Big or small

I just finished reading a book on nutrition by Dr. Joel Fuhrman entitled Disease-Proof your Child: Feeding Kids Right. Unlike other books I've read about what is and isn't good for you, this one is chalk full of scientific studies and evidence to back up his advice. I'm still trying to process all the information in the book and decide what I think and how I'm going to change what we eat. In a nutshell he recommends TONS of fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, whole grains, little meat and little to no dairy (no happiness?). Yeah, we all know we need to eat more fruits and veggies and whole grains and less junk. Its crazy to actually see the numbers on children who were raised on that diet vs. the typical american diet (the number one vegetable that toddlers in this country eat: french fries. That doesn't even count as vegetable!) and the correlation between them having cancer, diabetes, and heart disease as an adult. A few more thoughts on this:

1. In the scriptures eating meat and dairy is not forbidden, but it does say to eat meat sparingly. I used to think that meant once or twice a day. Now I think it really does mean sparingly, 2-3 maybe 4 times a week?

2. As I was reading in 1st Nephi in the Book of Mormon, I noticed that as Lehi and his family were traveling in the wilderness they ate a lot of meat. But once they got to the promised land, what did they do? Planted their gardens and sowed their seeds. THAT was their main diet once they got to Bountiful.

3. As a nurse I always thought it was odd that when we want a child to gain weight we push foods like butter and cream. It is odd. Those foods are just as bad for a child as they are for an adult. Children who eat a lot of saturated fat have heart disease as adults. So what do you feed them instead? Avocados, seeds, nut butters that have plenty of good fats and proteins and other nutrients to boot.

4. How on earth is a person supposed to eat healthy in this culture? There are goodies and treats everywhere you turn! Every social function revolves around food. I'm afraid to even ask what they are feeding Bryndi for snacks at preschool! (she says its M&Ms)

5. I'm not willing to jump right in at once. Small changes. I have outlawed buying more fruit snacks (read: gelatinized sugar with some vitamin C added so the box can at least claim some relationship to actual fruit). But I'm not going to toss out all the Dora, Backyardigans, and Princess boxes of sweetness in my food storage room either.

6. One thing that Dr. Fuhrman advocates that I LOVE is to continue special occasion eating if you want to. Have birthday cake and ice cream for birthdays. Have your holiday foods. Just keep them to occasions and not to the daily diet.

So anyway, I've been trying to teach Bryndi about healthy eating. Now before she eats anything she says, "Does this help me grow big or small?" If I don't answer right away she chants, "Big or small? Big or small? Big or small?", until I do. If the answer is big, she grins and giggles and happily eats the food. If the answer is small, like with a cookie, she says, "oh", but usually eats it anyway. Every day she also tells me she is "growing big like a mommy." After all, when I asked her what she wants to be when she grows up: a mommy.