Keeping or kids heathly by watching out for the sugars!
White Stuff is the Killer
Let's get down to it. White stuff is the killer - sugar,
flour, cocaine, heroin--they're all insidiously addictive and they destroy your
health. It may seem nuts to compare sugar with heroin, but if the plague of
obesity in this country is any indication, we are, as a culture, hooked on some
thing pretty deadly. This addiction to white processed foods has led us to an
astonishing increase in Type II diabetes, even in teens and children! Finally,
science has begun to address this fact and has even given it a name; "Syndrome
X". Syndrome X is a condition defined by a cluster of related symptoms that
include insulin resistance, elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, obesity,
high blood pressure and heart disease. Yes, they are all related and yes, they
are all diet related. The point of my presentation is that obesity is not about
fat. it is about sugar---and sugar is not just in candy bars!
Getting white sugar and flour out of our kid's collective diet
is a challenge. It doesn't just mean looking for food that is brown in color!
Commercial brown sugar is actually processed white sugar with some of the
molasses added back in. Most so-called whole wheat bread is processed white
flour with what bran added back to it. True whole grain whole wheat must be the
entire grain, stone ground. Eating the processed food even with some goodness
added back is not going to prevent the long term damage. Most of the mainstream
food supply in America has been stripped of it's nutrients. Many so called
enriched foods wouldn't need to be enriched if we didn't strip them of their
goodness in the first place!
The One-Two Punch
The tandem of bromated, bleached, processed white flour and
refined white sugar creates the one-two punch that hasmade our kids fat and
delivered them that dreaded disease, Type II Diabetes. If yor kid eat processed
foods (candy bars, cereal, cookies, cakes, sandwiches, fried foods including
most commercial French fries, snack bars, pasta, canned soups,
gravies‹have I left anything out?) they are likely eating highly processed
white flour. This stuff, combined with refined sugar, is a silent killer,
forcing their metabolism into high-speed mode and then allowing it to crash
within an hour or so. So, you they the flour or sugar again to get back up into
high gear, and then they crash again. Sound familiar? Let's help them beat the
cycle by turning them on to some superior selections.
First of all, watch the quality of the breads you buy and
think about the quantity of the bread you feed your kids. One sandwich is two
slices‹try to remember that you don't need to eat a sandwich every day for
lunch. (Get them to sit down and use a fork and knife for Godsakes!) If the
bread you serve is really snowy white and the air bubbles are uniform, it's
probably fake‹by fake I mean that the flour is highly processed, stripped
of all nutrients, bromated and treated with various dough
conditioners‹SUPER unhealthy. If your area has an artisan baker, that's
usually a good place to get bread made with milled flour, natural starter, and
little else. There are now many sources on the web for artisan breads.
Try offering whole grain spelt bread and real stone ground
wheat bread. They won't be as chewy as we have become accustomed to. That's
okay. Tell them that that chewiness is a pretty synthetic experience anyway.
Lightly toasted spelt bread makes an excellent sandwich. Also, try doing bread
with dinner the way many Europeans do‹as dessert! The bread, cheese and
fruit dessert course is common, and lets you get filled up on food first, so
that you don't eat a loaf of bread before dinner!
Watch the Pasta
What about pasta? We all love pasta, especially kids. It is
one of America's favorite foods. But conventional pasta converts to sugar in
your system as fast as a slice of Wonder bread. Remember that though pasta is
eaten in Europe, a much higher percentage of their foods are whole foods and
that the balance of processed to unprocessed foods there is very different that
here. Eating a dish of pasta in balance a diet that is rich with cold pressed
oils, fruits, legumes and veggies from naturally composted farmlands, grass fed
meats and an abundance of fish certainly is very different from the American
experience of eating pasta with processed bread, iceberg lettuce and soda!
Growing up in my Neapolitan household, pasta was a daily event . I know now
that pasta made with refined flour shouldn't be a daily experience. The "pasta
crash" is that sinking feeling about 45 minutes after eating that either puts
you to sleep or beckons you to dessert!
If your kids love pasta, here are some pasta variations that
you should consider. I have tried many whole grain pastas and though they are
considerably healthier for you, they do take a little getting used to. Good
pasta is all about mouth feel. That silky, glutinous Durum wheat texture is
almost inimitable. However, other satisfying versions of pasta are also very
delicious. One of the secrets I have found when using alternative pastas is to
cook them all the way, strain and put then into the sauce to soak up some of
the flavor. Brown rice pasta is probably the closest to semolina in mouth feel.
Brown rice pasta is a complex carbohydrate that is digested slowly and
efficiently. It has a slightly nutty flavor and a smooth texture, and I really
like it. We serve excellent brown rice pasta at my café and in the
school lunch program at the Woodstock Day School. They kids don't know the
difference!. It doesn't take much getting used to.
Sugar, Sugar
As for sugar, there are only two ways to go. Consume either
whole food sweeteners--or Stevia. I have tried numerous substitutes, and I
advise you to avoid any and all chemical sweeteners, espcially for kids. They
are the worst thing you can consume!! For those of you who need to avoid any
sugar because of diabetes or other health restrictions, try stevia. Stevia is
an amazing herb from Paraguay that sweetens like aspartame. Get this it is a
leaf, not a chemical. There is absolutely no adverse glucose reaction from
stevia, and it has actually been proven to reduce blood sugar levels while
sweetening food! Stevia is truly a miracle sweetener, and our American chemical
sweetener lobby does not want Americans knowing about it. Thanks to expensive
lobbying, the FDA has classified stevia as a dietary supplement, not a
food.
The Japanese have adopted stevia into their mainstream diet
and use it to sweeten about 33% of the confections made in that country, while
we have once again allowed our markets to be purchased by the group that can
afford to lobby the hardest. Well, in this case it is certainly mainstream
America's loss. But you can find stevia in your local health food store, and
there is an abundance of unbiased information about stevia on-line.
For those of us who are not diabetic, there are excellent
complex, whole food sweeteners we can use that allow our bodies to process them
at a slower rate. This is beneficial for our long term health. Try drizzle your
child's oatmeal with organic barley malt, brown rice syrup or molassess. Both
are whole foods that are rich in minerals and nutrients.
Sugar water
We have been suckered as a nation to believe that juice is
good for us so we pump it into our kids all day long. In my opinion, this is
the primary reason for the rise in obsesity in America's children. Juice on its
own is just another sugar, regardless of the vitamin C claims. There is no
fiber to balance the sugar and so it becomes a simple carb, burning quickly,
allowing kids to stire fat and remain hungry. A glass of commercial pasteurized
orange juice has the the same amount of sugar as a glass of sugar water. And
how much juice are we feeding our kids? Remember that fruit is beneficial only
when it is eaten whole, so that the fiber and the juice combined create a
complex carbohydrate. Straight juice is sugar water!
Simple stuff, right? Cut out the sugar and we'll all be
better off. Now let's put this theory into practice! You have to think for
yourself and do a little work. After all, you are the parent. There is a lot on
information available on the internet. My tip? Always consider the source. When
I see an article that is funded by a particular industry, i always do a search
for an opposing point of view so that I could cut through the lobbying and get
to the facts. You should too. After all, advertising doesn't have to be true
anymore, does it?
Ric Orlando
April 9, 2003
Suggested Reading
- Is This Your Child, Doris Rapp, M.D.
- Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig
Ph.D.
- Syndrome X, Jack Challem, Burk Berkson, M.D. and Melissa
Diane Smith
- Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
- The Fatal Harvest Reader, Andrew Kimbrell, Editor
