Food chaining and Healty Eating

I recently found this book " food chaining". It was introduced to me by Dom's former speech therapist back in TN. She has a small child and swore by it. Basically the whole book is teaching you how to chain the food that your child will eat and then hopefully helping him/her try new foods and help YOU find the best options (because only YOU really know your child).

Now, some kids just have aversions- and they explain most of them to you. Like for example some autistic kids will take longer, if ever, to go outside of their comfort food....but for most kids it really does work. An example would be the child who only eats chicken nuggets. Introduce her to chicken tenders (or even another brand of chicken nuggets) or a different size of nuggets, then do lightly breaded ckn, and later grilled chicken. Or  instead of ckn nuggets, try breaded fish bites, or other kind of breaded protein, or even breaded veggies. The book gives you several options as to which route you should take depending on what the child likes and you think he/she will actually eat.

I'm telling you it works. It's not a miracle worker, but Dom has tried things that I never thought he would. He has given up ketchup and nuggets (which I'm so grateful for)...and has tried green beans, carrots, oranges, apples, and cooked onions....and has given bananas and broccoli a second chance. He'll even try spinach and green leafs. It's crazy!

 Now, I'm not saying he'll eat them every time, but he will try them...if we do the chaining thing. If I just give him something completely new, he usually just doesn't eat dinner. And sometimes it does happen, like when I don't plan a particular dinner. In that case, I'll let him choose what to eat and maybe we'll have snacks later. One of my sister in laws told me that when her kid goes thru phases where they only eat one thing, she'll try to buy organic to at least not put too many chemicals in his little body. I think it's a great idea.

I found an ALDI nearby and their line of organics is actually cheaper than a store brand at target or walmart....so I shop for snacks there. Their fruit snacks actually taste like juice and are so much cheaper than the $2.50 box of minions or spongebob fruit snacks. I'm not even sure what's in those, but the spongebob fruit snacks are white....not transparent....like white white...I'm not sure what flavor that is suppose to be. I have also found healthier granola bars, and baked cheese crackers (along with fruit snacks) at ALDI just in terms of sodium and sugar content.  Dom doesn't even know the difference, which is great. The less he notices, the better. So, if you have one nearby but never been inside, it's well recommended. You do need a quarter so you can get a shopping cart (you get it back when you're done) and they only take cash or debit card (I have been told the only credit card they take is Discover, but I have never personally done it). They also take EBT, but not coupons nor WIC.

 

Along the lines of healthy thinking,  I was watching a documentary on Netflix about GMOs. (Genetically Modified Organisms)...and while trying to have a 100% GMO- free, purely organic diet is impossible, you can try to at least do part of your diet this way. Spencer swears that organic bananas do NOT taste the same as regular bananas...but they are hard to find. I actually can't tell the difference, I just know they are twice as expensive, but if that's what it takes for my husband to eat some kind of fruit...I'll take it. So, I buy organic bananas and I try to go for organic grapes, if i can find them, and apples. Every now and then I'll find coupons for organic stuff and I found a local store that will take them, and sometimes I score good deals, but by no means is half our diet organic....that would be so expensive. How do people do it?

I thought that someday I could grow my own garden....but that's really not guaranteed either. Sometimes, the soil is already contaminated, and therefore so  are your crops. In this docommentary, this family fished in Yellowstone, because they thought they were getting natural fishes with no GMOs. But when they tracked the fishes, they came to find out that they came from hatcheries and so they were hand fed...meaning they were eating fish food that probably had some GMO corn. Go figure....not even nature is safe.

So, while I don't expect our diet to go full or even half organic any time soon, I'll keep trying to find deals in whatever I can find...because I do believe it is better for us. What's so sad about this whole thing, is that most GMOs are prohibited in the European Union, so the same companies that provide non GMOs to the Europeans, don't do the same for us (even though they are capable of doing it) because that would mean a lesser profit in the end for them. How sad....how greedy the world can be. What's even sadder, is that they know what they're doing is wrong....putting all those contaminants in the soil, which will eventually give out and not be able to produce crops anymore, so really, we're not helping ourselves. What if the end of the world comes, we saved some seeds, and none of them come out because we've destroyed the soil? That's a scary thought....

You can tell I've been really thinking about this a lot. I feel so bad for the Earth. I feel bad that maybe my children will not get to enjoy it.  I think that's one of the main reasons why I do cloth diapers. Did you know that the first disposables from the 1970s are still in the SAME shape in the SAME landfill after all this time? That stinks....literally. But like the great comedian George Carlin said " to the Earth, were just a bad case of the fleas. We think we're doing so good by being environmentalists, but really the Earth doesn't care about diapers, and a couple pieces of styrofoam....when it's time...she'll just shake us off like a bad case of the fleas. Our time has been ticking since we got here."  But that doesn't mean we should stop trying....one thing is for sure....I will NEVER own a prius...haha.