Snack Time

By now you'll know that our baby doesn't typically eat junk food.  So what does he eat?  A few people have curiously asked what a nutrition-conscious mummy like myself feeds her little one at snack time.

Well.  First of all we don't have set snack times.  We allow Ky to graze all day long.  He loves food. All food.  In fact there's not a single food that he won't eat.  Of course there are foods that we've offered and he's initially spat out in surprise but always on one of the next times we offer the food again, he'll inevitably eat it.  He has no allergies or sensitivities.  And since he was 1 year old when the entire world of food was completely opened to him (at approximately 1 year of age, the immune system is sufficiently developed enough to be able to digest most foods without allergies developing) we have tried hard to offer as many taste sensations as we can find.  Some of his favourite foods include marinated black olives, grilled anchovies, blue cheese, roasted garlic, chickpeas and all kinds of lentils, plain sour yoghurt, watercress (which he collects from the vege garden outside), and dolma (seasoned rice stuffed grape leaves).  He also loves fruit, every kind of fruit, but especially berries and watermelon.  And of course he loves desserts ... unfortunately ...

He eats every meal with us and we never make anything especially for him.  He eats what we eat (in much smaller portions).  In between meals he eats whatever he can get his hands on.  On the rare occasions we have junk food in the house (such as tahin helva or dark chocolate), we keep it well hidden and out of reach, so whatever he can see he can have.  By the way, we never buy biscuits, cakes, chips, soft drinks, fruit juice, flavoured yoghurts or lollies anyway, so keeping junk food away from him at home is not really an issue.  For drinks he mostly has water, but he also loves kefir and ayran (plain yoghurt mixed with water) and herbal tea (which I make according to his state of health or emotion.  For example, if any of us get a bit sniffly, I'll make an immune-boosting tea, or if it's late afternoon and I want Ky to start settling down for bed, I might make a calming tea).

When we go out, I always pack a little snack pack for him with foods that can easily be eaten without making too much of a mess.  Typically, the snack pack will include a container of mixed sun-dried fruit.  A piece of fresh fruit or a container of mixed, sliced fresh fruit.  And a container of raw veges and raw cheese.  Sometimes I'll throw in a boiled egg or a couple of pieces of dolma or even a chicken drumstick.  Depending on what we've got on hand.  Oh, and there's always a bottle of water too.

This is what we took with us when we went on a day trip out of the city earlier this week.  Clockwise from top: a container of sliced tomato and cucumber, cubed goat's cheese, and black and green olives; a boiled egg; a container of sliced apple and strawberries; a container of sun-dried apricots,  figs and grapes, and hazelnuts; a bottle of water.

So there you have it.  One of the reasons why Ky is a happy, healthy, rosey-cheeked, energetic little boy.

A Sugar Hang-Over

I've blogged before here and here and here about my thoughts on nutrition and food choices for children.  I still feel exactly the same way, but with Kaya now almost 2 1/2 admittedly I've loosened my tight reign of control (a little bit) over the foods I allow other people to offer him.  This slackening of control has been more a matter of resignation rather than choice though.  To be honest it's just been so very hard to constantly remind friends and family that we don't allow Kaya to eat anything unless it's nutritious.

Many of the people around us still really just don't understand our choices.  They tell us we're being too strict.  Or controlling.  Or mean.  Often they will sneak sweet treats to Kaya when we're not looking.  I feel like I'm constantly fighting an uphill battle.  And I'm tired.

Before, I wouldn't even let Kaya drink any kind of bottled fruit juice regardless of the label claims of "all natural" or "nothing artificial added" (natural or not, there's a hell of a lot of fruit sugar in a single glass of juice.  Not to mention the fact that the fruit used is typically poor quality, half rotten waste fruit anyway).  Now days If someone insistently pushes some juice to him I'll often just let him have it.  Instead of arguing and pleading with Aunt X to not give him any cake at all, now I'll ask her to please cut only a small piece and to please wait until after dinner before offering it.  

The fact that Kaya, like his father, has an extremely sweet tooth, does not make our quest for a sugar free life any easier.  He's crazy about anything and everything sweet.  Whereas a single small piece of tahin helva (a popular and traditional turkish confectionary made from crushed sesame seeds and sugar) would be more than enough for me, Kaya could eat 5 or 6 pieces and still be looking for more.

Three different varieties of Tahini Helva.  (Picture borrowed from http://www.seversekerleme.com/. Thank you)

The other night we had a bit of a get-together with some of hubby's relatives.  Immediately Murat's cousin (who Kaya calls Kek Hala (Cake Auntie) because she was one of the very first people to sneak him cake which he went crazy for and consequently taught him the word for this delicious, naughty pleasure), stole him away to the kitchen and promptly fed him a piece of cake the size of a big man's fist!  And it all went downhill from there.  In all, that night, tiny 2 year old Kaya ate a second piece of Kek Hala's cake, a piece of apple cake, 3 anzac biscuits,  and about 10 pieces of lokma (another popular Turkish dessert, this one disgustingly rich and made from balls of sweet batter fried in a sugary syrup).

Lokma. (Picture borrowed from http://tariflerim1.com.  Thank you.)

Later, despite my little boy crying for me to take him to bed, it took more than 2 hours to put him to sleep while he wriggled and whimpered.  He also woke several times throughout the night crying for water.  He spent most of the next day on the toilet.  And was quite the cranky little fellow.  Poor little boy ...

Please, let's all be respectful of the parenting decisions our friends and family make.  Please, let's support them instead of challenging them.  Afterall, (in the vast majority of cases) we parents live for our kids and are constantly struggling to do what we believe is best for our kids.  And it's not easy.  Not easy at all.

I Love McDonalds!

I realised today that I love McDonalds.  No matter where I am in the world, I can rely on there being a Maccas nearby.  They're always clean.  They're always the same.  I know exactly what to expect when I walk inside.

Those people who know me best will be very confused by this post.  Afterall, it's been about 20 years since I've consumed anything from McDonalds.  Just the smell of the place makes me feel ill....  My friends and family will also know that I despise the way "evil empires" like McDonalds, Starbucks, Monsanto etc., monopolize the market and force small businesses out of operation.  I'm also not impressed with their advertising tactics.  In fact there are many many reasons why my family and friends would be surprised by the title of this blog post.

So let me explain why I love McDonalds.

It's very simple - the toilets!

I don't have to pay 50 kurus to precariously squat above a stinky hole in the ground public toilet, while trying to hold the cuffs of my pants up out of the puddles of dirty water and pee splatters, all the while hoping one of the fat flies buzzing around the hole doesn't land on my lady-bits!

Instead I can take a deep breath (remember how much the smell gets to me?), stroll into a McDonalds and use the facilities in comfort.  They even have toilet paper!

A Delivery!

Have a look at what arrived today!

4 kilos of lovely yellow farm fresh butter and 2 1/2 kilos of farm fresh cheese!

We buy our cheese and butter from hubby's family home town of Rize.  Rize is a little village on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, very close to the Russian border.  It's a truly beautiful little piece of heaven on earth.  Famous for tea, the village is almost hidden amongst tiered tea plantations covering entire sides of mountains.  It's so green and so lush and the air is so crisp.  The few farmers who don't grow tea, tend small herds of goats and cows which they care for as though these animals are members of their own families.   What a perfect place from which to get our dairy products.

Guess where we're going to holiday when the weather warms up?

Here's a couple of pictures of me in Rize from a couple of years ago.

To Kill the Fungus!

I started a detox today.  It's been 6 1/2 hours and I'm starving!  Just looking at the bowl full of pine cones beside the computer is making my hungry! How am I going to manage another 6 1/2 days of this?

I've been thinking about doing this particular cleansing diet for a few years now but always found an excuse to put it off. But finally, even though I can think of some really good reasons not to do it, I willed myself to start anyway.

The detox I'm doing now is the part of Stage 1, the Detoxification Stage of the anti-Candida cleanse. Even though I don't get yeast infections, I just know that disgusting candida fungus has spread it's filthy tentacles throughout my body and I want it gone! How do I know? Well first of all, pretty much everyone in today's day and age has a candida overgrowth. If you've ever taken antibiotics or eaten meat fed with antibiotics or been on the pill or eaten too many sugary foods or not enough vegetables or have silver (mercury) fillings, or drunk fluoridated water, or you're under a lot of stress, chances are you too will have an overgrowth of candida. And candida can be quite noxious. It normally lives in your gastro-intestinal system along with millions of other micro-organisms, but if you treat it right (stress, antibiotics and bad food, for example), it will happily grow and grow and will break through the lining of your stomach to infect all other body systems and causing innumerable health problems.

Some of the conditions caused or exacerbated by candida are:

• irritable bowel syndrome
• lupus
• prostatitis
• Crohn's disease
• psoriasis
• asthma
• skin and nail fungal infections
• gallbladder disease
• schizophrenia
• PMS
• vaginitis
• cancer
• multiple sclerosis
• arthritis

Not nice! And the symptoms of Candida paint an equally ugly picture:

• bloating and indigestion
• constipation
• diarrhea
• bad breath
• chronic fatigue
• chapped and dry flaky skin
• stiff shoulders or headaches
• sexual dysfunction and impotence
• urinary tract infections
• arthritis
• irritability and mood swings
• autism
• depression
• muscle pain and fatigue
• hyperactivity
• menstrual irregularities
• memory loss
• short attentions pan
• learning difficulties
• chronic allergies and gluten intolerance
• hypoglycemia
• cravings for sweets
• acne

Hmmmm, there's more than a couple of these symptoms I suffer!

So the cleansing diet will go on!

By the way, the seven day detox is not a compulsory part of Candida cleansing, but a detoxifying fast like the one I'm doing (that includes lots of nutritional broths) is a good way of cleaning out the colon, providing a good foundation for the actual Candida cleansing diet.

During weeks 2-3 food is reintroduced but only those foods that Candida does not have a taste for.  The idea is to starve and kill the Candida fungus. Candida particularly loves sugar so during these 2 weeks absolutely no sugar is allowed, not even fruit sugars. The hardest part of this diet for me is sure to be not eating any fruit... Candida also loves starchy and high carbohydrate foods which the body converts to the sugar. So out with all glutenous grains and no potatoes either. And since I'm cleansing my system, all other baddies like caffeine and alcohol are also no no's. Eating lots and lots of vegetables is extremely important because they absorb some of the toxins being worked out of the system by the cleanse.

End of week 3 marks the end of Stage 1 of the cleansing program. By this time, a lot of that nasty Candida will have died off. One way to know if the diet has been working is to look at how you've been feeling. If you've been feeling yucky with flu-like symptoms or headaches and nausea than you know the diet's working. These symptoms are a result of the Candida cells releasing by-products into the bloodstream as it dies off. Drinking lots of water and taking lots of vitamin C are a couple of ways to reduce these symptoms.

Stage 2, the Elimination Stage, takes 4 weeks. During this stage the diet is a lot less strict and we can reintroduce some foods like green apples and berries back into our diets. Complex carbs and beans can also be slowly reintroduced. Throughout these 4 weeks, some specific anti-fungal treatments are used to really attack that Candida. Things like oregano oil, garlic, goldenseal and olive leaf extract are particularly effective. The worst part about Stage 2 is that the Candida die-off symptoms will get worse before they get better...

Okay, Stage 1 involves detoxifying the system for 3 weeks.  Stage 2, which takes 4 weeks, will  hopefully eliminate every last bit of Candida. That's 7 weeks so far. At the 2 months mark, it's time to start Stage 3, Repopulation. The idea here is to repopulate the gastro-intestinal system with all the good bacteria it needs to function efficiently and keep us healthy. So during this stage probiotics are added to the diet. But the best part of Stage 3 is bringing back all those foods that were avoided for the previous 2 months! Mmmm grapes, cherries, mangoes! It's important that these foods are reintroduced one at a time and if any adverse symptoms or reactions are noticed then this is a sure sign that the body is (and probably always has been) allergic or sensitive to that food and so it should really always be avoided.

........................................................................

I had this blog saved in my drafts folder and didn't realise I hadn't posted until now when I planned to update you on how I was going ...

It's actually 4 days after I started the diet and I'm ashamed to admit that I wasn't able to continue with the fast. I thought the nutritious broths and all the vitamins and minerals I was taking would be enough to keep feeling strong but I didn't realise just how much breastfeeding was taking out of me! I lasted only one day... However, as I mentioned in my post, the fast isn't absolutely crucial, so I moved on to the second part of Stage 1 and I'm currently doing pretty good on my strict diet of no sugars, or grains (besides brown rice), or dairy (besides natural yoghurt and kefir).

I'll keep you updated.

Another Rant

Thoroughly enjoying some eggplant infused whole wheat fettucine with a mildly spicy tomato and broccoli sauce

I witnessed something today that really saddened and bewildered me.  And the worst thing was that I did absolutely nothing about it. And now I feel guilty too. This morning I watched a mother, one of my neighbours, completely fill her baby's bottle with cubes of white sugar before adding UHT milk.  I then watched her give it to her 4 year old son telling him to "drink your milk. It'll make you grow up big and strong". And I stood by and did absolutely nothing.

There are about 15 families living in this complex with children more or less the same age as Kaya. As a naturopath and someone particularly passionate about health and nutrition, I can't help but observe what the parents feed to their children and babies. In every case the children are regularly and routinely given nothing more than junk food.  For example, in the 18 months we've lived here I haven't yet seen one particular little girl given anything but sugar laiden junk "foods". Since she was 6 months old, I've watched her parents force feed her white bread heaped with jams or chocolate spread and coco-pops for breakfast, fries dripping with ketchup, puddings, cakes, white bread and occasionally white rice or pasta for lunch and dinner and every kind of lolly, gum, ice-cream, biscuit or cake in between her "meals". Her only source of fruit is sugary fruit drinks, her only source of vegetables are fries, her only source of dairy is flavoured milk and yoghurt, her only source of grains is the refined flour in the rice, pasta and cakes she eats and I've never seen her eat any kind of meat. When we first arrived here, I just couldn't sit back and watch this little baby screaming as her parents pushed this crap down her throat.  So I pushed Murat to talk to them about it. But it was to no avail... nothing we said would convince them to give up the sugary foods because they were afraid she wouldn't eat anything else and would end up starving to death.... Oh dear! By the way, this girl at almost 2 years of age is fat and has severe sleep and behavioural problems. And of course this is no surprise considering her malnutrition. In my opinion this is child abuse. Lack of education is not an excuse.

Unfortunately similar feeding habits are shared by every single family here. It seems that not a single parent has an issue with giving their babies sweets and lollies throughout the day. It's rare to see a child here without a lolly pop or ice cream in their mouths. And I'm talking about babies younger than 1 year old! How can so many people be so naive? I understand that people generally tend not to read (except newspapers and magazines) and instead rely only on the TV for their information, but surely these parents watch programs other than advertisements for junk food... Surely it's not possible that these parents just don't realise junk food is bad for kids... Is it only the parents living here in this complex that think this way? Or is this an accurate cross-section of this country's general public? Is this an accurate cross-section of the world population in general. If so, what kind of people are we raising.

The mothers here are constantly complaining that their children aren't sleeping properly, that they're violent, that they're hyperactive, that they refuse to listen to their parents, that they're having problems in school, that they're always sick, that they're constantly needing to visit the dentist, that the're always fighting with other children, that they babies are very slow to crawl, walk and talk, that they won't eat their meals...  These poor kids are living their lives surfing on waves of sugar and chemical induced highs and lows! How can children in this state of being learn? How can they grow and develop into happy, healthy, well-adjusted, intelligent, contributing members of society?

Just wondering, that's all...

No Sugar for the Baby, Thanks!

The other day, Kaya's ever-extending reach nabbed him a small chocolate from the kitchen bench. Unfortunately he'd gobbled most of it before I had a chance to confiscate it. After a year of vigilantly keeping him away from sweets, he finally got his first taste of chocolate (besides the piece of chocolate cake he ate at his birthday party). It was quite a big deal for me and I mentioned it to a few people. Some of the reactions I received were mystifying. Most people were absolutely shocked that we didn't give Kaya sweets. I got the impression that some people dismissed me as being silly and needlessly over-protective by being so strict about this. Other people told me straight that there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving babies lollies. And yet other people told me I was mean to not let Kaya eat sweets!

Ever since we moved into this small isolated community that is our “Lojman” it has been a battle for Murat and I to keep Kaya sweets-free. Even when he was just 3 months old, other mothers would offer him chocolates and lollypops and sweet breadsticks. When he was 4 ½ months old, one mother even offered him bubble gum?!?!? After almost a year of politely telling everyone “no, thank-you” the offers have not subsided. In fact, the mothers offering the sweets have now become a little bit aggressive, telling me firmly that there's no problem in giving Kaya sweets as they push the offending item towards his mouth. Not only do I not understand why the mothers here don't respect my decisions about how to mother my own child, but I also don't understand why they all seem to think it's quite okay to give their babies sweets at all. I can't count how many times I watched in horror as mothers and fathers fed their babies sweet pudding for dinner or bread covered in chocolate spread for breakfast. And I'm not talking about kindergarten or school-aged kids. I'm talking about little tiny babies. Babies so small they haven't even developed the skill of sitting up on their own yet. Often times these children would be crying in refusal of the food these parents shovelled into their tiny mouths. I just can't understand it. I wish I had the language skill to be able to ask these parents what they're thinking. Really, what are they thinking?

Let me ask you. Would you feed your child poison? Of course not! Would you allow your child a little taste of poison if she asked for it? No way! What if she loved that poison and cried and begged you to give her some? Definitely not! How about if that poison produced no immediate side effects? Would you let her have a little bit then? No, no, no! Poison is poison whether it's a sip or a gulp. You'd take that poison and put it out of reach. You'd explain to your child that it's a poison and she mustn't eat it, she mustn't touch it, ever!

But what about lollies and cakes...? Would you give your little one sweets?

Sweets are called sweets because they contain lots of sugar, but sugar is a poison. Really! The refined sugars found in lollies and cakes and biscuits and desserts is poisonous. It contains no vitamins or minerals of any kind and other than providing calories, it has no nutritional benefit whatsoever. Instead, it causes damage, disease and addiction. In fact, not only does it provide no nutritional advantage, but in order for the body to process the sugar, a lot of other nutrients are required – it actually depletes the body of nutrients!

I think most of us know it's better to NOT offer sweets to our babies and children. But I also think many parents believe it's okay to let our little ones indulge in a sweet treat occasionally. I wonder, if we all really understood all the negative effects sugar has on the body, would we knowingly offer sugar to our loved ones. I hope we'd rethink the type of treat we offered.

I know some of you are thinking I'm exaggerating. You know sugar is not the healthiest choice, but surely it's not as bad as I say. Afterall, we all ate lollies as kids and we're still alive. Well, in response to that statement I want you to think about all those niggling health issues you've lived with for years – the high blood pressure, the occasional mood swings, the lower back pain, the lethargy, the gastro-intestinal problems, those extra kilos, the headaches, all those colds and 'flu's... When you learn all the ways sugar can negatively affect your health, I think you will come to realisation that sugar is very often to blame for almost all our health concerns.

Here are a few reasons to avoid sweets, especially for our children.

• Eating habits and tastes are learned early. The foods offered to your child now will affect his food choices for the rest of his life. This is the time to set the stage for a lifetime of nutritious eating. So withhold those sugary sweets and offer a wide variety of healthful foods instead.
  
  
• The sugar in junk food is very often to blame for hyperactivity and mood swings experienced by your little one. And this is why. Sugar, especially the refined sugars found in commercial foods require very little or no digestion in the gasto-intestinal system which means they immediately enter the bloodstream. Sudden high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia) triggers the pancreas to release insulin to transport the sugar molecules into the body's cells. This happens quickly causing the blood sugar levels to drop quickly … The sudden low blood sugar level (hypoglycaemia) then causes the pancreas to release stress hormones to convert stored sugars in the liver (glycogen) into blood sugar which brings the body back into balance (homeostasis). The ups and downs of sugar in the bloodstream directly causes ups and downs in the child's behaviour.
  
  
• Sugar causes tooth decay. And tooth decay can lead to other problems such as gum disease and eventually even heart disease!!
  
  
• Eating sugar reduces white blood cell count for several hours after digestion. White blood cells are essential for fighting off infectious diseases and foreign “bugs” that have entered the body. Therefore, sugar compromises our immunity.
  
  
• Sugar makes us fat. Excess sugar is stored in the liver but the liver's capacity is limited and when it can hold no more, the excess sugar is moved to other parts of the body to be stored as blubbery fat!
  
  
• Sugar is extremely addictive. In fact, studies have shown that refined sugar is actually far more addictive than cocaine!!
  
  
• Cakes, lollies, biscuits, ice-cream, chocolate and other sweets usually contain other nasties in addition to refined sugar. These ingredients cause cancer, disease, behavioural problems, tumours and all kind of other symptoms we wouldn't wish on our worst enemies. The worst of these ingredients are:
  
     - high fructose corn syrup
     - trans fats (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils)
     - artificial colours (especially Blue 1, 2; Red 3; Green 3; Yellow 5, 6)
     - BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) and BHT (butylated hydrozyttoluene)
     - MSG (monosodium glutamate)
     - artificial sweeteners (aspartame, Acesulfame-K, saccharine, sucralose)
     - refined soy
     - propyl galate
     - sodium chloride (salt)
     - enriched or bleached flour
  
  Later on, I'll explain in more detail why you should avoid these ingredients at all costs, but I hope this list gives you a heads-up on what to look out for at the supermarket.

I hope this list inspires you to throw away the lollies, but if you're still not convinced, take a look at this link:  

The Dangers of Sugar - 76 Ways Sugar Can Ruin Your Health

As parents, I think it's our primary parenting responsibility to do everything we can to help our children reach their potential. And one of the most important things we can do to help them along their way is to keep them as healthy as possible by providing them with good food choices.  Desserts, cakes, biscuits and lollies are not good food choices. 

A nutritionally rich diet is essential in childhood to ensure optimum development at a time of rapid growth. Nutrition is a such an important factor in the growth, development and overall wellbeing of children. Good nutrition provides the necessary goodness to support physical, emotional and cognitive development. And continued healthy eating practices throughout childhood and into adulthood can prevent disease and support a lifetime of good health. In fact, good nutrition is critical to optimizing each child's life potential.

And this is why I refuse to give Kaya sweets.

Watch this space for details about the types of foods you should be offering your child instead of sweets.