Mum and Dad and Childrens lunchboxes

The importance of your childs diet relies on what is in their lunchboxes

The importance of the diet and what is in the lunchboxes of your kids is defined by a varied list of parameters, none really any more important than the fact that many behavioural conditions can be controlled by a correct and healthy diet implanted early in life. This diet generally can be summed up in three words, Mum then Dad. Generally speaking, by the time children are getting ready for school and lunchboxes are being packed; it is usually Mum who is doing the heavy lifting, as Dad has gone to work. Although the home environment is where your child’s dietary habits start, it is the lunchbox that becomes the blueprint; for the rest of your child’s life. For it is here, that the child’s food and diet memory is implanted for Good or Bad, for life? Just as an elite athletes body performs by muscle memory, so too are the childs memory of those early eating years; memories which remains deep within us all and so then go on to programme us in the most basic fashion, forever !!

I refer to some paragraphs from “Nibbling on the Mild side” that touch on that very subject and how Parental supervision of Dietary needs are even More important in children with behavioural or learning difficulties.

No Sugar and preservative-free Food means less behavioural issues

My young life was a frenetic world of impulsive and hyperactive behaviour, which seemed more confusing on some days more than others. No matter how hard my poor Mum tried, it seemed like I would always manage some way to find the optimum amount of mischief to indulge in. As I grew older these crazy urges always seemed exacerbated by one of two constants. Sugar !! I came to realise over time that the life of a hyperactive child would always be different to those kids that did not suffer chemical and hormonal imbalances and who were considered by “the grown ups” to be ‘normal’. What I did not realise then however, was that there was a very strong correlation between my hyperactivity and and the addictive behaviour that would go on to rule my adult life. Not enough has been written, studied or put into print about the differences between Hyperglycaemia (diabetes) and the appearance of a deficiency of sugar in the blood which is known as Hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar). What became abundantly clear to me, as I lived thru this roller coaster into adulthood; was that my deficiency was the result of an overactive pancreas whipping up a bit of insulin here or there and tossing it into the mix and thereby creating the wildly fluctuating mood swings that initiated the so called irrational behaviour and socially unacceptable consequences that flowed on from it. The remedy? It was so simple that it defied proper logic !! Remove the all too common additive rich and sugar laden or fatty foods and replace them with 5 or 6 mid portion servings of Antioxidant rich foods. Foods such as salads, fruit and vegies, lean meats such as chicken, lamb, pork or beef or fillers such as sardines, beans, asparagus, avocado, eggs three times a week, wholegrain biscuits and sensible portions of dairy products.

The beauty of the carbohydrate diet is that, the carbohydrates are able to break down over several hours after a snack or a meal and so it is a sustained period thru the day which keeps the bodies blood sugar levels stable. That was it ! It seemed too simple, but the correct foods were the answer that helped eliminate the need for so many amphetamine based medications and their damaging side effects, that are now given to so many kids.

Benefits of dairy products for young sportsman and girls

I am an absolute believer in the benefits of dairy products, for as a young person I worked in the dairy to put myself through Agricultural College, and you guessed it, the drink of the day was pure milk. Pure creamy milk and over four decades later I still drink milk daily and my recent cholesterol readings were between 2.7 to 4.8. Recent science has totally proven the benefits of milk on young athletes who are training hard in their chosen field. The beneficial qualities of milk have been proven to stop the calcium being leached out of the young sporting persons bones and ligaments, when under fatigue and muscle stress and when there is a build up of lactic acid. So it is essential that an athlete in hard training and also lactating or expectant mothers, should drink full cream milk at least twice daily. Woman and older people should drink a glass of full cream milk daily to prevent the onset of osteoporosis. Even though I decry the use of vitamin D pills and supplements, pregnant ladies or lactating mothers should also consider extra supplementation of Folate and consider getting adequate amounts of exercise in the open sunlight (folate), in the earlier hours of the day or later in the evening; when the harmful UV rays of the sun have abated.

Food is the oldest Medicine

It was only later when I made it safely thru to my mid twenties, that I became intent on understanding how I could control my mood swings and behaviour by consuming the correct foods that would supply a natural and constant flow of blood sugar. A supply gained by the breaking down of the carbohydrates in the antioxidant rich foods that I regularly ate and so converting them to natural sugars. It is this simple process of stroking the bodies metabolism, like one might do to their favourite pet, that can cure many of the ills of this modern day society. Mother Nature has endowed us with every known vitamin and mineral and even phytonutrient based sugars that can be found in plants like Stevia, if a quicker blood sugar rush is required!! So we should make absolutely no mistake, that a paper bag full of white or brown sugar added to our families food, or teaspoons of it ladled into teas, coffees, cereals or desserts can have only one consequence. That is the breaking down of our own or our childrens and families health. There is no saving grace for the addition of extra sugars, salts, artificial fats and chemically produced vitamin supplements, that can not be gained from what is so blindingly obvious !! Natures “fresh” Produce !!

Nature gives birth to vitamins and minerals, not laboratories.

Essential trace elements. vitamins and minerals are that which have evolved from the soils of our planet, from our oceans and our rivers and our clear mountain streams. Clean natural foodstuffs, whether from the red wines of Bordeaux or from the vitamin rich fresh New Zealand parmesan cheese or perhaps the sweet salmon fillets from the wilds of Alaska down to the plump zinc rich rock oysters from the pristine beauty of the Tasmanian wilderness. Health can be just as simple and pure as the clean sweet oxygen in the crisp icy breaths high on a mountain ridge or in the unspoiled Amazon rainforest, home to the native Brazil nut that provides five times the amount of the DNA building block Selenium, than the next best; that wild Alaskan salmon.. It never needs to come from overly processed foods nor out of a greasy bag from a conveniant drive thru or from a capsule. “Everything in moderation, except moderation itself”.

Sickness from Adulterated Foods

The second constant that I referred to above ?? That was a series of poisons that evolved and accelerated from the Fifties, that the esteemed American Pediatrician Doctor Ben Feingold was to discover and label !! These were to be proven to go on to be some of the leading causes of the breakdown of the mental well being and health of the youth of our society causing some thru those times to even be institutionalised !! This was to all come about from what was being introduced into the Western diet and which eventually evolved to be our biggest pollutants. The culprits? Food and Drug companies churning out preservatives and food colourings, especially reds and yellows; along with the single most damaging of all !! Sugars!! These three Irritants were found and proven by Dr Feingolds groundbreaking studies to be the three leading causal effects that were linked to so many types of behavioural disorders amongst the young, effects that were directly proportionate to the growth of the fast food industry and the evolving packaged and so called health and vitamin Industry. The Feingold Foundation is an esteemed Organisation dedicated to carrying on and spreading the work and words of this wonderful human being. I Rue the day, that I agreed to let my ex-wife’s doctor prescribe Ritalin as a trial; to my then slim hyperactive son, who is now lethargic and overweight with a poor diet and even worse behavioural problems. I urge you, that if you are even thinking about it; use this link ( www.feingold.org/ ) to convince yourself, that your child can eat their way out of their hyperactivity disorder or behavioural problem by Eating healthy antioxidant rich carbohydrates and whole grains and natural foods that will supply adequate blood sugar.

Take slow deep breaths and take it easy, 🙂 mike