat more animal fat!  Getting the urge to snack (snacking is strictly forbidden)?  Eat more animal fat!  If you’re on the Banting Diet you might as well make eating more animal fat your mantra.

The other half of the Banting Diet focuses on reducing your carbohydrate intake and replacing calories with fat.  Skip the milk and go for the cream; double cream is even better.  Even too much dairy is disallowed because it contains too many carbohydrates.  Instead, go straight for the butter, as much as you want.  Avoid carbs if at all possible, including disguised carbs like quinoa, peanuts, legumes, and beans. Starchy vegetables are also a no-no. Also avoid having too much fruit and too many nuts because they also have carbs and sugars.

Finally, the Banting Diet tries hard to distinguish itself from Low Carb High Protein diets like the Atkins diet by emphasizing that you are not to have too much protein.  In fact, you should choose the smaller protein portion if you eat out.  Choose the fattiest cut of meat you can.  And eat ALL the fat.

Is the Banting Diet Safe for Kids?

In a recent article, nutritionist Tamzyn Campbell claims the Banting Diet can benefit children by reducing obesity.  She claims it can even be started as young as six months, with severe carb restrictions waiting until six years.  But is she right?  Is it really healthy to feed a baby or even a child a diet overwhelmingly high in animal fats, with little to no grains and very little fruit, nuts, and protein?

Let’s consider first what experts say about the nutritional needs of children.  Children are growing and developing at a very rapid pace, in ways that adults are not.  Not only are children physically developing and growing quickly, but their brains are also growing and developing, with new brain cells growing and new synaptic connections being forged every day.  The way that children develop now, in their youth, will dramatically impact their health in the future, for the rest of their lives, including their mental and emotional health in addition to their physical health.

In order to achieve this rapid level of growth, children need to take in very high levels of vitamins and minerals, nutrients they need to grow and develop.  Their nutritional needs are different from that of adults and diets that severely restrict one major food group (carbohydrates), no matter what the source, are creating a danger for kids’ health.  A vegan diet, for instance, might omit animal sources of protein, but vegetable sources of protein are still permitted and encouraged.  The Banting Diet, on the other hand, emphasizes a very specific source of one food group (fats, from animals only – the Banting Diet goes so far as to claim that seed oils are toxic) with the exclusion of another entire food group (carbohydrates).  This will necessarily have an effect on growth and development.  Jim Bell, president of the International Fitness Professionals Association notes that:

[I]n children going through a development process, there can be permanent inhibition in their reaching full genetic potential when an entire group of macronutrients is eliminated from the diet. It doesn’t matter if it is fat, protein, or carbohydrates, it’s just not healthy.

But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Joan Carter, a Registered Dietician at the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine emphasizes the differing dietary needs of kids:

Low-carb diets are not a good choice for kids because children are nutritionally different than adults, and these diets are restrictive in many of the nutrients they need.  Growing children need more calcium than adults, and their tissues need vitamins and minerals that come from fruits, vegetables, and grains. With diets that restrict these and other important nutrients, it shortchanges kids in a way that can affect their growth and development.

Children also have much higher energy needs than adults.  Not only are kids using energy to run amok with their friends and tear your house apart like whirling dervishes, they’re using that energy to grow and to learn.  Over 20% of our calories are used to fuel the brain.  Restricting carbohydrates, the body’s most ideal source of energy, certainly will not help your child to learn.

Carbohydrates are fuel for the body and they encourage ideal performance.  Jim Bell, president of the International Fitness Professionals Association, points out that “carbohydrate loading is used by endurance athletes for a good reason — it gives their bodies an extra storage of fuel so their performance increases dramatically.  In full-grown adults, we know that restricting carbohydrates cuts down on athletic performance and endurance.”  So, too, with children.  Kids need carbohydrates in order to run around and get exercise, something we as parents should be encouraging them to do.  (If your child isn’t getting enough exercise, just putting them on a low-carb diet won’t solve all their problems.  Get them away from the screens and outside with their friends!)

While fat is an essential nutrient like salt, your kids don’t need very much of it.  Fat adds calories, but it’s not the optimum fuel for your tank.  It’s kind of like putting ethanol in a car designed to run on petrol – the car will probably still run, but it won’t be very efficient and it will damage the engine.  A small amount of ethanol mixed into the petrol can be a good thing, but only ethanol?  Not ideal.  So too with fat in kids’ bodies.

Carbohydrates are the ideal fuel for a child’s growing body and they come together with lots of nutrients kids need. Is fruit high in sugar? Sure! But fresh fruit also has enzymes, minerals, and vitamins kids need.  So too with healthy whole grains and vegetarian sources of protein like beans, legumes, nuts, and pseudo-grains like quinoa.

So what happens when the body isn’t getting carbohydrates as fuel?  Essentially the body begins to think it’s starving and in starvation mode it doesn’t work optimally.  The body breaks down fat for fuel, but in the process it creates what are called ketones, which are not good for kids and can actually impair their ability to learn.

Dr. Bruce Rengers, an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University, explains why this is.  He points out that “ketones have a dulling effect on the brain.”  This is because ketones reduce glucose uptake by brain cells – in effect ketones keep the brain functioning, but at a reduced level from what it should be.  Joan Carter, RD notes, “Essentially, this quasi-starvation mode is not good for alertness, and it’s certainly not good for children.”  She’s right – how could a diet like this possibly be good for children?!

Diabetes: How Kids Can Eat Healthy

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Diabetes: How Kids Can Eat Healthy

My brother has diabetes.  He developed it when he was just 7 years old, so it dominated his childhood and my teenage years.  It had major impacts on our family.  For families with a diabetic child, it can cause major changes in the family diet.  Here are some ways to eat healthy with diabetes:

Types of Diabetes

There are two types of diabetes.  Type 1 diabetes (which used to be known as juvenile onset diabetes) is when the pancreas simply stops producing insulin.  There is no cure for Type 1 diabetes and diabetics with this form of the disease have to take insulin injections for the rest of their lives (or until a cure is found).  Diet and insulin injections are the best way to manage Type 1 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes used to be known as adult onset diabetes because it is strongly associated with obesity and used to occur predominantly in older adults.  Not so today.  With so many children today overweight and so many children consuming high sugar foods and refined carbohydrates that spike blood sugars, Type 2 diabetes is now increasingly common among children and can no longer be called “adult onset diabetes.”  With Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas still produces insulin but the body doesn’t regulate it well.  Type 2 diabetes is not as stark as Type 1 diabetes.  Indeed, it is more of a continuum.  Some people have Type 2 diabetes so mildly that it can be managed entirely by dietary modifications.  People who have a more severe form can take medication and people who have a very severe form need insulin injections like Type 1 diabetics do.

No matter how severe the diabetes or what Type, diet is a crucial part of any management program.  Of course you should consult you’re doctor before embarking on a particular dietary program, as I am not a doctor, nor have I even played one on TV (although I was once on an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which is fitting because I am actually a lawyer haha!).  My advice regarding diet for diabetics is meant to be practical and helpful, not the be all and end all of diabetes dietary requirements!!

Impact of diet on diabetes

Diet can have an enormous impact on diabetes.  Insulin is a hormone our bodies produce that regulates blood sugar levels.  Blood sugar levels that are too high or too low can cause serious illness, coma, and even death, so managing diabetes effectively is really important.  Unfortunately, much of the food kids eat today is processed and full of sugar (it is hidden in all sorts of things you wouldn’t expect).  Kids also eat a lot of refined carbohydrates, such as white rice, white flour, and white potatoes – I like to say, “White flour, white potatoes, and white rice: If it’s white, it isn’t nice!”  Carbohydrates are converted into sugars by the body so it can use them as fuel, but refined carbohydrates are converted into sugars very quickly and simply, so they flood the system.  Think about it: eat one serving of white bread and compare how long you feel full to when you eat one serving of whole grain steel cut oatmeal.

In fact, in cases of Type 2 diabetes diet can even reverse diabetes entirely, just as diet can reverse obesity.  This has been tested in animals and also shown in scientific peer-reviewed studies to work in humans (especially effective if exercise is included).  This works because a healthy diet reduces obesity and heart disease risk factors – even in children.

Diets for Diabetic Kids

The Internet is full of different diets to help reduce or reverse diabetes.  As an adult, you can afford to buy into the starvation diet, but even if it is endorsed by a reputable university’s biomedical department, a starvation diet can be dangerous for children, whose bodies are still developing.  Do not starve your children!

However, the concept still works for kids.  Other studies (see above) show that reducing calorie intake can slow, stop, or even reverse diabetes development.  This is because reducing caloric intake has a twofold benefit for diabetics.  Firstly, if done in a healthy and balanced way, it normalizes blood sugar, avoiding blood sugar spikes and making blood sugar regulation easier on the body.  Secondly, it reduces weight and reducing obesity reduces the incidence of diabetes.

Another demonstrated dietary fact is that diabetics should reduce fat intake.  In more than one of the studies I cited above, fat and especially fatty liver played a stark role in the development and reversal of diabetes.  This is why the healthy vegan diet kids in the recent heart disease study was so effective in reducing heart disease risk factors in children: It was very low fat.

That said, there are three commonly endorsed diets for diabetics, all of which can be healthfully used by children:

The Plate Method

The Plate Method Diet for DiabeticsThe Plate Method is the diet for diabetics that is currently recommended.  It calls for 50% of the plate to be covered with non-starchy vegetables, 25% with starchy vegetables, and 25% with protein, as well as a serving of fruit and a serving of milk on the side for each lunch and dinner meal.  Of course, the efficacy of any diet like this relies on making good food choices. Non-starchy vegetables such as asparagus or broccoli should be cooked in a healthy way, like steaming, roasting, or stir fry, not doused in sauces and oils.  Not all starchy foods are created equal.  Whole grains like brown or wild rice and quinoa are preferable to refined grains like white rice or white bread.  Starchy vegetables like zucchini, peas, and parsnips are more nutritious than white potatoes (and also have more flavor, reducing the need for additives like butter and oil).  Non-fat protein choices like tofu or seitan will always be better than an animal product even if it is low in fat, due to the way in which the body metabolizes animal fats, and also due to the benefit of fat reduction in diabetic diets.  For children, consider serving the fruit during snack times rather than during meal times, thus eliminating the need for kids to have yet more calories in their diets during the day.  For the milk, I recommend making your own brown rice milk or buying oat or almond milk.  If done properly, this kind of diet is incredibly healthy.

A sample lunch would be:

  • 1 cup brown rice milk
  • Sandwich of whole grain bread, lots of hummus (for protein), and roasted spring vegetables or salad vegetables
  • Side of raw non-starchy vegetables (such as cucumbers, mushrooms, and capsicum) with some more hummus to dip them in.
  • 1/2 cup strawberries for morning snack
  • 1 small banana for afternoon snack

A sample dinner would be:

  • 1 cup brown rice milk
  • Stir fry of non-starchy vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach with tofu over brown and wild rice mix

Diabetic Exchange Diets

There was a time when this method was very popular, but compared to the Plate Method, it seems like a bit of a pain to me.  Foods are divided into six categories: starch, meat (there are no vegan meat substitutes), non-starchy vegetables, fruit, milk, and fats.  Together with a dietician each individual will be given a number of servings to have from each category each day.  This method is easier in a way because it is easier to measure out servings, but it also basically forces adherents to eat a lot of animal protein.  This eliminates the potential benefits of following diets now shown to be effective for weight loss.

Carbohydrate Counting

This method counts each major carbohydrate source as one serving (15 g) of carbohydrate.  The list of carbohydrate sources includes starches, fruits, milk, and sweets.  Of course this does not necessarily lend itself to be the most healthy diet, although it does allow a lot more leniency for kids who won’t take well to being told they cannot have dessert.  That’s because if, say, a cookie counts as one carbohydrate, kids can choose to fill up their carbohydrate quota with unhealthy sources of carbs.  This type of diet requires a lot of parent monitoring because its permissiveness creates a sort of temptation for kids.  It also does not limit sources of other things affecting kids’ diet and weight.  For instance, fat and meat intake are not measured, so a child could eat lots of steak and then carbohydrate count for dessert, which would not be a healthy diet at all.  Of course, a parent who is conscious of their child’s choices and is committed to making good food choices and to dedicating extra time to their child’s diet can make it work.  But carbohydrate counting is definitely the most time consuming of the three methods.

Tips and Advice

  • Feed the whole family the same meals as the diabetic child is eating.  Diabetic children should be eating very healthfully, which will be good for the whole family.  Also, if a child is overweight, it is likely that other family members are also not at their ideal weights and can benefit from a healthy weight loss diet.
  • Don’t starve your kids, but do do portion control.  Don’t allow kids to eat as much as they want.  Overeating is often a contributor to obesity, which can lead to the onset of diabetes.
  • Reduce the amount of packaged and processed foods in your child’s diet.  Even so-called diabetic foods are not necessarily healthy.  Feeding your diabetic child sweets made with artificial sweeteners can cause other health problems.
  • Read nutrition labels.  You may be surprised to see how many carbohydrates are in your favorite foods and snacks.  Be aware that the serving size on a package may not match the serving size of one serving if you are doing an exchange diet.
  • Reduce the amount of fat – fat consumption increases risk of heart disease and diabetics are much more at risk of developing heart disease.
  • Spread meals out during the day.  For instance, breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.  This will help keep your child from feeling too hungry and will also help the body metabolize sugars and nutrients more evenly.
  • Get your child active!  Diet can go a long way to reducing obesity and diabetes management, but exercise and burning up of some of that energy is also really important.  This is a good time to get your child involved in an activity that gets them moving, whether that is an organized team sport or just neighborhood games.  My gym even offers classes for kids!  You can also make exercise a family activity – going for walks, family bike rides, or hikes in local nature areas are great ways to bond as a family while increasing the health of everyone in the family!

I hope these tips make it easier to find a healthy diet for your diabetic or pre-diabetic child!  Together, we can manage diabetes and maybe even reverse it!

For More Information:

American Diabetes Association: www.diabetes.org

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: www.eatright.org

National Diabetes Education Program: http://ndep.nih.gov

Supporting Kids’ Food Choices

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Supporting Kids’ Food Choices

Our children don’t always want to eat the same way we do.  Of course, many kids today are interested in filling up with junk food, but a lot of kids also go through a vegetarian phase. Parenting forums are filled with moms lamenting that their children are refusing to eat meat, and panicking over how to sneak meat into their diets or otherwise ensure they get enough protein.  As parents, the best thing we can do for our kids is to find ways to be supportive of their food choices.

When kids decide to follow a different path from their parents – whether it is dietary, religious, or political – it is hard as parents not to feel that we have in some way failed them.  It feels like a judgment to have your child refuse the food you always fed them.  Almost as if they are saying you are not a good enough parent and you raised them the wrong way.  Our task as parents is to raise ourselves above this natural inclination and to ask ourselves what is best for our child.

Research has long shown the health benefits of a balanced vegetarian or vegan diet.  A new study also shows major cardiovascular benefits for kids on a vegan diet, which is important because heart disease begins in childhood.  Many people are trying hard to get their kids to eat a more heart healthy diet.  Yet, if it is our children who make the decision to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, we resist it.  Oh, the ironies of life!

Unfortunately, I know too many kids who become vegetarian and end up eating more junk food and processed, pre-packaged foods.  Today, vegetarian processed foods are widely available, which makes it easy for kids to access them.  Additionally, there is a natural human inclination that when we give one thing up, we should get more of another thing we like to replace it.  Kids who give up their steaks and fried chicken legs might feel justified in downing some extra potato chips.  But when this happens on a regular basis, it adds up to some pretty unhealthy eating.

As parents, we need to be supportive of kids’ dietary changes, even if we disapprove.  The problem is that if we are not, then our kids will not be able to make the healthiest choices within their range of options.  Vegetarian and vegan kids whose parents are unwilling to cook separate food for them end up replacing meat with canned or instant foods, or junk foods, which are high in sodium and sugar.

On a personal level, I have known in my lifetime far too many kids who gained weight and became much less healthy on a vegetarian diet.  When I spoke to them about it, I found they were carbohydrate loading.  Pasta and bread were their main foods.  Junk foods and other high-calorie convenience foods were also way up there in their list of things to eat.  Remember, potato chips and deep fried french fries are vegan and pizza and lasagna are vegetarian.  While these foods can be delicious treats, they should be “once in a while” foods, not everyday foods.  When I saw vegetarian kids gaining weight, I found they were eating these foods frequently, and were eating far too many calories (especially from fats and carbohydrates) overall.

As parents, it is our job to combat this behavior: Not by denying our kids the freedom to make some dietary decisions.  Not by forcing our kids to eat foods they don’t want to.  But by helping them make healthy food choices within reasonable parameters.

Here are some quick tips for busy parents whose kids want to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet:

  • Find healthy alternatives to bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice.  Quinoa is my favorite, but oats (especially steel-cut) are fantastic for breakfast (even pancakes!) and potatoes can be replaced with more nutritious root vegetables, like sweet potatoes or turnips.
  • Make sure all grains are whole grains.  Whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, and brown rice are all much more nutritious than white, refined carbohydrates.
  • Make beans! Beans are a great source of protein, fiber, and lots of other vitamins and minerals.  Don’t buy the canned kind – buy dry beans.  They won’t have any added sodium and they are much cheaper.  Soak them overnight, then boil them.  Do a big batch and keep them in the fridge.  Beans are incredibly versatile and can fill in as a meat substitute for many kinds of meals.  There are lots of kinds of sauce you can put on them, you can add them to eggs or other cooked dishes, and you can also puree them to make a spread for bread or a dip for vegetables.  As a bonus, there are many different kinds of beans, each with a slightly different flavor and texture, so you can offer your child some variety.
  • Make smoothies.   It’s easy to toss some fruit in a blender for a quick meal or snack.  For a vegetarian meal on the go, add some milk (or rice milk) and some nut butter for added bulk and protein.  For a snack, make it lighter, by adding only fruit and some ice.
  • Provide healthy snacks.  Healthy crackers or muffins are easy to grab on the go.  Even sweets like cookies and cakes can be healthy treats if they’re made right.  Providing the kinds of snacks you want your kids to have available makes it less likely they’ll grab a bag of chips when they’re out.  Package snacks in small, disposable snack size bags (I use biodegradable ones, which are now very good quality) and you make it even easier for kids to grab and go.  (I prefer to use reusable containers, but for many kids on the go this will be a deterrent, as they will now have another item they need to remember to bring home, even after they’ve finished their snacks.)
  • Use juice pulp.  Making fruit or vegetable juice is a great, healthy addition to any diet, but don’t throw away that pulp.  Many vegan and vegetarian kids are eating pasta and bread until they are full, whereas heavier proteins can make you feel fuller.  Help kids feel fuller, faster, by giving them some extra fiber in their diets.  Add fruit juice pulp to muffins and oatmeal.  Use vegetable juice pulp to make pasta sauce, burgers, and crackers.
  • If you can’t beat them, join them.   Try making all-vegetarian meals a few times a week.  You might find you enjoy them, too.  By including kids in family meals, they are more likely to eat a healthy diet.

I hope these tips help ease the adjustment when you have a child who decides not to eat meat anymore!

If you have other tips, please share them below!

Patience: The Key to Achieving Results of a Healthy Diet

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Patience: The Key to Achieving Results of a Healthy Diet

Today’s society places far too much emphasis on immediate results.  We just do not seem to have any patience anymore.  Instead, immediate gratification is the name of the game.  To make matters worse, most people today prefer even more if there is minimal effort involved in achieving results.  Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t work like that.

Fad diets and quick fixes might yield pretty quick results, but they don’t last.  Indeed, lots of things can cause rapid weight loss, but that doesn’t mean they’re good for you.  Just like ebola would be a dangerous but effective way to get your child to lose weight, fad diets are also unhealthy and should be avoided, especially for children, who are still growing and developing.

If we want healthy kids, we need to inspire them to lead healthy lifestyles.  Weight loss and positive changes to their health profile will follow.  We have to have patience.

My family and I try to lead a healthy lifestyle all around.  We eat a healthy diet with an emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables, very little processed food, very little dairy, very little fish, and no meat.  Both my husband and I exercise regularly in the gym (I do about 6 hours per week) and our kids watch shows (on the computer – we don’t watch TV) only a couple days per week, and even then, only for a half hour or so at a time.  The rest of the time our kids are out running around.

Yes, this kind of lifestyle is a challenge.  If there are excuses, I’ve made them all, in the past.  Junk food and meat taste good, when you’re tired you want to just zone out in front of the TV, and gym memberships cost money and take time.  But in the end, these are just that: excuses.  I have a million excuses I could make why I can’t find time to blog, but I push through and I do it.

I’m not trying to pass judgment in a holier-than-thou kind of way.  I’m a stay-at-home-mom, which has both benefits and challenges that working moms don’t face.  Sure, I have more freedom to take my kids to the park almost every day and I’m home more, making things from scratch.  But then again, I spend my whole day refereeing two rambunctious boys, who seem to have taken making a mess on as their goal in life.  Parents who don’t have their kids home all day don’t face the constant cleaning struggle that three meals a day (plus snacks) being prepared in the kitchen presents.  Kids who aren’t home aren’t dumping dirt all over the floors you just mopped and aren’t spreading the entire contents of their toy chests all over the house all day long.  I’m not complaining – but it doesn’t present its own set of challenges.

Eating a healthy diet is a lifestyle choice that hopefully also includes an active lifestyle.  It’s not easy, I know that, but it is important.  If we care about our kids, we need to feed both them and us healthy, nutritious diets, even if it is a challenge, even if it requires some sacrifice.  What are your excuses?

One of the biggest excuses I hear is that results are just not forthcoming.  Think about all those people you know who resolve on January 1 to go to the gym this year, but come June regular exercise is a thing of the past.  They didn’t see results fast enough.  The gym can yield results quickly, if you throw yourself into it in a way most of us do not have the time and motivation for.  But if you make the gym a lifestyle, you will see results, even if you only go a couple times a week.  You will see results, but they will take a while.

Changes to diet present the same exact challenge.  Fad diets are popular because the results are immediate.  But the change doesn’t last.  If we want healthy kids, we need to change their lifestyles.  They should eat a healthy, balanced diet as a whole life change, not just as a weight loss method.  The change will be gradual, but stick with it.  Have patience.

For severely obese kids on a very strict vegan diet, results can be seen in as few as four weeks.  But you don’t have to go to such an extreme to see results, nor do you have to have a child whose health profile is so dire.  Instead, make changes, even baby steps, to feed your family a healthier diet.  Don’t reassess to see if there has been progress after just a month or two.  Reassess for progress in the long term – six months to a year.  And if you really want to know how much progress is being made, don’t rely solely on checking your child’s waistline to see if they need slimmer pants.  Have their blood tested by a health professional before and after to see how their body is doing inside, not just the visible outside.

Dietitians agree that patience is a key to good health.  If we can get past our excuses and start taking steps toward eating a healthier diet, eventually we can get there.  I didn’t start doing six hours a week in the gym – I started with two and worked my way up from there.  Similarly, start with one or two homemade family meals every week and begin cutting out one unhealthy food item each shopping trip.

But most of all, have patience.

Passover: A Healthy Diet for Kids How-To

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Passover: A Healthy Diet for Kids How-To

Passover Matzah

Apologies for my brief hiatus. I usually try to post every single day but I guess I have to admit my human fallibility in that I have not been able to keep up these past few days. I’ll try to get caught up now, but I hope in the meantime everyone will accept my sincerest apologies. I’ve been busy trying to come up with ways to feed my kids a healthy diet, even during Passover.

You see, we have a holiday coming up: Passover. Passover is a healthy diet killer. Basically, we have a week and a half of really strict dietary restrictions. We don’t eat any leaven, which basically eliminates all major grains, with the exception of matzah, a type of unleavened flatbread. We also keep additional restrictions as part of our family tradition. These prohibit eating pseudo-grains like rice, corn products, and beans, legumes, and pulses. Because of my husband’s family traditions, we also avoid any combination of matzah with any liquids (so we do not use it in cooking), and we also eat only vegetables we can peel, unless prepared before the festival begins.

Of course, these restrictions cut a lot of the healthy food out of our diets. Usually beans (including tofu or tempeh once a week) and pulses are our main source of protein during the week (along with some eggs and a small amount of fish once per week). We typically eat wheat (bread) just once a week, unless it’s a special occasion that calls for sandwiches. Instead, brown rice is our main staple.

Most families I know during this holiday eat an incredibly unhealthy diet. Meat is a main feature of almost every meal. Some families do not even use oil during the holiday, replacing it instead with schmaltz, or chicken fat. When families are not eating meat, they are eating lots of fish and dairy. A lot of matzah is eaten and many families cook with it, too. The main vegetable staple during this holiday is potatoes because they are versatile, filling, and are easily peeled. Because of the dietary restrictions during this period, or perhaps just because it is a celebration, families often see this as a chance to shower their kids with treats, like chocolates, candies, coconut macaroons, and marshmallows.

In short, Passover is a diet killer.

But it doesn’t have to be. Here are some ideas for ways to make your Passover diet healthier and potentially more tasty, too!

Eat More Fruit

Resist the urge to snack on specially produced Passover treats, like potato chips and chocolates. Try not to make batches of French fries just for snacks. Instead, make sure you have a ready supply of fruit on hand. Buy fruit you really enjoy, even if it’s more expensive. Processed Passover food is incredibly expensive, so instead of spending money on snacks, buy the fruit that you like best. Strawberries, mangoes, and papaya are good treats (the latter two can also be peeled easily). We buy a lot of melons for the holiday, plus pineapples, apples, and oranges.

You can also substitute fruit for desserts. Rather than baking some sort of cake, chocolate dessert, pudding, pavlova, or other sweet treat, go for natural sweetness. I like to serve hot baked or stewed apples with nothing but cinnamon and a drizzle of date syrup to complement the natural sweetness. Or simply cut up some fresh fruit and serve that!

Find Potato Alternatives

Potatoes are ubiquitous during Passover. They seem to be in everything. There’s potato and leek soup, potato kugel, potato pancakes, baked potatoes, potato salad, potato omelets, French fries… the list goes on and on. Potatoes aren’t the worst food in the world, but they’re not exactly the most nutrient dense either. Try substituting sweet potatoes for regular potatoes in almost any recipe. You can also use pumpkin for some recipes and vegetables like zucchini to make fries.

Think Outside the Box

Many people who think of Passover food have a certain set of classic dishes in mind. Chicken soup, brisket, maybe some matzah balls. But why restrict yourself? During the year I make lots of healthy dishes that are Passover friendly, but because they’re not “Passover food” we don’t think to make them on Passover. Ratatouille is one I make year round (on Passover, serve it over quinoa rather than rice, unless you’re Sephardi). Fresh, homemade pesto is beautiful over roasted fish or vegetables. The list goes on and on.

You can also consider changing existing recipes to make them Passover-friendly. Make a pizza base with (slightly overcooked and thin) sweet potato kugel, then top with homemade tomato sauce. We don’t do much dairy, but you can sprinkle with a bit of cheese if you want – other great toppings include fresh basil or sliced tomatoes, roasted capsicum (bell peppers), broccoli, sautéed onion, garlic, or olives. Replace rice, bulgar wheat, and couscous in traditional recipes like tabbouleh with quinoa. Instead of using noodles in soup, cook up well blended egg into very thin pancakes, roll them up, and slice them into strings. Instead of serving spaghetti as a dish, make zucchini noodles or use spaghetti squash.

Salad, Salad, Salad

It’s no secret that traditional Passover diets cause constipation. All that hard-to-digest matzah coupled with a diet heavy in animal products like meat, fish, dairy, and eggs, supplemented largely by floury white potatoes, leads to a diet low in fiber and constipation is the inevitable result. Some people say to counteract constipation by giving kids sugar water, but that is definitely not the healthier option. Instead, counteract constipation by giving your kids lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Make salad part of their daily diet. There is no end to the variety of salads you can give kids on Passover. Israeli salad, with diced cucumber, tomato, and capsicum (bell pepper) and finely diced red onion, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, is refreshing. Kids love the bite-sized cubes of fresh vegetables. Coleslaw can be dressed with a citrus vinaigrette rather than mayonnaise. Jazz up potato salad by using boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beets in equal amounts, dressed with orange juice, apple cider vinegar, and olive oil. Make plenty of green salads and don’t restrict yourself to iceberg lettuce – romaine lettuce is much more nutritious.   Try making spinach salads with sweet fruits like strawberries, mango, or kiwi fruit, with nuts (like slivered almonds) sprinkled on top for some crunch and protein, and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables will give your kids the fiber they need to “stay regular” even in the face of a massive onslaught of matzah.

Make it a Fun Challenge

I love a challenge, and one of my favorite kinds of challenges is how to use a new type of food in my cooking. At the market, select a fruit or vegetable you’ve never used before and try to integrate it somehow into your Passover menu. (This year I’ve got quince – can you believe I’ve never had quince before?!) By doing this, you guarantee you will have something new and novel in your Passover menu. This forces you to think outside your Passover food box and also gives your family something new to try.

Chag Sameach!

“Chag sameach,” or “happy holiday” is a traditional greeting and well-wish for any Jewish holiday, so I extend it to you now. Jewish or not, there is no reason why Passover has to be any less healthy or nutritious for your family than any other time of the year. Have a happy, healthy holiday!

Baby Paleo Diet Cookbook Unhealthy and On Hold

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Baby Paleo Diet Cookbook Unhealthy and On Hold

Publication of a paleo diet cookbook for babies has been put on hold after experts expressed concern over the health of babies put on the diet.  I have expressed concern over the paleo diet before.  Yes, some aspects of the paleo diet are healthy for kids, but there are lots of reasons why the paleo diet is unhealthy for kids (lots and lots).  Now scientists are warning that the new paleo diet cookbook includes dietary advice that could lead to the death of a baby.

Some of the central tenets of the paleo diet are the avoidance of processed foods, dairy, pulses, and legumes.  However, preventing babies from consuming these could be very dangerous for their health.  The new cookbook, slated to be published by Pan Macmillan and endorsed by celebrity chef Pete Evans, is called “Bubba Yum Yum: The Paleo Way” and includes dangerous dietary restrictions for babies and toddlers.

One of the recipes in the book in particular has garnered significant concern.  The “DIY baby milk formula” is based on chicken liver.  The book claims it “mimics the nutrient profile of breast milk,” is “the next best thing” to breast milk and is a “wonderful alternative” to breast milk.  Of course chicken liver in no way compares to breast milk, as it is full of proteins and fats foreign to human breast milk.  Experts have expressed concerns over the nutrient profile, which does not mimic breast milk at all – in fact, it contains dangerously high levels of vitamin A and insufficient amounts of other essential nutrients.

Exclusive breastfeeding is the ideal for healthy babies, but not all mothers can manage it.  Some women are unable to breastfeed and some babies have trouble with it, too.  Whatever the reason, if a baby is unable to breastfeed, World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines make it pretty clear that expressed breast milk is “the next best thing” to breast milk.  Infant formulas, although not the perfect food for babies, have been tried and tested for a long time, so we know that you can raise a happy, healthy baby by feeding them exclusively on infant formula.  They are scientifically created to have as close as possible to the right balance of nutrients a baby needs.  The paleo “baby bone broth” formula, on the other hand, will leave babies consuming dangerously high levels of vitamin A, while not consuming enough of many other vitamins and minerals.

The dangers to a baby who consumes this kind of diet exclusively are very real.  In an interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine, the president of the Public Health Association of Australia warned:

There’s a very real possibility that a baby may die if this book goes ahead. … Especially if [the DIY formula] was the only food a parent was feeding their infant, it’s a very real risk. And the baby’s growth and development could be impaired.

The cookbook also advocates other diet dangers for babies, including feeding babies undercooked eggs and adding extra salt to their diet, which babies do not need.  The Australian federal Health Ministry has been taking a very close look at the cookbook, as the “department is concerned about the inadequate nutritional values of some of the foods, in particular for infants, and is investigating further.”

Of course, scientists have been expressing concerns about the health values of the paleo diet overall.  This diet is, theoretically, based on an ancient hunter-gatherer diet, but there are lots of issues with it, scientifically.  Ancient hunter-gatherers lived a very different lifestyle from the one we live today.  We drive cars, have sedentary jobs, and buy our food in a grocery store, none of which would have been even remote options for our ancient ancestors.  Ancient hunter-gatherers would also have binge eaten due to scarcity of food and lack of refrigeration.  Some meat may have been dehydrated or smoked, but in a typical hunter-gatherer society, any animal caught would have been eaten in its entirety by the group, right away.  Hunter-gatherers may have gorged themselves but then not found any more food for another few days.  Yet this is clearly not a healthy way to live.

Humans have changed physically, too, since the paleolithic days.  We eat a much wider variety of foods today.  The majority of hunter-gatherer societies subsisted on just a few different foods, as that was all that was locally available.  However, since the invention of agriculture, humans have been able to cultivate dozens of different food crops at one time, in addition to the production of animals for meat and milk, and have adapted accordingly.   Even domesticated dogs have physically adapted to a diet including grains, and so have humans. Avoiding giving a child any dairy can also place them at higher risk of developing an allergy to it in the future. Pulses are a much healthier protein alternative to animal fats and proteins, which humans do not digest well and which are linked to a lot of diseases ranging from heart disease to osteoporosis.

Speaking of animal fats and proteins, the paleo diet places a heavy emphasis on fish and meat.  However, the meats we purchase today are typically much higher in fat content than wild meats – wild meat fat content is about 2%, while grain-fed commercially produced meat contains about 20% fat.  The paleo diet does recommend wild or grass-fed meat, but these meats are very expensive, so I would be surprised if no adherents cut corners on that little detail.  But I digress – the problem is that the majority of hunter-gatherer societies consumed very little meat at all, which is why humans are poorly adapted to meat consumption. “Meat was a celebration [because] you had to expend a lot of energy on the hunt,” says Professor Hayes of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and not every hunt was successful, making meat very scarce.  Any meat caught would have been shared with the entire tribe, as well, so individuals may not even have gotten a very large quantity of meat per person.

Certainly, hunter-gatherers would not have been feeding babies a formula made of chicken liver.  That would never have entered their minds.  All babies were fed breast milk – if not, they would die.  There simply was no formula.  If a mother could not breastfeed her baby, another mother in the group would suckle it along with her own baby.  Breast milk was the only option and there was no alternative. I suppose that if parents on the paleo diet want to force their kids to be on this diet as well, the most accurate way to do so would be to find a wet nurse if you are unable to breastfeed.

The reality is that if parents want to raise healthy kids, the paleo diet is not the way to do it.  It is simply not a nutritionally ideal diet for babies and children.  In fact, it could even be making them unhealthy or, in the case of the chicken liver infant formula, actually risking their lives.  By all means, take the good things from the paleo diet – avoid processed foods, cut out sugar – but keep the good things that are not paleo, too, like grains and pulses.  This is the way to inspire healthy kids.