Slackers Rule.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the time, the interest or the skills to track the nutrients my daughter consumes.  But even if I did, I’m much too lazy.  Quite frankly, just getting food into her multiple times each day is about all I can muster.  I’m a slacker.

That’s why all the nutrition advice out there is useless to me: Not only can’t I keep track of how many servings of vegetables my daughter is supposed to eat, I don’t even know how many vegetables are in a serving.  Do you?

And I have only one child.  I can’t imagine how someone with a brood keeps track of all the data:

• All those different ages translate into different calorie needs. 
• Different calorie needs translate into different serving sizes.
• On top of this, the nutrition approach also asks us to remember how much juice everyone drinks, how much spinach is in their slice of lasagna…

Maybe this is why we are all slackers.

Food manufacturers take advantage of slackers by selling us foods that appear to meet our children’s nutrition needs, but which ruin their habits instead.  Read How Brands Bite You in the Butt.

You can rule as a slacker.  All you have to do is change your approach.

There’s an easier – and more effective -- way than nutrition to feed kids: Just get the ratios right.

But it’s not the ratio of protein to carbs, of fats to fibers, or of processed to refined grains that you need to track. (That’s too taxing.)

You only have to consider one thing: Do your kids eat real food more often than they eat:

• Processed food-like substances (to borrow a phrase from Michael Pollan)
• Junk

Tweak the basic Healthy Food/Junk Food model most of us use when we’re making decisions on the fly.

Of course you know more about nutrition, but when pressed, most of us boil everything down to one thing: is it healthy or is it junky? So take what you're already doing and modify it like this:

Then, instead of thinking of Fun Foods as alternatives to Growing Foods, think of them as sharing time with the Treat Foods.

Most parents feed their children more Fun Food than anything else because it's easy.

From a nutrition perspective Fun Foods might not be so bad. (Although the more you know, the harder it is to believe that.)  Read: Are Chicken Nuggets Really Chicken?, Mac & Cheese Scores Again! and Is "Yogurt-Covered" Really Yogurt?

But from a habits perspective relying on Fun Foods is a disaster. These foods all point kids in the direction of junk. That's why they have to share time with the treats.  Read Cookies for Breakfast?

Contrary to popular advise, it's the habits, not the nutrition, that shape how your kids eat.

So be a slacker and forget about nutrition.  You'll be doing your kids a world of good.

For more on this read Why Nobody Needs Nutrition Labels and Nutrition by Numbers.

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

It's Too Simple!

It’s too simple an answer. 

That’s what one reader said in response to my last post It Doesn’t Matter WHAT Your Kids Eat!

I advocated switching how you think about food.  Instead of paying attention to nutrients like calcium and protein I suggested you organize foods according to how frequently they should be eaten: 

• Growing Foods: These are the fresh, natural foods you should eat most frequently.
• Fun Foods: The moderate foods – packaged, sweetened and/or high in fat – that you should eat less frequently.
• Treat Foods: The junk that you should eat least frequently.

 “What about not serving your kids processed foods, or finding alternatives without all the additives?” this reader asked.

Click to read more ...

It Doesn't Matter WHAT Your Kids Eat!

It doesn’t really matter what your children eat.   What matters is how often they eat it.  Whatever it is.

Stop worrying about broccoli or candy.  It does not even matter if your kids consume Goldfish crackers, sweetened yogurt or juice.

What matters is whether your kids eat foods in proportion to their healthful benefits.  What kinds of foods do your kids eat most often?

Teaching your kids to eat right is kind of like baking cookies -- it’s not enough to know the ingredients, or even to get them all into the bowl.  You need the correct amounts of flour, sugar, butter and eggs in relation to each other to produce the ideal outcome.

Proportion matters.  Here's an easy way to get it right:

Click to read more ...