Food! Why can’t it be simple?
When our babies first arrive we know what we should feed them. It is encoded right into the newborn-DNA to seek out the breast moments after birth. Our breasts are perfectly positioned on our bodies so that when we nourish our baby we hold them off of the cold, hard ground—close to our heart—within kissing distance—within focus-range for the newborn eye. Our milk delivers all of the vital nutrients that our tiny new babies need. When our baby needs more milk, our breasts simply produce more. Simple. Elegant. Efficient.
Nonetheless, even while in the depths of this blissful symbiotic relationship of supply and demand—ebb and flow—providing and consuming—we doubt ourselves. We worry. We question everything. We get sucked up into the drama. Is my baby getting enough? Is my latch correct? Am I balancing the needs of my baby and also of my body? Is it okay to nurse in public? How can I help my mother-in-law understand why this is important to me? How do I deal with criticism about how long I am nursing? Why do decent nursing bras cost so much?
Bug and Food...a complicated relationship!
Now, flash forward to solid foods. To cereal or not to cereal? Avocado or chickpeas? Will this cause food allergies? Does this have high fructose corn syrup in it? Does Red dye really matter? Is organic better than local? More questions. More doubts.
Add in a picky eater to this equation and now you have all of the questions about food mixed in with all of the challenges of discipline. Nothing sparks a power struggle faster than dealing with a crying, kicking, screaming kiddo who is starving but won’t eat what they have in front of them.
Now, add ALL of those problems on top of a child who has a sensory processing disorder or falls on the Aspergers spectrum somewhere. The smell of all but the most bland of foods is so over powering it can cause nausea. Food textures conjure up descriptive terms like sandpaper, fiberglass and slime. Seemingly perfectly reasonable food tastes odd—the mac & cheese tastes like soap— the eggs taste like metal– the yogurt tastes spicy. They only want one food. They can’t have that food and this food at the same meal. Single ingredient meals. No sauce. No spice. No blending. There are plenty of days when even the most patient and tolerant of parents just lose it (like me). Especially the days before you understand what your child is going through. It is easy to think that they are just being difficult, or stubborn, or manipulative. Especially with all of the voices of the Ghosts of Dinner Past from your own childhood whispering in your ear:
“You can’t leave the table until you have finished your veggies!”
“You’ll go to bed hungry!”
“Clean your plate!”
or everyone’s favorite; “There are starving children in <insert third-world country here> who would be grateful for this meal!”
“If you eat everything on your plate, we’ll go get ice-cream!”
“If you don’t eat this, we will NOT go get ice cream!”
“Seriously, we will NEVER get ice cream ever again. Ever.”
“Can you finish just three more bites?”
“How ’bout one more bite of the green stuff?”
I could fill a book with what all of that is probably doing to kids (someone already has, I am sure of it). I sure know that I have a horrible love/hate relationship with food, a body that doesn’t use food efficiently, and a taste for things that are, frankly, very unhealthy for me. But that is not today’s post. Today, I want to talk about Bug and the relationship between her food and her behaviors.
If you’ve ever spent any time with our family, you’ve probably shared a meal or a snack with us. (And in the case of a few select friends, you may have been the victim of Food Theft—an inexplicable phenomenon marked by the disappearance of all–not some—but ALL of your banana’s, strawberries, and apple’s while my children are visiting your home. You know who you are. I owe you some fruit). So, you may have suspected that it can be a little chaotic to feed a family as large and as diverse as ours. And that we don’t have a fortune to throw away on food each month. I am sure that it comes as no surprise that we put a lot of time and thought into what we eat, where we get it from, and what it costs. Buying food no one will eat, that doesn’t pack a nutritional punch, or that is too complicated to prepare is a waste of our time and resources. We find a lot of inspiration from our subscription to Vegetarian Times. We share recipes and ideas with friends and family. We are blessed to have a wide-variety of whole and organic food choices to work with. With that being said, however, we still have the seemingly never-ending frustration of finding ways to get Bug, our 6 year old, to eat healthy foods.
Bug is challenged by many of the symptoms of Sensory Processing Disorder, especially the ones concerning food and smells. Her symptoms cause her to be a picky eater. Her picky eating has probably caused some nutritional deficiencies. It is likely that her nutritional deficiencies are exasperating her symptoms. And ’round we go. We are hoping that her issues are as easy to fix as learning some new recipes and cutting out some common culprits in the food-behavior chain. We do eat fairly healthy compared to the folks Jamie Oliver is dealing with. But we still enjoy a box of donut holes on Sunday mornings once in awhile (hello deep fried junk). And there are still some colorful dyes and high fructose nastiness lingering around in a few of our dirty-little-secret snacks (The first ingredient in Cherry Twizzlers is HFCS…and that bright red color is not from a natural source, sorry to say) . But for the most part we enjoy plenty of whole grains, a variety of local vegetables, fresh herbs, organic fruit, and “from scratch” goodies.
I had told myself that we would give Bug until the age of 7 to see if her emotional and behavioral issues evened out when her development was a little more advanced and she ready for more complex learning situations. We decided to homeschool her because of these concerns. We are approaching 7 in just a few months, and Bug’s behaviors, although changing in complexity and specifics, have not really improved significantly. So now the serious phase begins and we are committing to cutting out those few lingering no-no’s…eliminate the HFCS for real. Say goodbye to dyes…even for special occasions. Embrace the fact that many children with behavioral issues are suffering from food allergies…like wheat, gluten, and corn. We are amping up her green foods, calcium, and good fats to flush out lingering toxins and heavy metals. We’ve done these things in the past, for a few weeks, or until we fell off the wagon, or until Halloween–whichever happened first. This time, I am hoping that we have reached a place where making these changes will be more compatible with our lifestyle then they were before. Everyday, we become more and more committed to making positive and healthy changes in our lives since Sir Hubby’s father became ill last summer. Not just in our food, but in the way that we think, the way we interact with the world around us, with the community we live in. But those are all posts for another day…
So, we begin our serious journey into better health for Bug today…and hopefully a healthier relationship for all of us!
Breastfeeding, Family Life, Feed With Love and Respect, Medical Issues
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Behavioral Issues, Bug, Homeschooling, Vegetarian
How’s this going? If you’re having a tough time, I promise it’ll get better! For us, it was challenging during the shift itself, but these days I hardly think about it – the main time it comes up is in ‘mixed company’, so to speak. In our own home, no-brainer. In the beginning for us, and apparently for a lot of folks, we gravitated towards a lot of gluten-free Products, and frankly, some gluten-free junk food as well. (Luckily, these products are pretty easily available all over the place, and not quite as pricy.) I think this is normal and helps the transition along a LOT. But nowadays I only buy a few key GF items and tend to simply make foods that are just NATURALLY gluten-free, rather than making gluten-free versions of gluten-heavy products, if that makes sense. I do keep GF flour blend around regularly, especially for special occasions like parties and parenting groups. :O)
It’s not dissimilar to going vegetarian, actually, if you can think back to when you made that change.
At first, a lot of people understandably start off with lots of meat substitutes, and try to structure their meals similarly to traditional meat-plus-sides format. And it took more thought and effort. But what is being vegetarian like for you guys now? Do you often worry about what you can use to substitute for chicken or beef? Does going to the grocery store take thought and extra planning to avoid meat? No, right? You’ve adapted, and now eat foods that are just naturally vegetarian, and it seems just . . . normal.
It can be the same way with gluten, I promise!
Favorite products to start with:
Mesa Sunrise cereal
Cherrybrook Kitchen mixes of all kinds
Bob’s Red Mill Baking Flour blend
Bob’s GF Wonderful Bread Mix (and other Bob’s items)
Pamela’s Pancake and Baking Mix
Pamela’s cookies
McCann’s steel-cut oats (Though oats themselves do not contain gluten, they can be cross-contaminated in the factory. McCann’s are verified safe – and if you’re not used to steel-cut, you’re in for a treat! Takes a bit more time, but worth it!)
The breads in the freezer case are usually pretty good. Steer clear of the plastic-wrapped GF breads you find on the shelf. Very styrofoamy. Best bet for breads is to bake your own – the Bob’s above is really good!
Oh, and my favorite pastas are DeBoles, Mrs. Leeper’s, and Tinkyaya brands.
Thanks so much, Anne! We are having very little trouble with it, thus far. Bug seems to be…dare, I say…cooperative! I was blown away when she ate red quinoa, broccoli and chick peas for lunch yesterday! And then asked for seconds! Of course, we still jump through a few hoops since the rest of the family was eating a quinoa/broccoli salad with hummus on grilled flatbread. So, we just have to set aside a portion of the ingredients for her before we whip them into a meal or add spices, etc… And, we concentrated on having every color of the rainbow…she managed everything except blue (red quinoa, red apples, cantelope, carrots, chickpeas, GF multi-grain pasta, brown rice, broccoli, baby spinach, a super-green smoothie, and some grapes) The reward for a whole day without dyes, wheat, and HF corn syrup? One of the most pleasant evenings we have ever had with her! Even Sir Hubby was convinced–and he is a seriously hard sell on anything to do with food.
I sooooo appreciate the list of your favorites. Bug was very concerned that pancakes may be taken off of the menu…so she will be thrilled to hear that there is a decent replacement. We are trying to stick to homemade/single ingredient foods instead of relying on the packaged goodies for the most part. Although I did buy some GF animal crackers and pretzels to have on hand for playdates/outings etc… Two days down! Let’s see how day three goes! I hate to report on the incredible results prematurely, but if today was any indicator of what we have in store, then this has been a parenting/diet marriage made in heaven!
I didn’t realize how recent this is for you! Me too for the dyes. Looks like we’re going to start eliminating more f/ Josiah’s diet too b/c he still has some problems when I’m pretty sure he hasn’t had any dye. Of course the first change I’m going to have to do is be more strict w/ what he gets like you are. No more questionable items! Anyway, you may have seen my fb response to you – but if not I’d recommend 3 books that were helpful – although maybe you’re beyond the first two already. Anyway they are: “Unraveling the Mystery of Autism…” by Karyn Seroussi (where I first heard about the red dye stuff), “Healing and Preventing Autism” by Jenny McCarthy – both have GF info. However when it comes to food issues and allergies I highly recommend “Allergies Disease in Disguise” by Carolee Bateson-Koch. Lance is reading it now and loves it. Although – that said, I don’t think chemical reactions are allergies really – just a reaction thats really bad for all of us. I’m looking fwd to see how this turns out for you – we may be following in your footsteps eventually.