I haven't posted about nutrition or food in a while, so I thought I'd share a couple of quick things about kids and food. I'll be the first to admit, my toddler doesn't eat a perfect diet. When we take him to dinner with us, he'll get the occasional french fry and he loves Don Taco's quesadillas. But, when we're at home I try to keep our food as nutritious as possible for every snack and meal. Snacks have been a tough one for me, but I'm getting better and better at the toddler/whole food diet thing. You can't exactly feed a toddler raw salads, veggies and lean meats all day (due to lack of teeth), so it's taken me some time to get creative, especially with snacks.
A few friends have asked me what Kyle eats now, knowing my obsession with "real" food. Obviously if you've seen my linebacker son, you can tell he's a good eater. He's not picky at all, and I really attribute that to my making sure he's exposed to a variety of foods, herbs, spices, and textures as early as possible. He eats lots of lean, organic, grass fed meats, cheeses, fruits, veggies and he loves Ezekiel bread. He's tried everything healthy under the sun, and I try to keep away from flour, sugar and processed food. Instead of giving him the usual cheerios or puffs for easy, crunchy snacks, I've started using a lot of veggies...with success! Here are a few easy healthy treats Kyle loves lately...and these are all great for "on the go":
-roasted grated carrots (or carrot chips)
-spinach chips
-oven "dried" cherry tomates
-kale/spinach chips
-roasted broccoli
-seaweed chips (sounds weird, but these are insaaanely nutritious and they taste nice and salty!)
-sweet potato chips
-butternut squash fries
All of these things you can easily do yourself with some olive oil and salt/pepper, or, you can buy them already cooked at Sprouts...they're bagged up in the bulk grain/nut area.
Terra chips are Kyle's favorite new snack. They're VEGGIE chips! The ingredients are the veggies and sunflower/safflower oil...healthy! There are several different kinds of Terra chips...the exotic harvest is awesome. I love all of these! They're seriously delicious!
Organic rice crackers are great as well. They're pretty hard but Kyle likes to gnaw on them and they last a while! They're gluten free and much healthier than saltines or ritz. I give Kyle different flavors, and he likes them all!
So, why do I make sure that Kyle eats as healthy as possible? Read the articles below...just a couple of quick reads on kids and processed foods...
From TIME:
The human brain develops rapidly in early life — transforming helpless infants into walking, door-opening, question-asking, willful little people. And now a new study suggests that a toddler’s diet may have some impact on his future cognitive abilities, with diets high in processed food at age 3 leading to lower IQ by age 8.
Researchers from the University of Bristol looked at data on 3,966 children born between 1991 and 1992, who were part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). The children’s parents had completed surveys on their kids’ diets at ages 3, 4, 7 and 8.5, and the children’s IQs were measured at age 8.5. (More on Time.com: Is School Lunch Making Your Kids Fat?)
Parents recorded their kids’ consumption of a wide variety of food and drink, including details like the fat content of milk, whether breads were refined or whole grain, and how much soda or coffee children consumed. Based on parents’ reports, researchers assigned kids to one of three diet categories: a “processed” diet, high in fat, sugar and calories; a “traditional” diet (in the British sense), made up of meat, potatoes, bread and vegetables; and a “health-conscious” diet of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, rice, pasta and lean proteins like fish.
Overall, kids who ate junky fast-food diets at age 3 had a small drop in IQ at age 8.5, compared with kids eating healthy foods. The association persisted even after researchers controlled for other environmental factors that can influence IQ, such as parental education level, maternal diet in pregnancy, socioeconomic status and stressful life events.
For each unit increase in processed food diets, children lost 1.67 points in IQ. By contrast, for each unit increase in healthy diets, children gained 1.2 IQ points. Quality of diet measured at the other ages did not significantly affect IQ level by age 8, suggesting that diet may be most important during toddlers’ earliest years. (More on Time.com: More Calls to Overhaul Deceptive Front-of-Package Labeling)
The researchers found that early diet seemed to affect kids’ later verbal abilities more than their performance abilities. “Performance IQ relates to an individual’s innate intellectual ability, while verbal IQ more reflects the impact of education, which in turn is affected by influences such as parenting and environment,” wrote the researchers.
That’s in keeping with previous research noted by the authors:
These results are in line with previous studies we have performed in the ALSPAC cohort: overall dietary patterns in early childhood are associated with both later child behavior, in particular hyperactivity and school performance. This suggests that any cognitive/behavioral effects relating to eating habits early in childhood may well persist into later childhood, despite any subsequent changes (including improvements) to dietary intake.
From The Stir, January 2012:
French fry? Well, you may want to hold off on that first fry. A new study on food and your brain just came out with disturbing results: Fast food can make you dumb. Seriously. Trans fats -- the kind found in fast food and processed food -- are tied with lower brain volume and worse cognitive performance. In other words, junk food makes your brain smaller and slower.
It's pretty hard to rationalize this one away. If you want your child to eventually do well in school, it sounds like you'll want to lay off the fast food. And you may want to cut back on the boxed snack foods, too. Sorry. We already know that childhood obesity is a problem (or do we?). But here's one more reason to take your children's nutrition more seriously.
I know it's exciting when toddlers get their teeth and can start eating "big people" food. We all love seeing our kids experience new things and enjoying the same foods we love. But it looks like bonding with your kids over your love for fast food is a colossally bad idea. Now don't panic -- no one is taking your French fries away. This is about facing the facts and taking responsibility for the choices you're making -- for yourself and for your kids. We want our kids to grow into their best, brightest selves, right?
Oregon Health & Science University researcher Dr. Gene Bowman says the link between trans fats and brain power is so dramatic, he recommends we stay away from all trans fats. This means if you're not already checking out the ingredients lists, now is a good time to start. He says, "If you aren't sure whether something has them, just look at the ingredients; if there's vegetable shortening, partially hydrogenated anything ... just put it down. That’s the big message here."
The thing is, the toddler years are a great time to get into the habit of healthy eating -- before they even know there are other options out there and while you're still the biggest influence in their lives. It's an opportunity you can't afford to miss. I know some of you already feel strongly about feeding your toddlers well. Here's one more reason to support you when you tell grandma you'd rather not let her take your babies out for burgers.
Start your babies off on the right foot! :)
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