Aww Sugar, Sugar, you are my CANDY girl....

If you are old enough to remember the song from the Archie's, then we are close to the same generation.  Did we EVER imagine that everything we put in our mouth for nutrition and sustenance would come from a package or bag?  And that EVERY one of these packages would contain SUGAR or one of it's deriviatives?  It's no wonder that we are FAT and getting fatter!  Many of us don't even realize when we are eating, let's say a salty bag of BAKED or FRIED chips that we are also eating sugar.  I challenge you to check the ingredients on the next bag of chips you eat.  Look for one of the terms below.  Chances are, you will find one of more in the list.   It's probably because the food industry has at least 51 different ways to list this highly addictive and very cheap ingredient.

Some of the industries TERMS for sugar include:

1. Barley malt
2. Beet sugar
3. Brown sugar
4. Buttered syrup
5. Cane juice crystals
6. Cane sugar
7. Caramel
8. Corn syrup
9. Corn syrup solids
10. Confectioner’s sugar
11. Carob syrup
12. Castor sugar
13. Date sugar
14. Demerara sugar
15. Dextran
16. Dextrose
17. Diastatic malt
18. Diatase
19. Ethyl maltol
20. Fructose
21. Fruit juice
22. Fruit juice concentrate
23. Galactose
24. Glucose
25. Glucose solids
26. Golden sugar
27. Golden syrup
28. Grape sugar
29. High-fructose corn syrup
30. Honey
31. Icing sugar
32. Invert sugar
33. Lactose
34. Maltodextrin
35. Maltose
36. Malt syrup
37. Maple syrup
38. Molasses
39. Muscovado sugar
40. Panocha
41. Raw sugar
42. Refiner’s syrup
43. Rice syrup
44. Sorbitol
45. Sorghum syrup
46. Sucrose
47. Sugar
48. Treacle
49. Turbinado sugar
50. Yellow sugar
51. organic evaporated cane juice 

The single largest source of calories for Americans comes from sugar—specifically high fructose corn syrup. Just take a look at the sugar consumption trends of the past 300 years:[1]

• In 1700, the average person consumed about 4 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1800, the average person consumed about 18 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 1900, individual consumption had risen to 90 pounds of sugar per year.
• In 2009, more than 50 percent of all Americans consume one-half pound of sugar PER DAY—translating to a whopping 180 pounds of sugar per year!

Sugar is loaded into your soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and hidden in almost all processed foods—from bologna to pretzels to Worcestershire sauce to cheese spread. And now most infant formula has the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola, so babies are being metabolically poisoned from day one if taking formula.

(Bold section was copied from Dr. Mercola's website www.mercola.com)

The other day my precious allergy riddled food sensitive daughter was shopping with her great aunt and uncle.  They amazed and impressed when she turned around each item and read the ingredients!  And I must say, when they bragged about it to me later, I was so delighted!!  But at the same time, how sad it is, that we have come to this place when even young children have to watch dog the food industry!  

We need to emulate my darling daughter, and read, read, read!  

  

How do I change what and how we eat, you ask?

First off, congratulations!  If you are reading this you will more than likely be on the road to change, or getting a seed sown for future adjustments/changes.  Second, this is NOT EASY!  It's a daily struggle that will be filled with accomplishments, as well as disappointments, and frustrations combined with celebrations.  The guarantee is it will definitely have a positive effect on you and the people in your life who depend on you for nourishment.  Everyone will feel better, have more energy, suffer through less visits to the Doctor, and sleep better.  


Let's get started!  


The first course of action is to clean out your pantry/cabinets/office, every where that you have food. This is the first and most difficult step. 

1) Determine what you no longer want to consume--is it sugar, wheat, white flour, msg, chemicals, red meat, chicken, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, etc.?
2) Take all items out of your life that have the no longer acceptable chemicals or ingredients. GET RID OF THEM!
3) Decide what you will eat, example- vegan, paleo, pescatarian, sugar free, gluten free, (careful when purchasing gluten free prepackaged items, they often have EXCESSIVE amounts of cane sugar as flavor and preservative).
4) Create your menus for the week--keep it as fresh and simple as possible.
5) Write a shopping list
6) BUY ONLY WHAT is ON YOUR LIST!!!


NOW you are either fighting with your spouse or self on how wasteful this step seems- Let me assure you, it's drastic but necessary.  The things you have purged didn't have any nutritional value when you bought them, so the waste already occured.  You are just taking the garbage out instead of eating it.

Come home and get started. With the committment, the tools and the plan, you will have a much better success rate.

Last 2 but very important behaviors- EXERCISE Daily and PRAY every time you are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, depressed, sad, hungry, isolated, and any other negative emotion---PRAY. 

Kids Eat FREE??

My Dad has always said, "Nothing worth having is EVER free".  Boy does that ring true when you try to take your children to a restaurant for KIDS EAT FREE night.  Just going to the area's list of restaurants and perusing the choices (online) is sad and frustrating.  Why wouldn't an establishment offer cheese pizza, grill cheese, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese, all with a side of fries and soda of choice to our children for free??  After all, it draws customers to their business and it costs them very, very little.  How much more would it cost to offer a grilled or steamed vegetable, rice or pasta, small salad, grilled entree (in a kid's portion), and water or even juice to drink?

Zookeepers learned long ago that in order for an animal to be healthy and reproduce in captivity, it was necessary to rmake the zoo as much like the animal's natural habitat as possible. Part of that requirement was diet. Without proper food,  they were prone to infections, developed chronic diseases and rarely, if ever, reproduced. However, when these animals were given foods they ate in their natural habitats — they became more active and healthy and began to produce offspring.  But Zookeepers get FAR more training and lots more education to take care of the animals than we get as parents to feed our children properly.  And having a fabulous zoo in your town makes $$$!      

What value to we place on healthy kids?  Are they valuable to us as a society?  Do they contribute anything to our tourism dollars, or our image?  Is it important to us that they are thriving, free from disease, active and able to reproduce?  And if we determine that they are indeed important to us, how do we make their "home" as much like their natural habitat as possible?  What would a child eat if they lived in a more natural place?  

Interestingly enough, children LOVE healthy food because it makes them feel good.  If you don't believe me, put out a bowl of fresh seasonal fruit, sliced melon, delicious berries, whatever, at any birthday party and see how long it lasts.  Sure they learn to put value on sugar laden, chemically derived, NON food items because "we" make them so enticing.  We call them T-R-E-A-T-S, rewarding our children for a good game, or good behavior, or good anything by handing them cupcakes, over size deli cookies, lollipops, candy, Non food Meals with toys in the bag, a visit to the ice cream parlor, etc., etc.  Do we feed our pets those things?   Do we give them candy, cookies, cupcakes, soad, fast food, etc. for good behavior?  NO WAY!!  If we fed our pets the way we feed our children, there would be so many organizations protesting in our lawn we wouldn't able to get in our SUV's to go get a venti frappacino!    

"Dr's wait until you are sick to tell you"

Well as I mentioned in my first post, we have experienced lots of feedback from both well meaning and not so well meaning people in our lives for not eating certain foods.
Here are just a few samples:
 "you don't eat meat?  Oh I couldn't live without meat"
 "where do you get your protein?"
"Your kids can't have birthday cake?"
"What DO YOU EAT?"
"What's wrong w/cow's milk?"
"nobody else cares if it has sugar in it, except "the _______ family"
"(to my daughter at a b-day party) you can come live at my house.  You can eat all the pink cupcakes you want darling."
"OH WAIT, she HAS to read the LABEL"
"yeah, well there's no way I could eat/live like y'all do"
"what do you give 'them' (meaning my children) for treats?"

And the list goes on...

While most of these comments are meant for me and/or my husband, the speaker rarely cares if my children are present to hear.

Most recently one of those very sincere and loving people in our lives began taking classes in nutrition as a result of a medical diagnosis.  DISCLAIMER--while there is absolutely no gaurantee that eating healthy will prolong your life, there is overwhelming evidence that it will significantly limit the symptoms of disease and sickness one experiences during life.

OK so back to the scenario--my daughter asked me, "Mommie, why don't we drink cow's milk?  Lots of people drink it, and they think it's healthy.  So why don't we?"  I begin to answer, the standard, "well we are allergic to cow's milk.  Cow's milk is for baby cows.  AND, there are companies that pay lots and lots of money to advertise so we will buy what they are selling.  And if we eat too many animal products, we will cause our bodies to become too acidic.  If we are acidic, then we are susceptible to lots of diseases like cancer."  This conversation transpired in the presence of our recently diagnosed friend.

To all of this conversation, she interjects to my daughter, "well you know darling daughter of CCM, cow's milk isn't really that good for you.  Even my oncology Dr., drinks almond milk.  And you are right, people think cow's milk is good for them.  I grew up thinking cow's milk was good too because that is what I was told.  But now they are finding out that it's not so good for humans.  But 'THEY DON'T TELL YOU THAT UNTIL YOU ARE SICK".

I have to say, this Continuously Challenged Mom left that visit feeling very melancholy.  I hear you gasp in dismay...you weren't vindicated, smug from winning the 4 year battle?  NO, because in order to win, there has to be a loser.  I don't want to win if it means watching loved ones, friends, children and neighbors suffer from poor nutrition/disease/allergies/obesity! Isn't it sad that my well meaning and loving friend had to learn good, sound nutrition (not from her Doctor but the nutritionist in the ONCOLOGY clinic), A-F-T-E-R she was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma?

ADDENDUM--found this quote and had to put it in

John Robbins, in his book Diet for a New America tells us on pages 199-200:

“The United States Department of Health and Harvard University . . . called the association of meat-based diets with the increasing incidence of osteoporosis inescapable. . . The more I’ve studied the conclusions of the hundreds of studies in the medical literature, the harder it has gotten for me to abide the National Dairy Council’s promotion of milk ‘for strong bones.’

In spite of its high calcium content, milk, due to its high protein content, appears actually to contribute to the accelerating of osteoporosis. The occurrence of this disease in the United States has reached truly epidemic proportions, and the promotion of dairy products as an answer to the suffering of millions seems, not only self-serving, but absolutely immoral and downright dishonest.”

Reality #1- if you plan to eat, pack it yourself

The inspiration and motivation behind this blog is this: my children have a plethora of food allergies and sensitivities.  We discovered this when they were 1 and 3, thanks to a wonderful M.D., who specialized in holistic medicine.  We have traveled this challenging course on a winding road for 4 years now.  With the diagnosis, and resulting proactive lifestyle to deal with it, we have experienced criticism, skeptism, accusation, persecution, ostracizing, sabatoging and some people just find it amusing to make our family the BUTT of party jokes, RIGHT IN FRONT OF US.  But, with all of that, we have persevered.  Which is why when I asked my wonderful husband how to describe what is like to overcome the world's way of eating, he said, "continuous challenge".  So there you have it.  After months, maybe a year of more of ignoring my brother in law and my wonderful husband's advice to creat a blog--HERE IT GOES, my first entry.

DISCLAIMER--My desire is that  anyone reading this understands that I am not perfect nor will I EVER be.  I am continuously challenged to be the best Mom to my 2 children and wife to my husband, that I can be.  Second, my strength comes from God.  When I forget to consult HIM, my life gets out of control and I get really overwhelmed.  Third, if I can ease the frustration, confusion, and isolation for one Mom, Dad, child or family from sharing our experiences, I have succeeded!  May God bless you in all that you attempt to do on the path of being the best YOU, Mom, Dad, Parent, Grand Parent, Caregiver you can be for your allergic or food sensitive family members.

Today we went to the Gardens to celebrate our Country's freedom, listen to the symphony, fellowship with our dear and like-minded friends, and see an amazing fireworks show.  What a wonderful time!  As will all of our days, what we will eat is at the forefront of our minds.  When going to such an outing, most families rely on what they can find at the venue, or what they can pick up from a drive thru on the way.  Well not our family!  With a cane sugar allergy, dairy allergy, white flour issues, and a predominately vegan lifestyle, where is there to drive thru?  So in between church and the concert, we head to the grocery store.  With some really great pre-made options, such as kale salad and potato salad, as well as lots of organic, seasonal fruits in the stores right now, we are headed back to the house to pack the cooler.

Side note--You will find that most venues are cooler friendly these days.  If they are not, they will allow you bring your own food if a) you pay a fee or b) you explain your families food allergy issues to "security" and c) allow them to look inside your cooler.  We have ONLY had one venue in the past 3 years give us grief about a cooler, and we have never been back.  From that point forward, we check the attraction's website in advance for either FAQ's or pictures of previous years.

So what do you do when you get the venue where you are surrounded by families who are happily consuming EVERY chemical laden, sugar coated, fried or OVER salted concoction known to man cleverly marketed from a booth, bought from a drive thru, or grabbed out of a bag, box or package?  OH how I remember those first days, weeks, and months or living opposite the masses...

1) NEVER apologize
2) NEVER compromise
3) NEVER show up unprepared

Trust me, if you are like me, you will do all 3 of these, and do them often in the first season of your adventure.  But as time goes by and your dedication and creativity will grow.  Just don't give up!  Your family is worth it and you are worth it!  So until my next urge to share, I bid you adieu.

Happy, Healthy and Safe Fourth of July to all.