Babies will eat ANYTHING

When Trevor was about 7 months old I began feeding him chopped up versions of whatever we ate. This was spurred by the advice I had gotten from a few other mama’s whose children (I had noticed) ate very well rounded diets. They all said the same thing, just give them the healthy, full flavor stuff early on and they don’t have a problem with it. Sounded reasonable enough to me… and turns out it works.

Here is my proof…

Yesterday I decided to harvest some of the gorgeous and huge stalks of rainbow chard and purple kale from my garden. I had some cooked spaghetti pasta already in the fridge so figured I would cook the greens and mix them with the pasta. I chopped the greens roughly, sautéed an “unethical” (as we fondly say) amount of garlic, half an onion, red chili pepper flakes and some lemon zest in 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter. After a few minutes I slowly added the greens, seasoning with sea salt as I went, until they were all in the pot. I let them reduce, added lemon juice, mixed in the spaghetti, then added one more tablespoon of butter, some fresh parmesan and topped it all with parsley. Trevor was in my arms for most of the cooking and was anxious to try a bite. I pulled some greens off the top, let them cool and then gave them to him – he started jumping up and down – the I LOVE THIS FOOD happy dance. So I tried them – they were SPICY! He didn’t care; he started crying that I wasn’t giving him more.

His food tray was in the dishwasher at this point and it wasn’t quite time for dinner yet, so I made a little bowl of the pasta for us to share and we sat on the kitchen floor and ate it with our hands. Then he had more for dinner. See pictures below…

The other hilarious discovery I had yesterday was that Trevor likes herbal tea! At his 9 month well baby visit his Doc had mentioned to add iron rich foods to his diet since babies tend to get anemic around this age. One of the foods mentioned on her handout for iron was nettle tea (she is a naturopath so this was not a big shock). I drink nettle tea all the time – for my own iron levels as well as a million other benefits. And yes when I say “nettle” I mean stinging nettles from the woods. They are excellent for you and are totally edible. The stingers die with heat so you have to handle with gloves until you cook them or dry them. I dry the leaves and make tea. It had never occurred to me that Trevor could drink herbal tea… like most people I just assumed all babies would like is water, juice, or milk. Right? WRONG. He loves it!

So not only does Trevor like garlic, chili pepper, onion, kale, lemon, greens, and what not… he drinks stin

ging nettle tea. Go figure. These are all things that I would not have given him with the assumption that ‘babies don’t like that stuff’. So the lesson is never assume anything about their taste buds!

Smiles,

Christina

Carla Shuford: 54-Year Bone Cancer Survivor

You have heard me talk about The Gerson Institute and reference some of their research, but nothing beats hearing a story from a cancer survivor. Please take the 5 minutes to check this out: Carla Shuford: 54-Year Bone Cancer Survivor.

Also, I watch a documentary called “Veducated” last night. It was a little corny at first but turned out to be rather thought provoking and worth the time. It promotes the ideal of veganism which for me isn’t so cut and dry. I plan to blog about my thoughts on vegetarian/vegan/carnivore soon.

Christina

Am I actually starving?

I heard a very thought provoking comment by nutrition expert Charlotte Gerson the other day. She said the reason why American’s have such a problem with obesity is because we are actually starving (starving for nutrients) and therefore continue to eat nutritionally worthless food to try to fill our hunger and in the end only gain weight while continue to become sick due to our nutritional deficiencies. What a concept! This resonated with me big time.

I feel like a bottomless pit sometimes. I can just eat and eat and eat and when I’m done gorging… I find myself in front of the refrigerator or the cupboard looking for more food. Since hearing this comment I have tried to be more conscientious about those times that I am a “bottomless pit” and see if there are any patterns. What I have discovered is that the days where I eat and eat and eat are always days in which I make bad food choices. For example, yesterday I slept in (Ty got up with Trev so I could) and started my day with coffee and a piece of brownie (I do make semi-healthy brownies but still!). Then I had a piece of seed bread with avocado. A few hours later I made grilled cheese and avocado sandwiches for Ty and I (also on seed bread). I also heated up some tomato soup. Then for dinner we got a pizza for take out: mushroom, green pepper, black olive, green olive, and tomatoes. We washed down the pizza with wine and then I polished off the ‘healthy’ brownies. YUCK!

In retrospect that was a horrible food day! The bread that we get is very healthy bread, the avocado is good for me, and all the veggies on the pizza are good until you mix them with cheese and more bread! Tomato soup from a can is horrible stuff… just tomato paste, high fructose corn syrup and some preservatives. My semi-healthy brownies are Ghirardelli dark chocolate brownie mixed with one can of pumpkin puree instead of the oil, egg, and water – so they have vegetable and nutrient content but they still aren’t good for me! Grilled cheese is a rare treat considering how not good for me it is. All in all, my day was nutritionally sad. So it stands to reason that despite all that food I still feel hungry and have somewhat of an insatiable appetite. My body didn’t get what it needed so it keeps sending me the hungry signal. I feel the munchie urge just as bad today as I did yesterday so I wonder if it carries over and creates a vicious cycle…? I am experimenting with this concept and choosing to eat nutritionally dense food all day in order to curb my urge.

I will let you know how it goes! In the meantime… is this concept as monumental to you as it was to me?

Christina

 

Documentary Obsession

So, it turns out I am obsessed with information. I have been a google junkie for a long time so that is nothing new. While I was pregnant with Trevor my husband would send me random texts that said… “stop googling” because it was a safe assumption that I was researching the latest thought that had crept into my mind about my unborn child. At night I have a hard time falling asleep because my mind races. Sometimes, in order to fall asleep, I will get out of bed and google what I am currently curious about, read up on it, and then go back to bed and fall sound asleep. Like my mind says “ah… curiousity fulfilled.”

Now, and with a thanks to my pastor’s wife, I am beginning to be obsessed with documentaries. Talk about a great way to learn A TON of information about just about anything. If you stream Netflix or have Netflix membership then documentaries are at your fingertips. Considering my fascination with health and diet my latest favorites are listed below:

The Gerson Miracle

The New Medicine

Dying to Have Known

The Beautiful Truth

Ingredients

Food, Inc.

The Medicated Child

Waiting for Superman

Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price

Babies

The Business of Being Born

Food Matters

In my queue are several more including a few National Geographics about the Human body, the Lee Strobel Case for Faith and Case for Christ ones, one about Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, a few more food ones, another pregnancy one, one about the Chaplain of NYFD who died on 9/11… you get the picture. There are simply FASCINATING documentaries to watch. Unlike daytime TV they stretch your mind and teach you new things. I love them.

What are you watching?