Reflections on Food, Health and Being the 'Weird' Parents

Before getting to the meat of this entry (no pun intended), I want to first make it clear that I am by no means an expert on the topics of food, health or nutrition. I do not have any fancy degrees or certifications declaring me knowledgeable on these topics and you should not believe anything I have to say about them. Instead, I encourage all parents to look into these matters for themselves and make the decisions they feel are in the best interest of their families.
 
On Being the 'Weird' Parents and Handling Criticism

As many people know, my husband and I have always been very particular about our kid's diet. We are the 'weird' parents who are known to pack 'special' food for our kid when traveling, and at restaurants, family gatherings and parties. We are the 'crazy' parents who have been known to intercept the unidentified ice-cream bar, the chocolate chip cookie and the piece of candy from entering our kid's mouth at a family get-together. Yes, we are those weirdos. 

We have also been called hypocritical for occasionally following different dietary standards ourselves, than the much stricter standards we have for our son. I understand the confused and sometimes judgmental reactions we receive. I will even admit that our parenting philosophy regarding food is sometimes hypocritical. But I think sometimes onlookers fail to consider that in some areas, perhaps there is good reasoning behind having different standards for children and adults. Almost all parents will at some point run into an area where they seem to have a double standard between what they do themselves and what they find appropriate for their children. Almost all parents are in some sense or another, hypocrites. I believe many of the differences in standards we tend to have for children and adults are born out of a natural human tendency to regard the care and protection of children as much more important than that of adults and in general, I think this is a good thing.

For example, most parents wouldn't allow their child to consume an alcoholic beverage, a cigarette or other known hazardous substance before the child is old enough to intelligently weigh the risks and benefits of these substances for themselves. Why then, should hazardous chemicals in foods be treated any differently? In my opinion they shouldn't be. The World Health Organization (WHO) seems to (at least in part) agree with me-

As a 2008 WHO presentation entitled, "Children Are Not Little Adults" explains, 

"All children deserve the right to grow up in a healthy environment where they can reach their full potential as citizens of the world. Sustainable development has at its core healthy children. Health is much more than mere absence of illness. It is the responsibility of today’s adults to identify hazards and conditions that impair children’s ability to grow and mature safely and in good health.

We now recognize that children, including the embryo, fetus, infant and all life stages until the completion of adolescence, are often at a different and increased risk from environmental hazards from that of adults, for reasons that can be divided into four major categories.

1. Children often have different, and sometimes unique, exposures to environmental hazards from those of adults.

2. Due to their dynamic developmental physiology children are often subjected to higher exposures to pollutants found in air, water and food. These exposures may be handled quite differently by an immature set of systems to the way they are dealt with in adults. Furthermore, the developmental component of a child’s physiology is changing: maturing, differentiating and growing in phases known as "developmental windows". These "critical windows of vulnerability" have no parallel in adult physiology and create unique risks for children exposed to hazards that can alter normal function and structure.

3. Children have a longer life expectancy. Therefore they have longer to manifest a disease with a long latency period, and longer to live with toxic damage. 

4. Finally, children are politically powerless; they are defenceless. With no political standing of their own, they must rely on adults to protect them from toxic environmental agents."

This being the case, I pray to God that Nature will have mercy on my developing baby in spite of my occasional weakness for a soda and pizza during my pregnancy so far...

When it comes to my kid's diet, my (imperfect) philosophy is this:

Where I as an adult can intelligently weigh the risks and benefits of what I put into my body, my 3 year old is not capable of doing the same for himself. Therefore it is my responsibility as a parent to make these choices for him according to what I believe is in his best interest. Would it be ideal if parents never did or ate anything that they would not also choose for their kid/s? Sure. Am I a hypocrite for sometimes indulging in foods that I do not allow my kid to eat? Yes. But on the whole, the foods my family has in common far outnumber the foods that we don’t. To the extent that our family is financially and practically able (barring occasional lapses in personal willpower) we all eat organic foods, pastured meat and dairy products and try to limit processed foods. And YES, occasionally we are hypocrites. I think most parents would be lying if they claimed that they've never fallen into this category at one time or another.

On Becoming a New Mom and Learning About Health and Diet

When our son was first born, I didn’t know the first thing about proper nutrition for an adult, let alone for a child. The only thing I knew was that breast milk was supposed to be better than formula due mostly to the passage of antibodies, immune-boosters and essential enzymes to the baby’s system. I later learned that for these same reasons, breast milk is more healthful than formula even in spite of a mother’s poor diet, and that the immune-boosting properties of breast milk can have long-lasting positive health effects for a child well into his/her adulthood. So I had about 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding to do my research and figure out what in the world I was going to feed this kid once we started introducing solid foods.

During that time I did a lot of research and reading but to be honest, many times I found myself not understanding what I had read, not knowing how to interpret certain information or which sources to trust. I often became so frustrated and overwhelmed by conflicting information and mixed consensus that I wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and let my kid eat whatever he wanted. But instead of giving up altogether, when I became too frustrated I would take a break from reading and try to decide which health tips I had read about that seemed to make the most logical sense and seemed feasible for me to accomplish with my limited knowledge. Luckily I also had the full support of my husband and together we were able to come away with a basic set of dietary tenets for our son that we felt were most critical.

   

First we decided on only organic fruits and vegetables. During my research I learned that the extensive body of research on organic versus conventional produce overwhelmingly indicates that organic produce contains higher levels of antioxidants, lower levels of pesticides and lower levels of toxic metals that accumulate in the body and contribute to disease.

According to a 2004 report by Pesticide Action Network, North America (PANNA), "Many U.S. residents carry toxic pesticides in their bodies above government assessed "acceptable" levels." Of 9,282 people tested nationwide by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PANNA researchers found that 100 percent had pesticides in their blood and urine, indicating that "government and industry have failed to safeguard public health from pesticide exposures." Kristin Schafer, lead author of the 2004 PANNA report stated that, "The average person in this group carried a toxic cocktail of 13 of the 23 pesticides we analyzed."

The report further states that, "While the government develops safety levels for each chemical separately, this study shows that in the real world we are exposed to multiple chemicals simultaneously," explained Margaret Reeves, of PANNA. "The synergistic effects of multiple exposures are unknown, but a growing body of research suggests that even at very low levels, the combination of these chemicals can be harmful to our health."

Our next tenet was to aim for a diet rich in high quality fats, proteins and vegetables, while keeping grains and sugars to a minimum. The Weston A. Price Foundation (a non-profit charity that promotes nutrition education, based on the field research of the late Dr. Weston A. Price) recommends a rethinking of current USDA dietary guidelines citing that these guidelines "are based on the flawed notion that cholesterol and saturated fat are unhealthy. They are unrealistic, unworkable, unscientific and impractical; they have resulted in widespread nutrient deficiencies and contributed to a proliferation of obesity and degenerative disease, including problems with growth, behavior and learning in children."

The following outline shows the foundation's suggested replacement dietary guidelines:

"The Weston A. Price Foundation strongly urges the USDA Dietary Guidelines committee to scrap the food pyramid and replace it with the following Healthy 4 Life guidelines, based on four groups of whole foods.

Every day, eat high quality, whole foods to provide an abundance of nutrients, chosen from each of the following four groups:

1. Animal foods: meat and organ meats, poultry, and eggs from pastured animals; fish and shellfish; whole raw cheese, milk and other dairy products from pastured animals; and broth made from animal bones.
2. Grains, legumes and nuts: whole-grain baked goods, breakfast porridges, whole grain rice; beans and lentils; peanuts, cashews and nuts, properly prepared to improve digestibility.
3. Fruits and Vegetables: preferably fresh or frozen, preferably locally grown, either raw, cooked or in soups and stews, and also as lacto-fermented condiments.
4. Fats and Oils: unrefined saturated and monounsaturated fats including butter, lard, tallow and other animal fats; palm oil and coconut oil; olive oil; cod liver oil for vitamins A and D.

Avoid: foods containing refined sweeteners such as candies, sodas, cookies, cakes etc.; white flour products such as pasta and white bread; processed foods; modern soy foods; polyunsaturated and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and fried foods."

Additionally, Dr. William Coda Martin explains that refined sugar meets the definition of a poison, saying “Sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and elimination makes upon one's entire system.” (Sugar Blues, © 1975 by William Dufty).

With the combined knowledge that children's systems are more vulnerable and more adversely impacted by environmental toxins than adult's, the unacceptable levels of pesticides and toxic chemicals in the average American's bloodstream and the Weston A. Price Foundation's Dietary Guidelines for optimal health, my husband and I developed our seemingly odd approach to our son's diet and thus became the 'weird' parents we are today. 

A Strange New Grocery Store

I remember the first time I went shopping for organic food by myself. It was one of the most uncomfortable and humbling experiences of my life. I had done all the research and reading and now I was ready to enter the grocery store with an enlightened new perspective! Except I couldn't find anything I was looking for...

I walked down the same aisles again and again and again to the point where I was on the verge of tears. I looked and looked for the organic labels in the produce section but I wasn't finding them. I knew that my regular grocery store was known for offering a selection of organic produce so it had to be that I was just too dumb to find and read labels properly. I was too embarrassed to ask a store associate to help me so I entered the checkout with barely anything in my cart and cried the whole way home. No joke. It was a nightmare.

When my son was just 6 months old, my family took a trip to visit my in-laws in California. Being that my mother-in-law is very knowledgeable and familiar with buying organic foods, I learned a lot just from shopping alongside her. Many of the stores she shopped at carried exclusively organic and/or local produce but some were just regular grocery stores where you still had to look very carefully at everything. Becoming more familiar with organic labels and learning more from her about what ingredients to look for and which to avoid went a long way in building my grocery-shopping confidence and over time, grocery shopping became easier. That said, I do not envy the situations of parents without available supports and resources in this area. I know exactly how intimidating the process can be when faced all alone and I know how stupid it makes you feel when you fail miserably at the very basic first step of FINDING THE ORGANIC FOOD!

Supporting and Encouraging Each Other as Parents

Because so many of our responsibilities as parents are daunting and our choices full of virtual unknowns, we need to do our best to try to support and encourage one another. For the most part I believe every parent does his or her personal best to make what they believe are the best choices for their kid/s. No parent ever does this perfectly and I am certainly no exception but I think there is a basic truth across all parents no matter what their philosophy, and that is that we all care, we all weigh risks versus benefits and we all want the best for our kids. The way each individual family works to achieve these goals will look a little (or a lot) different from one family to the next but we all have the same concerns and the same goal: Building a good life for our kids. I think this means that we all need to give each other the benefit of doubt, cut each other some slack and stop with the harsh judgments and criticisms. It is okay to disagree with or question the parental approaches of others, but ultimately we should remember that we are all doing the best we can the best way we know how to do. We ought to simply support one another and encourage each other to keep learning, to keep educating ourselves, to share new information and tips (not criticisms) openly with other parents and to collectively work to do the very best we can for our kids.

Thanks for reading ♥

References:

http://www.who.int/ceh/capacity/Children_are_not_little_adults.pdf

http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/feeding-eating/breastfeeding/why-breast-is-best/how-human-milk-protects-babies-illness

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/858156-organic-food-contains-up-to-60-percent-more-antioxidants/ 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/residues052404.cfm 

http://www.westonaprice.org/ 

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition/comments-on-the-usda-dietary-guidelines/ 

http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/sugar-problem/refined-sugar-the-sweetest-poison-of-all