Training the taste buds

Dealing with picky eater is very difficult and frustrating. Overtime it pushes us to giving whatever food child prefers. When days pass without healthy food triangle in the menu it slowly reflects in the health. Some kids are naturally good eaters while some others are not. If eating healthy food and drinking water does not come naturally it should be done through consistent training.

Guidelines to help deal with Picky eaters

• Have only healthy items in your shopping list. Not having options is the best way.
• Let your child get used to looking at healthy items in the cart and fridge consistently. It is all about registering in the brain.
• Serve food only when hungry.
• Don't let your child snack often.
• If your child rejects a food it does not mean it's the end. Try offering again and again. Try altering the recipe and offer when hungry.
• Serve vegetables without much alterations. Broccoli taste very good with butter, salt and pepper. Carrot taste good when raw.  Trial and error simple recipes.
• Include herbs like coriander, curry leaves, rosemary etc. and spices like garlic, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, cayenne pepper etc. These increase the appetite, help in digestion and increases body immunity. The more you give the more the taste buds will get used to.
• Offers fruits/vegetables/ nuts/ cheese as snack. This will reduce your stress during mealtime since they are already taken the nutrients.
• Increase the appetite of your child. Certain fruits like lemon, orange, Apple increases the hunger. Soup also helps.
• Water does the trick too. A glass of water first thing in the morning increases the metabolism. Offer water 30 mins before food to increase appetite.
• Increase physical activity to increase hunger.
• If your child refuses to eat pack it in a to go box and go for walk. Try offering outside. The outside fresh air and scenary does change their mind.
• Training your child to eat soup will help on the sick days. Training your child certain food that would be available in the restaurants to reduce your stress on eating outside days.
• Talk about food. Some kids like to hear stories about how an orange helped a small boy to fight cold or how beans help you grow tall etc.
• Be a role model. When your child sees you and your spouse eat certain food they get natural inclination.

Wake up Western World

Wake up from the disease causing Soda

Soda is nothing but disease(cancer, asthma, obesity etc) causing  water + lots of sugar + artifical color + artificial flavor

• Please don't let your child drink this poison

Wake up from the disease causing processed food

Tons and tons of processed food in every store shelf.  All wrapped in plastic and added with preservatives, chemicals, artificial colors and flavors.  It is the source for all disease.

• Abandon them. Do not give them to your child.

Wake up from the Plastic bags and the disposables

These enter our life for the sake of  "Convenience". But they land in the landfills without the ability to degrade. They kill several wild animals and marine life and will eventually kill us.

• Stop using Plastics. Let us use recycle bags and avoid disposables

Western world loves the word "Convenience" and they are "generous" for the convenience. The corporate world churns billions just for this word.  But the after effect of this word is only disease. Please give up the word convenience for us and our children to live happily in the future world. Share the word to all the people you know to make our world a better place

Processed food and diseases

What is Processed food?
The nature provide vegetables, fruits, grains and other food sources. It has abundance of vitamins, antioxidants and minerals in it. Some of the food can be eaten raw and the whole nutrients can be absorbed by the body and some others need to be cooked. The cooking is to make the food more digestible by human body. However when the cooking process is long and harsh the food loses its properties and becomes the opposite. Like say a Potato has wonderful nutrients in it but when heated to temperature >120 degree Celsius and made into Potato fries a chemical called Acrylamide is formed which is carcinogenic.

Pesticides, chemical fertilizers, contaminated water source(by chemicals and radio active substances), contaminated soil(by chemicals and pollution), contaminated air(pollution), preservatives, genetically modified (GMO) are already altering the food produced by nature. Each of these have their effect on human health and are related to diseases like Autism, Asthma, tumor and cancers

On the top these food are even more modified when made into processed food. For example, to make a breakfast cereal the grains are grounded, added unnecessary vitamins and preservatives, molded into shapes and heated to temperatures that can change the property of food and put on shelf for the period of 2 years. Same is the case for a food cooked at home for long time using harsh temperature just to make it more palatable.

All these processing and chemicals has huge impact on children with Asthma, Autism and Immune system disorder and other diseases. It increases the risk several folds.

Hence provide of abundances of vitamins, antioxidants and minerals through raw food like fruits and vegetables atleast 5 servings a day. While for the other food form that requires cooking try to keep the cooking process to the right minimum. Do not encourage any processed and convenience food. This will keep any disease at check.