Pesticides Linked to ADHD

Organic produce costs more than conventional, and sometimes it's easy to forget why we pay that extra money. Pesticides and fungicides have been linked to several negative effects, especially in children.

One of the latest links is between the use of pesticides on crops and ADHD in children. (See the bottom of the post for footnotes that link to more sources of information.)

Other negative effects linked to the junk that's regularly sprayed on produce:

• deficits in memory and motor skills
• behavioral problems
• childhood leukemia
• other cancers
• unhealthy weight gain

Remember the Dirty Dozen are the common fruits and vegetables that are most often heavily contaminated with chemicals, and make it a priority to purchase organic options for those on the dirty list.

Visit my juice feast blog, Candice on Juice, for a discussion of Managing Emotions and how food and juice play into that.

Giving Up (Sort of)

Melina, my oldest, arrived home from college a little over a week ago. While she's a veggie, dorm life has affected her eating habits. It saddened me to hear her talk about how she missed certain foods and food products that are clearly detrimental to her health. It was harder still to listen to what she ate when she met a friend for dinner. Let's just say deep frying was involved.

While raising Melina, my idea of good nutrition evolved from a low-fat version of the Standard American Diet to a High Raw, High Vegan pursuit of excellent health. For the last few years, it's made her happy to know meat won't be served in our meals, and she's embraced everything from green smoothies, to wheatgrass shots, to marinated veggies on big salads with homemade dressings. Still, she may have forgotten how different our eating-style really is.

The second day she complained to her sister. "I can't eat only fruit. I feel sick from all this healthy food." I told her that was a little thing called detox and reminded her that she'd consumed lots of healthy foods that weren't fruits. I spent hours trying to figure out how to get her all the way back to my end of the eating spectrum before she leaves at the end of the month to complete her summer research internship.

The thing is that she's enjoyed every one of the three meals a day I've made since she came home. And she'd happily indulged in smoothies blended up by her little sis. I'm juice feasting, which has it's own challenges, so I decided to give up the teen diet fight. I didn't give up on setting an example, or providing the best possible foods, or teaching her about why we eat the way we do. I gave up on the idea of control.

I've given her as much knowledge as I could. She enjoys the best foods on earth, and she knows how to prepare many of them to make a tasty and healthy meal. Her mind is open to new things, and she recognizes the connection between food and health. When she's away from me, she'll eat a slightly better version of the diet eaten by lots of college kids. That's the way it is. I'm trusting that as she matures and grows she'll let go of the junk and come home to real food.

Monster for Kids

{DEEP SIGH}

My eleven year old and I went to a local festival, sort of a pre-Cinco de Mayo celebration in downtown Atlanta. The live band was cool, but we were a little disappointed with the other offerings. There were only a few activities for the kids. The whole event seemed to be about the corporate sponsors giving away cheap trinkets, or the opportunity to win cheap trinkets, in exchange for names, addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.

We did a quick perusal of the grounds and noticed a long line forming. There were people of every age waiting patiently for something we thought must be good. We walked the length of over 100 people to check it out.

Monster. The energy drink. That's what people stood in line for on a hot humid day. We watched kids as young as 5 and 6 years old walking away from the stand with their little hands wrapped around sweaty cans of that brew. They and their parents sipped happily.

Here's what's in the can:

Carbonated Water, Sucrose, Glucose, Citric Acid, Natural Flavors, Taurine, Sodium Citrate, Color Added, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, L-Carnitine, Caffeine, Sorbic Acid, Benzoic Acid, Niacinamide, Sodium Chloride, Glucuronolactone, Inositol, Guarana Seed Extract, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Sucralose, Riboflavin, Maltodextrin, Cyanocobalamin.

Bummer.

Older Kids and Raw Foods

If you were lucky enough to be clued in about Real & Raw foods when your kids were young, then you introduced them to healthy eating early in life, and they've probably grown up enjoying it. Though they'd always eaten lots of fruits and veggies, my kids were around 8 and 15 years old when I got serious about Raw. Some foods went over better than others.

Here are some things I learned about getting older kids to eat more Raw foods:

1. Fruit smoothies are big with the teenagers these days. Go into any smoothie chain, and you'll likely find high schoolers slurping up drinks. Give older kids smoothies made with their favorite fruits. You can add the greens later.

2. Enlist their help. Just like younger kids, the older ones can get creative in the kitchen with a little guidance. Turn on some music, and make it fun! If they see the process and know what went into a dish, they're more likely to eat it.

3. Do it for them. I know. This one can be annoying, since they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves. For a while, I found that my teenager was much more likely to eat something healthy if I made it for her. If I sent her into the kitchen to make it herself, she might just wait until she went out to eat.

4. Appeal to their vanity. Talk openly with them about the benefits of Raw foods, especially healthy weight maintenance and clear skin. Acne and skinny jeans can have a bigger impact than future heart disease.

5. If you're going to a Raw food class, take them along. The hands-on classes can be a lot of fun, and tend to focus on foods you might not make every day.

6. Serve a Raw dessert for breakfast. Apple pie in the morning can seem like a real treat, while getting in a lot more nutrition than conventional cereal or frozen waffles.

7. Make Raw snacks, including fruits and veggies easier to access than junk food. While it may take some time to transition all of the junk food out of your house, you can slowly forget to pick it up at the store, while miraculously remembering to buy, wash and chop veggies and fruit.

8. The secret's in the sauce. Keep sauces and dressings on hand for dipping veggies, fruits, and Raw crackers. The Standard American Diet dulls our taste buds, so kids may not appreciate the flavor of fresh foods on their own. A lot of kids who won't touch celery will indulge if it's topped with nut butter or dipped in Raw ranch dressing.

9. Be the Raw food role model. It wouldn't do me much good to warn my daughters against the dangers of smoking, and sit out on the deck with a cigarette in my mouth after dinner. Even if your kids don't pick up the Raw habit before they leave home, you'll have left a lasting impression with your eating-style and the results it gets. And since you're already preparing your own Raw dishes, you can set the expectation that they eat something Raw at every meal.

10. College students love care packages. Some campuses have amazing dining options, but I'd venture to guess that many still don't. When I create care packages for my daughter, it's healthy all the way. Raw bars, coconut water (not Raw, but way better than energy drinks), Raw sweeteners, herbal teas, Raw granola, and other goodies are always a welcome surprise.

Food Heroes

I want to recognize a couple of food heroes--one famous, one not. They give me hope!

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution records his efforts to make a change in a West Virginia city that's been rated as the most overweight in our nation of overweight cities. His strategy for converting people to Real Foodists is to start with the schools, and though he meets great resistance, he's changing people's lives. If he only touches those teenagers he's recruited to help him, he'll have made a huge difference to some deserving kids. To hear these young people talk about how food has negatively affected their lives is a real tearjerker, but it's great to see them learning how to use food as a tool for positive change. Check it out.

Thianda Manzara, AKA The Garden Lady, rocks out loud! This hero started the nonprofit Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids. She works with almost a dozen schools, establishing vegetable gardens and turning the responsibility of working them over to the students. She's provided a means for over 3000 kids to get their hands dirty growing food for their schools' menus. How awesome is that?

Food heroes . . . we need more of them!

Deciding for Ourselves

Earlier today I read an article that claimed a Raw food diet is a healthy alternative, but is not advised for children, or pregnant or nursing mothers. Huh?!?! That's the second time in a few days that I've read such a statement from an "expert" or nutritionist.

I understand and appreciate specific advice about most things, including Raw food. Consider B-12 or calcium supplements. Make sure to include a wide variety of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and seeds. Avoid white potatoes and yucca in their Raw form. I even appreciate opinions that suggest you include Raw dairy, or plenty of Raw fats, or not too much Raw fats, eat mainly fruits or minimize them, avoid nuts and avocados, or embrace them. I may not agree with some those suggestions, but they at least suggest the author has done some amount of thoughtful analysis of the topic.

If a Raw, plant-based diet is dangerous for children, then why the heck would it be healthy for adults? And what's the specific danger? And how is it more dangerous than the typical American way of eating? Is the expert assuming all cooked foods are excluded from a Raw diet?

Seems it would make more sense to advise people as to how they can address any specific concerns, rather than ruling out the way of eating as a whole. I'm just saying.