Happily Holistic
These are a few of my articles and thoughts about holistic health and lifestyle including therapies, nutrition and tasty recipes. I am out to shatter the myths that healthy food must be bland, unappealing or difficult to make. Life is too short to eat birdseed! I want parents to feel empowered to take care of the health of their children and children to understand that the food they eat creates their body anew every day.
Conscious Cooking
Exert from the Introduction of my book Conscious Cooking, which will hopefully exist somewhere other than on my laptop soon!
So many books on food have been published in the past few years. Most of these seem to be focused on weight loss in one form or another. There are books that help you count calories, carbs, glycemic points and pH values. You can make food choices based on your blood type. You can eat all the bacon you want, but stay away from the potatoes. You can eat all the potatoes you want, as long as you only combine them with other vegetables. Only eat vegetables. Only eat fruit. Don’t eat anything after 4:00pm.
It’s exhausting and more then a little confusing. Especially when it is compared to the other message heard loud and clear in our society which is to consume as much easy, quick, sugar-laden foods as possible, and yes, I would like to Supersize that. No wonder most diet plans go up in a chocolate-binging blaze by Tuesday night.
These contradictory messages are also heard by our children. Children lack knowledge and life-experience to understand the biochemical reactions that happen in their bodies when they eat. It is easy to get caught up in dysfunctional attitudes towards food and food preparation, but these don’t appear to be doing anything good for our kids. Everywhere we turn people are worried about the fact that childhood obesity is at an all time high. What used to be referred to as “adult onset diabetes” is now seen in kids under the age of ten. Obesity is about to overtake smoking as the number one preventable cause of death in North America. The average North American child sees roughly 7 000 - 10 000 television commercials annually for food, and the vast majority of these are for sugary cereals, candy, pop and fast food. We live in a fast-paced society, and it is very easy for kids to get caught up in fast-food culture. How do parents instill a positive message in kids in light of these trends? Add to that the fact that they are born with a sweet tooth. They are told to eat every bite on their plate, but thanks to the rise in numbers for childhood obesity, many are now forced to ‘weigh in’ in gym class in front of their peers. The end result is that kids are extremely confused about food and their health and their parents are often unable to help them.
This is not a diet book. Even though in publishing terms it would probably be a smart idea to turn it into one, since people seem to keep buying them; I don’t think I could write a diet book, and certainly not with a straight face. Rather, this is a book about food and its role in a child’s life.