Kid Food Choices: Will They Make the Right Ones?

Kid Food Choices

Growing up, the garden was somewhat family-cultural; it was an overflow of the psychological “make-do or do-without” mindset of both my parents, who came from poor, Midwestern backgrounds.  It wasn’t because it was healthy; it was just a past-time and the way to secure access to green tomatoes for frying.  Still, my favorite childhood food memories were the watermelon seed-spitting contests off the porch, stealing strawberries straight from the patch, measuring my height against the corn, and the fresh onions we kept in a glass of water on the table for any passerby to grab and munch.

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Chia Seeds: Nutrition & Cooking Tips

Chia Seeds Nutrition

I am a traditionalist in most things, including food; I rarely jump on a bandwagon for the newest healthy thing out there, because most of it is bunk.  But then, in our modern age, many of us are still discovering the traditional foods that other people groups have been eating for centuries.  Such is the case with chia seeds.  This nutty, delicious seed spiked in popularity about a year or so ago and is now falling into the shadows of the latest-coolness; but I do not consider it a “bandwagon” at all—rather, we were all a bit late to the party and shouldn’t make an exit too soon.

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Iron Rich Spices

Spices High in Iron

Most people who read the Pantry Paratus blog are learning to cook whole foods in traditional ways, and so it is unlikely that you would have iron deficiencies.   I happen to know that many of you prefer cooking in cast iron skillets, which imparts some iron into your food, and that you tend to be meat eaters (based upon the number of Chop Rite meat grinders and meat preservation tools we sell in the course of the year at Pantry Paratus).  Just the same, babies who had a low birth weight or other complications, children who do not eat varied diets, women with heavy menstrual cycles, or people who have experienced anemia in the past sometimes need to make a conscientious effort to ensure they are getting a healthy dose of dietary iron. Here are some iron rich spices to help you in your effort.

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Group Snacks: When the Cool Mom Crowd Causes Compromise

Group Snacks

Group Snacks: When the Cool Mom Crowd Causes Compromise

(& Why I Won’t Next Time)

Group Snacks

 

Have you ever provided, exclusively, the group snack for the team, for the club, or school party?  I mean, have you been the only one bringing food to a gaggle of children? 

In most cases, we attend gatherings where everyone brings something, and so we feel free to take food that we will personally eat as a family—in fact, we feel required to do so since it’s likely that my corn-allergic kid will only be able to eat what I personally bring.  I figure, with other options available they can take it or leave it, and I really don’t care.  They can wrinkle their nose and I can feel all the pious-pity for them that I want, declaring that they do not understand real food and are the truly unfortunate ones.  Then, when the parents like it and ask for the recipe, I can simultaneously indulge in that  praise even while feeling sorry for those who don’t understand real food.

Okay, I’m not as bad as all that.  At least, I never let on that I’m not as bad as all that. 

 

It was our week to bring the team snack to the soccer game.  I spent 2 weeks  making a complete issue out of a non-issue.  Yes, I’m that mom.   All of the snacks thus far have been pre-packaged, nothing homemade.  Is this the social protocol? Is there room for homemade snacks on the soccer field?  I felt pressure to get this right and still hold to my values.

You see, food for me is a moral issue.    I placed pressure upon myself to find something:  1)prepackaged in portion size, 2) appetizing/appealing to 2nd graders, 3) non-gmo and healthy, and 4) affordable enough to feed the entire team.

To quote the Princess’ Bride, “I don’t believe they exist.” 

I was shocked when my husband found prepackaged baby carrots in the same container that those fake-cheese & crackers come, but in the cheese section was ranch dressing.  Okay, I can do this, I thought.  Sure, the ranch dressing had all kinds of stuff we don’t eat.  I really felt like I was compromising for the sake of imagined peer pressure, but I was willing to do it to keep my kid from feeling  like he had “that mom.”

He’s going to have a lot of that in years to come. 

The game was close, we lost by one, hands were slapped in typical good-game fashion, and they made a run straight for me.  Snack Mom.  One by one, “no thank you.”  They were polite, but only the moms took the snacks, not a single kid of his own volition accepted.

Perhaps this falls into the category of “First World Problems”…okay, it totally does.  There is, however, a deeper, more sensitive issue at play: when every lifestyle choice you make is deliberate and you are forever getting strange looks and probing questions from others, sometimes you lack the strength to do it again.   I can answer for my own weirdness all day long, but I do not want my kids to be forced into answering for it.

Those who have been reading this blog over the last three years know I have a bad habit of shrinking myself (previous occupational hazard), and this is the question I ultimately have to ask…which moral stance has the greater value: eating ethical food that is healthy and nutritious, or keeping my kid from a potential sideways glance from another child?

My children are healthy and strong inside and out.  Next time, I won’t compromise:

*I won’t because if these kids are going to see these ethics as valuable, they must see them as consistent , first.

*I won’t compromise because part of being a caring adult means that I would not feed someone else’s child food that I know is unhealthy—regardless of their parents’ own decisions on the matter.

*I won’t compromise because if my kid does get that snicker or sideways glance, it’s a monitored learning tool that we can utilize to guide family discussions towards things like leadership, handling peer pressure, resilience, and standing up for what is right.

 

And so, next time, I think I’ll follow the lead from other moms who have had this First World Problem, and conquer it with homemade gelatin.  Here are some suggestions:

*Best post ever on homemade granola treats:

30 Recipes for Granola

Here is a place I can go to when I’m feeling weak (and a place to send other moms who need the encouragement to keep consistency): https://www.facebook.com/spoonfedblog.net
These homemade fruit snacks look irresistable!

Homemade Fruit Snacks

 

AnnMarie Rossi is an expert at this sort of thing, and so I’ll point you to her work on the Untrained Housewife, like her healthy cookie dough bars, for instance.

Healthy Cookie Dough Bars

 

Yup, that’s all I got…but what is your go-to snack for group snack duty? 

 

Comments:

Rebecca | LettersFromSunnybrook.com

posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 4:06:25 PM America/Denver

Oh, that’s a tough situation! I have corn allergy as well and cannot eat any prepackaged or processed foods. While I try to get my family to eat more from-scratch, healthy food, I feel I am competing with all the “fun, more interesting” foods they are bombarded with in advertising. My son’s 14th birthday is coming up and I suggested that I could make homemade pizzas or tacos for him and his friends. He said, “Mom, I really like your pizza best, but I’m not sure my friends will know how to appreciate it the same way, so I think we should get it from Pizza Hut.” I was glad he was honest and able to express himself. So, for his party I will cough up what I see as a lot of money on someone else’s pizza so he can fit in with his new friends. Other times I will serve my homemade food. It is a tough call though.You know exactly what I’m talking about! First of all, serious props for raising such a mature kid, that he can express himself clearly yet gently. And he’s probably right–his friends won’t know how to fully appreciate it.As an aside, and in the light of compromise (which this entire blog is saying I won’t do)…we did discover that this a corn-free option at Papa Murphy’s (the take-and-bake)…you will have to check their online menu, but you can get the alternate crust and sauce to make it completely corn-free. We discovered this while we were on vacation at someone’s home who was ordering pizza. So yeah, there are just times we have to make the best of the situation. Thanks for the comment!

Marcia Little

posted on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 2:01:16 PM America/Denver

I make homemade granola cereal, granola bars, and fruit and grain bars. My whole family chows down on them, and I know what went in them.Marcia, great example–we love the idea.  We were half tempted to do just that, but fear of Urban Myths drives “the standard” which seems to be individually packaged portion sized serving.  Kinda the same standard for Halloween candy, if it looks homemade there is a 0.0002% chance of a razor blade being in the apple, so throw it away.  But, I do love the idea.-Wilson

Libby Kuhlmann

posted on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 9:57:42 PM America/Denver

When my youngest daughter was in Brownie and Girl Scouts – years ago, I’m a granny now 🙂 – I found the one thing that was absolutely irresistible to the girls and it was something that they all looked forward to when it was my turn for snacks – once a month on a rotating basis. I would make a turkey sized platter of cut up veggies with a couple of bowls of homemade ranch dressing. It was always a big hit and there was never one bite, or even a sliver of vegetable, left on the platter and most of the time the bowls would be “wiped” clean of dressing and no matter how much I piled on the tray I was usually asked if I had more to share. When she was older and playing softball, I did the same thing with the vegetable tray and it still was a treat for the girls and I never returned home with anything but an empty tray and bowls. It seems I was the only mother who brought this for a snack and it turned out to be something the girls really liked and always looked forward to Crystal’s mom bringing the “good stuff.” Just an idea someone might like for a daughter in sports or Scouts. I doubt this would go over with a bunch of ruff and tumble boys (it wasn’t too popular with most of the boys when my sons played ball, but I had to try, but my sons loved it) but it most likely would be a hit with the girls.

Sheila

posted on Thursday, October 2, 2014 5:47:44 AM America/Denver

First I’d like to say, my daughter made fun of me a little for insisting on buying normal, healthy, organic food. Yes, they are more expensive but well worth it. She told me yesterday that since she has been going to farmers market, buying organic foods, eating less processed foods and drinking whole, unprocessed milk, she feels a lot better. Score one for Mom. As far as Halloween, I wanted to make wholesome treats too, but the way it is now it’s no longer accepted. I had out the fruit tummies made from fruit with no additives.

Sheila

posted on Thursday, October 2, 2014 5:48:52 AM America/Denver

First I’d like to say, my daughter made fun of me a little for insisting on buying normal, healthy, organic food. Yes, they are more expensive but well worth it. She told me yesterday that since she has been going to farmers market, buying organic foods, eating less processed foods and drinking whole, unprocessed milk, she feels a lot better. Score one for Mom. As far as Halloween, I wanted to make wholesome treats too, but the way it is now it’s no longer accepted. I had out the fruit tummies made from fruit with no additives.

Heidi @ PintSizeFarm

posted on Friday, October 3, 2014 10:46:33 AM America/Denver

This is really hard. We have had a few people bring healthy options and a couple homemade – but they usually bring a pre-packaged thing too.

Here is the skinny on fats

Here is the skinny on fats

What are fats and why do I care?

 

Fats, they have become bad words in modern society eating modern diets.  The trouble is that they have kept us alive and healthy for millennia.  Breast milk is the super food that it is because it contains both high cholesterol for brain development and 4% fat by weight to keep baby full longer between feedings (just ask any mother who has breast fed about that inherent benefit at 3 AM). 

 However, along about the 1950’s food production was already highly mechanized and becoming more processed when a researcher by the name of Ansel Keys developed the Lipid Hypothosis.  In case you are not conversant in dietary theory, here is a great graphic from New Trends Publishing that Sally Fallon Morell uses in her Oiling of America DVD to explain it:

 

Lipid Hypothesis

Original slide can be found at: http://newtrendspublishing.com/ppts/OilingofAmerica.ppt

 The problem with the Lipid Hypothesis is that it was constructed on flimsy–or to be charitable–incomplete science.  Nevertheless, it was a counterpart to some great marketing forces and the low-fat trend was born. The only thing worse than fats to a lipophobe (a term that I believe was coined by Michael Pollan) is saturated fats from animals.  So before the low-carb trend came along, we had low-fat (neither of these are healthy by the way) and somehow what supported vitality in people all the way down to the cellular level was discarded.  Keep an eye out for this when you watch tv or read magazines.  The temptation is to equivocate real bread with the shelf-stable imposter you see in the grocery store.  In the same way using broad strokes like that, you get that treatment in something like this (although I agree with the discussion on fats):

 

Here is a better question, what are fats?  From a food chemistry stand point, most of the fats we eat are called triacylglycerols (root word there being “acyl;” although triglycerides are the same thing, the former is the better descriptor) (Joachim & Schloss, p. 220).  Fats are substances that are not water soluble, but make food interesting and give it a pleasing texture to your mouth, are a concentrated energy source, are the building blocks for cell membranes, are the carriers for the überimportant Vitamins A, D, E & K, are needed for mineral absorption, for the conversion of carotene into Vitamin A and most notably fats are the mother of all hormones (Fallon & Enig, p. 4).  Take this other slide from Sally Fallon Morell’s DVD, The Oiling of America:

 

Cholesterol the Mother of all Hormones Original slide can be found at: http://newtrendspublishing.com/ppts/OilingofAmerica.ppt

It is my hope that I can establish the necessity of fats in a healthy diet and that a low-fat diet is not healthy not only because it does not contain fats, but because it also contains lots of chemicals that are very unhealthy—more on that for another blog. Put more succinctly by Sally Fallon Morell in her presentation, The Oiling of America, Blaming fats and high cholesterol is like blaming fires on firemen.  Every time we see a fire, we see a fireman so the premature unscientific conclusion is to blame firemen for fires (Morell, 2008)

If we delete if [fat] from our diets, we subject ourselves to nutritional deficiencies as we would lose our ability to absorb fat-soluble vitamins and valuable phytonuturients (lutein, lycopene, beta-caotene, and vitamins A, D, and E).  Fats are a integral part of cell membranes and the production of hormones, and they are essential for brain development and activity and the workings of the nervous system and liver.  The problem in industrialized culture is that we tend to take in too much of the wrong kinds of fat, which can have negative consequences on our health (Joachim & Schloss, p. 118). 

“I have heard that saturated fats are bad for you, what are unsaturated fats—are they better for you?”  The answer is, it depends . . . let us make sure we are talking about the same thing first.

Saturated fats can be short, medium or long chain fatty acid compounds.  Or put another way, all short and medium chain fatty acids will be saturated and some long chain fatty acids can be saturated—it is more like a continuum than anything else.  What makes it short or long chain is the number of carbon atoms in the molecule.  As an analogy, the difference between butane and diesel fuel (generally speaking) is the number of carbon atoms in the particular hydrocarbon molecule with methane having the fewest and tar having the most.  On that continuum in ascending number of carbon atoms in the chain are: gasoline, diesel fuel, gear oil, paraffin candle wax, etc. all with different numbers of carbon atoms in the chain affecting their molecular weight and physical properties as a compound. 

Engine Oil

The big difference between fats and oils are how we observe them at room temperature, and saturated fats are a solid at room temperature.  Another interesting fact about saturated fats is that they are very stable and perform the best in cooking as well—more on that in this blog.  Back to the comparison, your body can make saturated fats if need be as a function of the liver by digesting complex carbohydrates (hence the hydrocarbon analogy). 

Unsaturated fats are what we observe as a liquid at room temperature.  Not all unsaturated fats are equal and of these my personal favorite is olive oil!  The unsaturated fats do not stand up to heat as well as saturated fats, and they can go rancid quickly in warm humid environments because they are comparatively unstable.  By unstable I mean that they will look to fill up those blank hydrogen places in a process called known as oxidization.  The category “unsaturated fats” is actually subdivided into monounsaturated and polyunsaturated.   
Monounsaturated Fat

Monounsaturated is the preferred group for us here at Pantry Paratus because they are the closest to what you can find in nature and (unsurprisingly) you body knows what to do with them.  Polyunsaturated fats have two subcategories as well, essential and conditionally essential (although not opposed).  Some of these oils your body cannot make are called “essential oils” and are found in nature in fish, fresh herbs and some kinds of seeds—but not all polyunsaturated oils are the same.  “The two must-haves for essential fatty acids are omega-6 linoleic [sic] acid and omega-3 alpha-linolenic–and there are several other conditionally essential fatty acids (Fallon & Enig, p. 306).

“I heard my doctor tell me to stay away from trans fats, what are they?”  These are the imposters . . .

When you need a pastry to have the flakiest crust nothing performs better than lard or tallow—these are made from rendered pig fat and cow or sheep fat, respectively.  These are the gold standard of fats since they do not oxidize–they are stable, keep for a really long time and are very pure.  However, keeping pigs can be a hassle, and would it not be just so much easier if we could just pump hydrocarbons out of the ground or genetically modify some oil seed plant instead?  Amazingly this is where a lot of trans fats come from and knowing this helps us have a more informed answer to the question, “What are fats?”  The answer will depend on the kind of fat you are talking about. 

 

What are fats

 

Where saturated fats are short chain fatty acid compounds, they exhibit the characteristic of having all of their carbon atoms filled with hydrogen atoms making them “flat and easy to stack” together which we observe as a solid at room temperature.  Monounsaturated fatty acid compounds lack two hydrogen atoms making them have a slight kink in the molecular shape so we observe them as a liquid at room temperature.  The danger with trans fats is that they (heavily) process the fat to accept a hydrogen atom where it was not meant to be (we rarely observe this in nature).  This gives the new hydrogenated oil a physical performance like lard and a high smoking point like lard but is essentially a huge health risk on the cellular level once it is in your body.  These hydrogenated oils are free radicals, and they will oxidize or steal electrons from your body’s tissue to “complete” themselves.  Compounded over time, this is a huge problem in your body because your cells depend on cholesterol to repair themselves.  When all your cells have to work with is imposter fats, the results can be devastating because they are accumulative over time. 

The “trans” in trans fats is from the molecule straightening back up from its normal “kinked” shape (or “cis” formation) as a polyunsaturated fat.  The process renders this polyunsaturated fat that was once a liquid as a solid at room temperature.  Since polyunsaturated oils will go rancid at high temperatures, they must be “deodorized” in a process using heat—seems like a catch 22 but it is the method that they use.  During this deodorizing step, one hydrogen atom is forced across (or trans) the molecule causing it to straighten out again making the molecular misfit transformation complete.

“What is the difference between hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated?” 

The best answer for this that I have read is in the amazingly funny and informative book Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger.  In there he goes to an industrial plant where from the looks of it they may have been making paint or perfume, but actually it was full-hydrogenated oil (or “full hydro”).  Like lard, it is a solid at room temp, and will not flow unless it is heated up.  So as it is dispensed into train cars for transport it is in a warm liquid state.  When the train car arrives at the food processing plant as an ingredient for the now defunct Twinkie® it has to sit there hooked up to a steam pump to heat up the steam jacketed rail car so that the hydrogenated oil can flow again.  This is probably why it was originally sold as a candle wax alternative

 

 Crisco

Cholesterol in your body is actually necessary and a good thing designed to be there.  When saturated or monounsaturated fats are incorporated into a healthy diet, the body is able to carry out cellular functions, keep nervous system activity running optimally, deal with stress as well as provide hormones and the reproductive system the high octane fuel that they need.  Trans fats are imposters because although Crisco looks like lard at room temperature, it is a marauder inside of your body in the form of being a free radical. 

Wilson

Pro Deo et Patria


 

Photo credits:

  • Lipid Theory by Sally Fallon Morell, New Trends Publishing.  Can be found here
  • Cholesterol, the Mother of all Hormones by Sally Fallon Morell, New Trends Publishing.  Can be found here
  • Engine Oil: photo credit: brionv via photopin cc
  • Monounsaturated Fat: photo credit: USDAgov via photopin cc
  • What are Fats by Pantry Paratus compiled from images from the public domain, the WAPF and information from Nourishing Traditions (cited above)
  • Crisco: photo credit: tellumo via photopin cc

 

Works Cited:

Fallon, S., & Enig, M. (2005). Nourishing traditions. (Deluxe Edition ed., p. 4). Washington DC: NewTrends Publishing.

 Morell, S. (Presenter) (2008). The oiling of America [DVD].

Joachim, D., & Schloss, A. (2008). The science of good food. (p. 220). Toronto: Robert Rose.

Further reading:

 

Proviso:

 Nothing in this blog constitutes medical advice.  You should consult your own physician before making any dietary changes.  Statements in this blog may or may not be congruent with current USDA or FDA guidance.