The Unsteady Diet: The Perfect Formula for Maximizing Benefits While Minimizing Risks

May 15, 2009 by

Buffet

Are you overwhelmed and confused by the endless stream of information on health in the media? New scientific evidence is continually unearthed about what we should and shouldn’t eat.

Perhaps one of the only facts about diet we can know for sure is that the experts always disagree, as has often been said. One expert condemns a certain food even as another praises its virtues.

We want answers, but the answers we get are clouded with the fact that researchers need to get funding. They need to make news.  Methods and conclusions can be colored by researchers’ own personal biases. Then there’s the inherent impossibility of getting much accurate…

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Counsel to Cavemen: Moderation in All Things

Feb 2, 2009 by

Caveman2 If the cavemen were here today, I think that they would jump on the easy food like the rest of us. With their children, they would probably go hog wild for awhile on foods new to them: potatoes in any form, soft white bread, lovely noodles, cheesy pizza. I imagine they would also gorge themselves on desserts—pastries, chocolate, ice cream.

Because it’s all so tasty and easy to get, they would get fat and feel terrible, and try to cut back to their original diet. Though they’d probably compromise on hunting and gathering it all, it would still be too hard to stick to in the face of so many other tempting possibilities. So they would give up, starting the whole cycle over again.

Somewhere between the two extremes is a broad and varied diet of Real Food read more

Feeding Kids: a few enjoyable, specific ways to build positive, nutritious eating habits in 2009:

Jan 7, 2009 by

1.    Try a new recipe weekly or monthly with a vegetable you never eat, or a new salad that sounds yummy.

2.    Serve whole grain, organic rice once a month (instead of white)

3.    Set a pretty table once a week.

4.    Make something that’s good-for-you and delicious (instead of bad-for-you and delicious or good-for-you and unappealing).

5.    At the table, talk about something pleasant and interesting (instead of bugging your kid about what they are or aren’t eating).

 

 

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The Perils of Monday Meatloaf: A Recipe for Disaster

Dec 15, 2008 by

Janet makes meatloaf every Monday. Every Tuesday it’s spaghetti. And so on and so forth. Ad nauseum. It’s no wonder she doesn’t enjoy grocery shopping, making dinner, or eating it, either, truth be told. It’s just a job. Just think how her children feel.

“The wise mother does not say, ‘I always give my children so and so,’” wrote educational reformer Charlotte Mason. “They should not have anything ‘always’; every meal should have some little surprise.”

Too little variety in the diet week after week makes for a child who is “inadequately nourished, simply because he is tired of it,” according to Mason. 

One study indicates that at least to some degree, food is only good for you if you enjoy it. (https://www.thehappydinnertable.com/2008/12/06/it-doesnt-matter-if-she-likes-brocoli-as-long-as-she-eats-it-or-does-it/).

Enjoyment of…

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