I thought I would make this an ongoing thread as I know many of you have children (of all ages) and many of you influenced your offsprings on the path to dietary changes. It would maybe be interesting and useful for all of us parents to see what other parents use as strategies to improve their kids' health.

I'll start this myself: I have a one year and a month old daughter and she is about 90% raw (minus the evening formula that I'm trying now to wean her off with nut milk and banana). She loves many raw foods - most fruits and some veggies. The only hard part is that she's not very fond of smoothies (the texture is too boring for her, she loves to chew). So next to the smoothies/soup tyoe of food she needs to have something to chew (a fruit/tomatoes). It's tough sometimes to bring in more variety becvause there are fewer foods that she can chew without many teeth. I'd love to find more recipes suited for a one year old but there's not much on the internet. I'm just trying to tweak regular recipes and simplify them for her.

Hope to hear from many moms...and dads.

cricri

when little was a baby i fed him all manner of mashed and smashed food stuffs. i had a small baby food mill [www.amazon.com] that i used for fruits and veg. so long as i mixed apple or pear with spinach, kale, squash, etc, he would happily eat it (i steamed some of the harder veg). if something was too tough or hard (nuts, carrots) i chewed it up for him first. there are so many soft fruits that babies love, all manner of berry, banana, avocado, tomato, grapes (cut in quarters or mashed, very important!), mango, papaya, young coconut jelly, etc.

how about a chunky smoothie, add some chunks of soft fruit to your puree to make it a more interesting texture for your little one.

the real challenge for me is now that my boy is bigger and in school for lunches. it's hard to fill his lunch kit with even mostly raw, they have so little time to actually eat, he comes home hungry every day.

My kids are now teenagers and I wish I had raised them differently on food, but I'm not sure if I would have gone with an all raw diet since I wasn't planning to homeschool (like Jinjee & Storm do).

I do fix them a bowl of fruit for breakfast and have done that for years. One eats the yolk in 2 boiled eggs as well and on occasion, some Rice Krispies with Dairy-Free milk (ordered online). The other one eats a yogurt and a string cheese as well (both from TJ or WF).

They do not have time to eat mostly raw at lunch, we tried that for awhile and they came home starved. My daughter packs her own lunch and takes 5 baby carrots, a baggie full of those supposedly all natural Cheetos, and 3 gluten free wafer cookies from WF. My son doesn't have a lunch hour at his school, just a snack time and he eats Lays Classic Potato Chips (not good I know, but he is very sensitive and if he brought some healthy chips in a baggie he would be embarrassed) and a chocolate chip granola bar from TJ.

After school snacks include popcorn and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (the bread, pb&j are all from WF or TJ) and for the one that didn't have cheese at breakfast - a thin slice of cheddar cheese (from WF).

Supper usually starts with a salad made up of Romaine, green, or red leaf lettuce (they just like the big leafs intact on their plate - 2 or 3), baby carrots or celery, and a red delicious apple.

The main entree is not particularly healthy but I buy all the ingredients from WF or TJ - pizza, macaroni & cheese, cheesy rice, grilled cheese, quesadillas, rice noodles with olive oil. Once a week I pick up Taco Bell for supper. And once a week we are really bad and I usually pick up a shake and fries from Dairy Queen. Like I said, I wish I had raised them different. :-(

Dessert is usually cookies from WF or TJ.

I know buying a lot of foods from Whole Foods & Trader Joes doesn't make them healthy. In fact, my daughter might say something about the cookies being healthy and I will jokingly correct her and tell her, no, they are just less unhealthy. Dad is a big meat eater and junk food eater, so I am just doing the best I can with their diet and trying to set a good example with mine.

Similar to Karennd here. My kids are a bit younger (8 and 2) and eat what is served at school and daycare for lunch. I try to make up with a healthy dinner and snacks though. The older one "has to" eat a big plate of apples and carrots or what he just have when he comes home. My goodness, it seems all kids come home starved from school here, mine too! Just not enough time, and too much time spent chatting away (at least my son!)
When they were younger, it was easier to have the kids be raw. Breastmilk and raw mashed stuff was going well. Now it's not that easy anymore...

Well, sadly my two kids (10 yr old daughter & 7 yr old son) are slaves to the SAD and even worse, eat all the sugary, highly processed sweets that my wife buys. While I love my spouse dearly, her parents are snackers and she's passed that on to our two kids. Don't misunderstand me - snacking is fine as long as it's fresh fruit and vegetables. Chips, soda, and cookies are not my idea of quality calories to be putting in today's children. Add to that fact my wife is genetically gifted and even after all these years can get away with her Coke and Pringles diet. As I've been saying more and more of recent, if I knew then what I know now...

I'm fortunate to send both children to private school where my son was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year. I am 100% certain that his 'condition' can be cured with a raw diet. After eating waffles or pancakes drenched in maple syrup is it any wonder why he can't sit still?

Even more frustrating are my attempts to right the ship. If I serve them a quality dinner (albeit cooked) my kids won't eat. When I was their age my parents MADE us eat those horrible fruits & vegetables. Kids today it seems would rather go without than eat decent food. And before I'm brought up on charges, I consider myself an active, loving, and caring parent. I'm not an absentee parent who's tried a scant few times to get better calories in my family. It's an ongoing battle and one that provides a great deal of stress in my life.

So much so that I've recently discovered a cookbook called Deceptively Delicious authored by (of all people) Jerry Seinfeld's wife Jessica. While she's not reinvented the wheel, she has refined a system to sneak in various fruit and vegetable purees in to her kid's meals. I can't wait to begin trying this in earnest this weekend. The path to better eating starts with one small step, no?

I know this isn't what you've been wanting by way of response Cricri. Still, I wanted to share my experience and perhaps vent somewhat.

Doing my best however!

Regards,

David

My son is 8 years old. His father lives 4 hours away and when he visits him, he eats everything from spam to McDonalds. When he stays with me he loves to munch out on purple cabbage, beets, all berries, apples, coconut pulp, oranges, and freshly squeezed O.J. he loves my smoothies (without the green). But he doesn't like the mixed stuff, it has to be seperated and alone. He has to know what he's eating at all times before I make it. He doesn't like raw pie, raw meals, raw mixtures of any kind except his smoothie which is banana, strawberries & a little water. Sometimes he just loves watermellon juice for days (me too). He'll eat a salad if I'm eating one, and he loves eating with his hands just like I do

*I have tried to talk to my ex-husband about healthier eating for our son, he yelled at me and said "HE'LL EAT WHAT I EAT WHEN HE'S BY ME!" end of conversation.

Diamond Dave - I totally hear you. Back in the day I ate whatever my parents put on the table, wether I liked it or not. My sons will eat little to nothing if they don't like it.
I have bought and used the book "The Sneaky Chef" which also uses the concept of sneaking purees into various foods. The downside is that after all that steaming, mashing and mixing, there's not much vegetable left. And the amount that you can "sneak" into a food without making it obvious is also relatively low.

But I'm glad that both kids, like me and dad we don't have a sweet tooth. The older one doesn't like anything carbonated (no soda yay) and he despises french fries. He loves strawberries and cucumber. The little one will drink fresh carrot juices

About kids eating at other people's places: it sucks. No matter if it is a friend they stay with, the other parent, grandparents, aunts or uncles - the food issue bothers me, too. My son stayed with my sister for a while this year during summer and he pretty much ate what I consider junk. BUT he had great fun, so it's not like I want to keep him home because of diet arguments.

That reminds me, no pop. At least that is one thing my kids do not consume and my husband doesn't buy. We all just drink water, a lot.

Let us know how the sneaking in of veggies works for you this weekend, Diamond Dave.

Sneak in veggies? Haha..it reminds me of my mom's attempts to sneak in garlic during winter (they say it's good against colds...and friends). Now that's a weird idea..sneaking garlic! Of course it never worked for the second bite. Now I love garlic but my hubby doesn't love it afterwards...so I only have it rarely.

I can hear you folks with older kids...school, commercials, friends...raw will probably be hard or impossible. At least these first few years, while I can choose for her I hope to get her used to fruits and veggies.

I hate the commercials here in Romania...one in 3 nowadays is for kids food: salami, cookies, chips...all supposed to be natural and healthy because they have no preservatives or artificial coloring. What about the tons of salt and sugar? How can you beat that when you are the only one not allowing them to have those foods? I'll see later...I'll stick to raw mostly as long as I can without ruining my relationship with my daughter.

Peace to you all.

cricri

wow, wow. i'm so lucky i don't have (and never have had) to struggle with the negative eating habits of a spouse! my mom can be a junky junk food instigator but she's basically a health nut at heart so gently reminding her usually illicits a suggestion for a healthy alternative. she loves fruit and we're right in farm and greenhouse land so there is an abundance of fresh, local produce here for a good chunk of the year. her special thing to do with him is take him blueberry picking down the road from out cottage! lucky me.

alrighty, a more indepth answer.
breakfast can by fruit, little loves melon, or organic ancient grain cereal with organic rice milk. grains aren't the best but at least that's good food combining and no dairy (i don't buy milk, ever, i hate it).
for lunch i send him with all manner for things in small containers. he gets a sandwich on whole grain bread, his favorite is "salad" sandwich (tomato, lettuce, sometimes avocado, sometimes cheese). he also likes nut butter and jam, i have organic cashew, almond, pumpkin and sunflower seed butters and organic fruit spreads. this isn't raw but it's hard to work around a school lunch without a sandwich. when i find a reasonable alternative i'll let you know .
the rest of his lunch can be any of the following:
natural fruit leather (not that bright purple, red and blue stuff), cherry tomatoes, grapes, pineapple chunks, olives, celery sticks with nut butter are a hit, etc.
he does like yogurt and cheese strings (thanks a LOT grandma) so i put those in there too but i don't like dairy so am phasing this one out entirely. just have to get my mom on board, she buys the cheese things as treats for him she's being a terrific grandma but... cheese, ugh.
we have fruit for snacks in the afternoon, he likes apples and nutbutter.
and for supper i like salad, he gets sliced tomato, cucumber, peppers, carrot, celery, etc but not the lettuce. and he likes steamed veg so i make a combo of any of the following:
sweet potatoes, carrots, turnip, parsnip, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts.
i make brown rice or millet or quinoa or beans or lentils. no sauce or spice on either the veg, beans or grains but a sprinkling of salt or lemon.
and we sometimes have whole grain pasta with lightly sauted fresh veg. he hates tomato sauce and isn't big on grains really at all.

so i'm doing ok with the healthy choices, i don't purchase any junky foods so they just aren't here to reach for as snacks at all. no pop, very rarely any juice from a container, bottled water is pretty much all he drinks. he does take a healthfood store multivit, efa's and probiotics on occasion.

but still, it's not raw, not even 50% with him. that's a challenge.

and if he needs garlic i cut thin slices of it and bandaid them to the soles of his feet at night. just as effective as putting it in his mouth, maybe more!

My teen-aged kids eat every kind of diet, depending on their mood, haha!!

I learned something last year - the school banned all "junk" food dispensers, candy bar machines and whatnot, and replaced them with healthier options, but the kids aren't stupid, they just go across the street to the fast food place for the junk.

So my strategy has been to not be too stringent and it seems to work best for us. Some days, I can send all kinds of healthy stuff to school, other days, I have to decide whether a chocolate chip granola bar would be a better choice than having them head to the french fry place.

Luckily for me, my kids have loved fruits and veggies all their lives, so they are pretty good about having those, just that they also want their potato chips and sugar. The best I can do is try to make sure there's lots of good stuff around to choose from. A big bonus is that when those teen blemishes arrive, you get to remind them that healthier eating equals nicer skin. Vanity usually trumps taste buds, at least for my girls!

Sapphire

coco, neat idea with the garlic on the feet with a bandaid! When do you use that?

Coco - the image of you sneaking in your son's room at night to tape slices of garlic to his feet brings a smile to my face! I'm gonna remember that one.

Well, a couple of things since I whined earlier on. As for sodas, my wife has limited the kids to once a week. I'd prefer once a year but that's a battle I don't want to engage in. At least she's no longer taking them to McDonalds after I showed her that wonderfully sobering DVD, Supersize Me.

Lemoned - Agree that after all the steaming and cooking the veggies tend to be worthless nutritionally. I'm going to 'attempt' to sneak in more raw versions of what the Deceptively Delicious book recommends. Guess you could say I'm stealing the concept from that book & The Sneaky Chef and putting my own twist on things.

I can say that at least my daughter is a fan of my banana smoothies although she finds my green breakfast blends "gross". Am hopeful they may become more open minded with maturity.

David

Just wanted to tell all the parents of younger children - NEVER underestimate the power you have to set the right example. If your children see you always choosing a snack of fresh fruit or veg, that will sink in eventually. If you are sitting around spending time together, and your child notices you nibbling on pieces of fruits or veggies from a bowl that just "happens" to be right there, ready to eat, they will probably follow suit. Maybe not right away, but their curiousity will eventually get the better of them. If you act like soda and chocolate is the best snack in the world, they WILL believe you.

I don't think I truly realized just how much my kids all emulated me until they hit their teen years. They like the same foods as I do. They are totally paranoid about never being late for anything like I am. They are tidy in the same ways I am tidy and a slob in the same ways I am. They are all unable to tell a lie and make it sound believeable. The list goes on and on. It's amazing! (all their bad habits come from their father, of course - haha!!)

No wonder children of smokers are more likely to smoke, and children who see abuse go on to make a life of abuse for themselves. So many other bad habits seem to pass from one generation to the next, but so do the good ones. As long as we stay aware of that, we can use that power to their own best interests. They are not nearly as interested in what you say, as they are in what you do.

Sapphire

Do any of you who feed your kids unconventionally, feel uncomfortable discussing your kids' diets in a public internet forum? Just curious.

I agree with Sapphire totally, kids are little sponges and it is amazing what kind of influence you can have on them. Scary, really.

Sarah
[goingbananasblog.com]

Sarah, that's an interesting question. I'm often warned about not sharing information about our lifestyle (be it raw foods or unschooling, or something else) for fear that it will be taken the wrong way and some governmental organization will feel the need to intervene.

We've had friends who have voiced concerns, who felt that we were doing our daughter harm in the way that we raise and feed her. She's extremely bright, healthy, loving, compassionate, and so many more wonderful things. People just don't know how to look at what's in front of them--they are filled with fears based on what they've been taught is the "right" way to raise children.

Anyway, I do tend to hold back on information at times. Not all the time, but sometimes, depending on whether something feels unsafe, or not.

Love,

Gypsy

Gypsy, I feel the same way, and I too tend to hold back on info about my kids. I figure, what they eat is our business and nobody else's, esp if they're healthy and growing well. (By nobody else, I don't mean the people on this thread, but SAD people who feel the need to question you. Just because you ask me what they eat, doesn't mean I owe you an answer).

Sarah
[goingbananasblog.com]

oh man, when my small princess was born at home unassisted the children's aid showed up. they interviewed little and i the DAY i gave birth, can you imagine? whatever, they sent me a letter a few days later telling me what a great mom i am and how wonderful and refreshing it was to meet my family. thank goodness i have some science to back myself up with eh? but yeah, i don't always talk about all the stuff with all the people. don't wanna go blowing nobody's mind now do i?

hey, i only snuck that garlic onto his feet the first time. after that he started to ask if his throat felt scratchy. he asks for salt water to gargle with too, he likes to feel good. he gets me to massage his feet with oil after a bath and wants to grow his hair long too. he's hillarious.
we watched supersize me last year (we were living in a town with no fast food joints) and now whenever he sees a mcdeath's he says stuff about "that poisonous restaurant". he wouldn't even go in with a friend one time to get a toy out of the 25cent machine! he's awesome. he's a vegetarian by choice too, i never pushed that on him. for sure seeing me, friends, relatives make healthy choices has had a positive affect on him, i'm really, really grateful for that.

hey dave, minerals aren't affected by heat and that's what veggies are full of. steaming is ok, not as good as raw but still pretty darn fabulous, especially if they aren't covered with sauce and junk.

Before my ex ran off with a crack addict... and took the kids... our kids... our kids thought fruit was the greatest thing. And they thought going to a salad bar was the biggest treat in the world. I used to tell them, "Get anything you want" and their eyes would open wide with wonder and hunger. They would stuff their mouths, smiling.

Now, they have a wide screen TV, video games, and all sorts of junk food from Walmart -- yeah, things I never gave them or would live with.

Why settle for a house in the quiet suburbs when you can have a trailer by the highway?

I'm going to take a long, hot shower with natural bodycare products then sip some sun tea and let this day end.

I'm very grateful to be healthy and to have found this path.

oh, ouch lee. that's painful. keep the faith that your positive role-modelling will resurface as they grow old enough to understand their own choices. i was a dreadful teenager but turned into my mother when i hit my mid twenties. all the things she did when we were growing up stuck with me. stay positive.

Sparkler - well as far as the nutrition of the kids go, I am kind o private about extended breastfeeding except places where I know it will be accepted. I'm just not in the mood for confrontations. My older son grew up vegan for the first 4 years of his life, and it already raised eyebrows here and there, I did not want to "advertise it" because I know how people are....you need milk to grow those bones, meat to grow those muscles blabla
Food for little children seems to be a very very sensitive subject with most people, SAD eaters will think of raw foods/vegan/vegetarian + children = child abuse.

My daughter, age 17, is 80% raw like me. Because of her, I became raw. I was looking for natural treatments to resolve her health issues because I had lost faith in western medicine. Her doctor prescribed some meds that really messed her up worse than the original problem.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise because I would never have discovered raw otherwise.

yay roxeli, that's a great story.

lemoned, i was loud and proud about extended breast feeding with little (3.5yrs) but i'm not quite so out there with the princess. i don't hide it but i don't flaunt it either this time round. i still wear her and sleep with her and i'm open about it when warranted but i get it that you can't open people's minds by force so i go easy with that stuff. and i can back my POV up with science and studies so i feel pretty confident when i do talk to people and i'm pretty sure that comes through to them. peeps defer to me a lot of the time because i'm educated and well spoken when i DO talk about health and parenting. they hardly ever have anything to back their arguement up with for the most part so they give up easy and stop trying to talk me into stuff once they catch my drift.

My kids - Give them crap, and they will eat crap (and later complain about how bad they feel). By now, they realized that they feel much better on raw, and that's great.

I am philosophical about their choices. I understand that they have to maker their own decisions and learn. I do not want to be like a dictator, cause I know this would only discourage them. I do make an effort to provide yummy raw stuff for them.

In the mornings, they usually have a fruit smoothie, same in the afternoon. To school, they take mainly fruit and some raw stuff I make for them (cakes, lollies etc). Each of my kids has their own preferences. My son (16) loves apples. My daughter (7) loves watermelon. They both love my smoothies. They seem to be quite content eating raw at home.

Socializing with cooked kids can be an issue. I still haven't figured out how to make a raw birthday party for hard-core meat-eating conservatists. ??? I would be quite happy to just have a watermelon for my birthday cake. But try to serve this at a regular party ha ha ha!

Also, I gave up on explaining things to our extended family. How can I explain our choices to someone who thinks that fries, fish fingers, meat, pasta etc is good nutrition. ??? When they voice their concerns about what I feed my "growing kids", I breathe in and out, enough times, and it ends there.

Gosia


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coco, thanks for your support. At the end of a long day, this thread just hit a nerve.

All I can do is be as healthy as I can be, be there for those who want me to... I have a lot of admiration for those who live with SAD family and stick with being raw. It was so difficult for me and I couldn't do it with my SAD (in)significant other. Now, I'm able to stick with raw. I have raw but I don't have the family.

Giving your children the ability to discern healthy from unhealthy food is so important. You don't have to always feed them 100% organic raw vegan food to do that. If you educate them to notice how they feel when they eat, you are giving them a lifelong gift that will bear wonderful (organic, raw) fruit later on. I really believe that. I saw my... uh, my former... children occasionally make really wise food choices as they grew up. They would return from visiting friends' homes and say, "I really just want a salad" after eating their friends' SAD food.

It really made me feel good to see and hear that -- that they craved pure, real food after indulging in SAD food.

think about what your parents lifestyles were like. are you doing things like they did or are you a step beyond them? i was lucky, i grew up in a family where health, nutrition, alternative therapies, etc got a lot of attention. to me, those things were just normal. and so, because of my terrific parents, i had it easy incorporating healthy things into my life. they were already there!

what i'm saying is that i have high hopes for my kids. i expect that they will surpass me in all ways because they don't have to learn all the things i know through trial and error. they will just grow up knowing and will go on to learn other things with a solid base to work from. that's the gift we give them as healthy, conscientious parents. it's an amazing gift. much better than a car!

gosia, for one of little's bday parties i served guacamole and salsa with fresh veggie sticks, a fruit platter, fruit punch (real juice with sparkling water), and banana 'ice cream' with 'chocolate sauce' (frozen nanas run through a juice press and cocoa powder mixed with blended dates and water). it was all a hit. i made a raw carrot cake for a pot luck once that was terrific too. it's doable.

Coco, nice ideas, thanks. I can visualize this with my little one. I might test it next time my daughter has some visitors, before I make a big splash and risk people throwing food at me ha ha! OK, could you please tell me what do you put in
1) guacamole
2) salsa?

But as far as the big one, no way. My sons friends prefer going to Pizza Hut for their birthdays and I gave up on the idea of trying to change that.

Gosia


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guac= avo, lemon, salt, celery seeds, garlic
optional (1 of the following): cumin, dill, cilantro or parsley chopped fine.

salsa= tomato, onion, garlic, cilantro, salt and pepper, a squeeze of lime if desired.

both are easy in a food processor, do the salsa first and you only have to do a quick rinse out instead of washing the machine.

I'll try, Ta!

Gosia


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