First, let’s talk about how old a child should
be to take part in this Cleanse. I recommend talking with your doctor about any
changes you make to your child’s diet. With that said, a child is never too
young to eat more vegetables and less sugar. Wyatt was 3 and Finnegan was 1
when we committed to this lifestyle.
Second, when to start the cleanse? Anytime
works, but after sugary-rich holidays like Halloween, Christmas, Valentines or
even right before school starts is a great time to give it a try.
Okay – let’s get started! The focus of this
cleanse is to remove all but one serving of refined sugar from your child’s
diet and increase their vegetable consumption to three servings a day. Below
you will see a list of all the rules and explanation of them followed by a
detailed day-by-day schedule for the 14 days.
Rules To The Cleanse:
1)
What you serve is what’s to eat.
2)
You, the parent, must offer your toddler at
least three servings of vegetables a day and you, the parent, must eat
the same vegetables when you offer them.
3)
You and your toddler are allowed one sugar
snack a day.
4)
Talk about the importance of good nutrition.
5)
Be proud of yourself.
Now let’s break down each rule.
Rule 1: What You Serve is What’s to Eat.
It’s a simple rule, but a really hard one to
follow. When I first started feeding Wyatt real food, he hated everything
I served him. It was awful, and to make it worse, I’d always hear other moms
say, “Oh my little girl loves peas, she loves broccoli, she loves chicken…
she’ll eat anything I put on her tray.” Not my kid. And what’s worse, I quickly
fell into the rut that when Wyatt didn’t like what I served him, I would get up
and make something else. I thought it was more important that he eat something
rather than nothing. Wrong.
I’m
extremely fortunate that Wyatt’s primary care doctor asked me about Wyatt’s
eating habits at one of his regular checkups. Upon hearing me declare Wyatt as
a picky eater, my doctor quickly set me straight. She said, “Picky eaters only
exist in wealthy nations where children have options. Serve Wyatt the foods you
eat, and if he eats, great. If he doesn’t, move on. Wyatt will not starve, but
if you let him dictate what he wants, he will make you miserable and become a
very unhealthy eater.”
Honestly, after hearing this advice, I felt
such freedom. I can just make one meal, and if Wyatt doesn’t eat it, I don’t
have to worry about him starving, perfect!
What we do in my house:
Thanks to my primary care doctor, in this house
we have a strict mantra: When breakfast, lunch and dinner are served, you
have to come and sit at the table. You do not have to eat, but what you are
served is what’s to eat. I even have the rule written on the wall.
Results:
There are many nights that Wyatt only eats a
couple of bites and it kills me! I often think he’s going to be starving in the
middle of the night and won’t sleep well, or his body will stop growing, or his
mind won’t work properly, or he will grow a third arm—seriously my worries can
quickly go from semi-rational to crazy. Don’t let this happen! If your child is
hungry, he will eat. And yes, some nights your toddler won’t take a bite even
when he or she is starving—so what! They will eventually learn that it’s worth
eating even if they don’t like what’s served. More often than not, if I can
simply get Wyatt to raise his fork and insert it into his mouth just once, he
usually discovers that sautéed kale leaves or roasted cauliflower is yummy, or
at the least, painless to throw back.
I will, however, promise you that it will be
horrible some nights. Your child will be furious at the sight of certain foods.
Too bad! In my house, you will often here me say, “Try it and you may,” (Dr.
Suess, Green Eggs and Ham). Or on a more serious note, I’ll say, “I’m
really sorry you don’t like the meal, but I love you too much not to serve
healthy food.” Sometimes I’ll even commiserate with them, “Broccoli isn’t my
favorite either, but it’s just one of those foods that are too good for us not
to eat.” Often, possibly every meal, I give my husband a look that clearly
means, our kids suck and I wish they would eat their f-ing food!
It would be so much easier to just serve mac and
cheese, but ask yourself this: if your child threw a fit because he wanted to
go biking without a helmet on, what would you do? Would you say, “Okay, sure.”
Hopefully your answer is no, otherwise this
cleanse is going to be very hard for you to implement. If your answer is
like mine, which would be, “If you don’t wear your bike helmet, you can’t
bike,” you are able to stay firm because it’s a safety issue. Not eating
vegetables is also horrible for a child’s health. So when your child is
thrashing around at the dinner table because he’s pissed he can’t have
chocolate ice cream for dinner, think bike helmet.
Even if your child doesn’t eat, I promise it
still feels good to serve healthy food. Oh and you might be asking yourself,
“What if I can’t get my child to come to the dinner table?” Well, if my kids
don’t come, it’s bedtime and I literally put them to bed.
Recommend:
Try really, really, really hard to implement
this rule. Tell your children during a mellow, non-food moment that you have a
new mealtime rule, so the children can process it before dinner. Write the rule
out and post it on the wall so no one forgets.
Rule Number 2: You, the Parent, Must Offer Your
Toddler at Least Three Servings of Vegetables a Day and You Must Eat the
Same Vegetables When Offered.
Let’s break this rule down into two parts:
1)
Offering your child vegetables three times a
day
2)
You, the parent, eat the same vegetables when
offered
Rule 2, Part 1) Serving your child vegetables
three times a day
The key point here is, offer. You’re job
is to put vegetables on your child’s plate or in their cup three different
times a day. I’m not asking you to force your child to eat.
In addition, do not serve your child three
servings of vegetables in one sitting—they will not eat them and, if they do,
you need to write a nutrition book. Space the servings out over the course of a
day.
What I do in my house:
First, let me tell you I have a strict mealtime
schedule and food is only allowed to be consumed during breakfast, AM snack,
lunch, PM snack, dinner, and bonus snack. I found with my boys, if I didn’t
create a schedule, they’d snack all day and not eat a thing at lunch or dinner.
And that’s bullshit—I don’t serve good food at mealtime to see them snack all
day.
And with this schedule, my boys know vegetables
are served at breakfast, lunch and dinner. At breakfast it’s a green smoothie,
lunch it’s a cold vegetable, and dinner it’s cooked vegetables.
If my kids don’t eat their vegetables, simple,
they don’t get a snack. My boys’ plates need to be clean, their bowls empty and
their glasses spotless or else they don’t get an AM snack. If they don’t finish
their whole lunch—including their vegetable—they don’t get a PM snack. And if
they don’t finish their whole dinner—yup, including their vegetable—they don’t
get a bonus snack. Yes, there are many experts out there that say I’m bribing
my kids with snacks to finish their meals. My reply to this is, it’s not a
bribe—it’s called good behavior. I don’t serve healthy food to see my boys not
eat it and reach for processed crap instead. If my kids aren’t hungry at lunch,
that is totally fine, but then they also don’t need a snack.
I know, I’m super mean, but honestly it’s the
one time in my life that I feel really good about being a bitch.
Results:
When I first started serving vegetables three
times a day and told my boys they couldn’t get their snack if they didn’t
finish their whole meal, I had enough tears to fill a large swimming pool. But
it was an easily understandable and consistent rule I could enforce and in
truly a very short time, the boys knew I meant business and stopped sobbing
over it.
Recommendation:
- Be
Consistent: Once you have figured the best time to serve vegetables,
always serve them at the same time. Any preschool teacher will tell you
that consistency is key in a toddler’s life.
- Snacks:
I truly believe snacks should not be served if a child did not finish his
or her meal. Serve realistic portions, or even start super small so your
kids have a fighting chance to finish their plates. I serve almonds at
lunch almost every day, but I only put three on their plates.
Rule 2, Part 2: You the parent also need to eat
vegetables three times a day.
Don’t under estimate the power of simply watching
someone else eat healthy and how that can influence your child. Take my boys
for example: Wyatt hated avocados. He would spit them out every time I got him
to try them. Finnegan, however, eats them almost every day. After a whole year
of Wyatt watching Finnegan eat avocados, Wyatt decided he, too, needed to try
one. Wyatt now loves them!
Eating
vegetables in front of your children will inspire them to do the same, just as
reading in front of your children will encourage them to read.
If there is one thing to take away from this
book, I hope it’s that you, the parent must eat vegetables if you want your children
to.
What I do in my house:
Whatever vegetables I serve my boys, I eat.
After all, it’s only fair I drink the same green smoothie to know if my boys’
cries and complaints are because it’s actually gross. Unfortunately, green
smoothies can sometimes be a little too thick to choke back.
Results:
My vegetable consumption is not always pretty.
I often have my green smoothie in my coffee mug that I drink in route to
driving my kids to preschool. During lunch I can be caught with a carrot
hanging out of my mouth while I slap together peanut butter sandwiches, but I
eat them, and most importantly, my boys see me throwing them back.
Recommend:
Try and eat the same vegetables at the same
time you offer them to your children. And if possible, eat more than three
servings of vegetables in one day.
Recap and Advice on Rule 2:
1)
Serve your children vegetables three times a
day and at the same time each day.
2)
Think about requiring your children to finish
their meals in order have a snack. (See Chapter 3 for more advice on rewards).
3)
Try and eat the same vegetables you serve at
the same time.
What I foresee being hard:
Some of you might be saying, "There is no
way I have time to make a green smoothie in the AM, or cook vegetables at
night." I promise, I get it. Time is hard to come by in this fast-paced
world, but during this cleanse make the time. For the next two weeks make
nutrition the most important theme in your house. When you first make a change
in your diet it is hard and takes time, but within one to two weeks the new
diet becomes the new norm and you don’t even have to think about it.
Rule 3: You, the Parent, and Your Toddler Can
Only Have Refined Sugar Once a Day.
Straightforward rule, but maybe not the easiest
to implement. I promise I’ve got some great tips to help on this one.
First, let’s talk about refined sugar. Refined
sugar is actually sugar that has been chemically created or extracted from
something that has sugar in it. For example, aspartame is a chemically created
sweetener. White sugar is actually extracted from sugar cane (the process of
making refined sugar is more complicated, but I don’t want to bore you on those
details).
Refined sugar comes in many different forms:
Sugar (sorry, had to state the obvious one)
White sugar
Refined sugar
Brown sugar
Cane sugar
Cane juice
Evaporated cane juice
Molasses
Turbinado
Raw sugar
Sucrose
Stevia
Fruit juice from concentrate
Beet sugar
Fructose
Agave
Maple Syrup
I’m sure there are more. One day we should
create some type of competition to see who can pack their shopping cart with
the most diverse amount of refined sugar—yes, I know, I’m a total dork.
Artificial Sugars:
Now let’s quickly mention scientifically modified
or created sugars. For the risk of being sued, I won’t comment on what I think
of these products. Suffice it to day, I do not let anything off the below list
in my house and during the cleanse,
you cannot consume any of these—even during the one allotted sugar snack.
High fructose corn syrup
Acesulfame potassium
Aspartame
Neotame
Rebiana
Saccharin
Sucralose
Sorbitol
Xylitol
Mannitol
Erthritol
Hydrogenated starch hydrolysate
Isomalt
Lactitol
Maltitol
My spell check just went nuts; my computer didn’t
even recognize half of these words. This list can never be complete, as it’s
big, big money for food scientists to come up with the next sweetener. Watch
out for these and any new creations invented after this publication. They are
horrible for you. One of my main goals for this book is to make it a short read
so you can get to working on your children’s nutrition immediately, however if
you want more information on these artificial sweeteners, read Chapter 7 in The
Dirt Cure, by Maya Shetreat-Klien—possible the best nutrition book ever
written.
One last note on these sick inventions: when we
took them out of Wyatt’s diet, his symptoms: horrible joint pain, asthma, open
wound rashes all over his body literally disappeared almost overnight.
Natural Sugars:
Now, let’s talk about natural sugars. Natural
sugars are sugars that are within all foods. Take an orange, which naturally
has about 9 grams of sugar in it. Fruits have a lot more natural sugar than
vegetables, which is why your children probably prefer a strawberry to kale.
During the cleanse you can consume as much natural sugar as you want. Rule 2
only talks about reducing refined sugar and eliminating certain potential
poisonous creations. However, there are some foods that have an enormous amount
of natural sugar and should be consumed in moderation:
Honey
Dates
Fruit juices (Please note juice from
concentrate is considered a refined sugar)
Use your discretion and try to consume these
foods in moderation.
What I do in my house with regards to foods
with extreme amounts of natural sugars:
- Juice
is only served at breakfast and it’s always cut with water—always. Wyatt
is now 6 and I still do this. I pour about 4 ounces of juice in and add
8-10 ounces of water to the glass. The juice I buy is never from
concentrate.
- My
boys have honey on their oatmeal every single morning. I don’t care. It’s
local raw honey and even though its “sugar,” honey in a raw form has some
pretty cool health benefits a nutritionist could explain if you’re
interested (NOTE: Never feed honey to infants under 1).
- If
I get around to baking, dates are in a lot of the recipes I use as a
natural sweetener. And yes, dates have a lot of sugar, but it’s better
than the refined crap. In addition, when you are talking to the
nutritionist about the benefits of honey, ask about dates as well. Dates
also have some pretty cool nutritional powers.
Okay, back to how to implement Rule 2.
What I do in my house:
During my boys’ AM snack, they can pick out
whatever sugar snack they want. All the foods containing refined sugar are on
one shelf, so my boys never get confused about what has sugar and what doesn’t.
Results:
Often the second my boys finish their
breakfast, which includes a green smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal, they demand
their sugar snacks. And I oblige. It’s a little absurd they are eating two
Newman Oreos or a graham cracker right after breakfast, but they’re excited for
their sugar snack and I don’t blame them. Honestly, the sooner they get their
AM snack over with, the less it interferes with their appetites at lunch.
Unfortunately, there still are days my boys
don’t eat their breakfast and still demand their morning snacks. In fact, just
this morning Finnegan didn’t finish his breakfast and said to me while hugging
my leg and being the sweetest snuggle bug ever:
“But Mama, I gave you a hug so now I can have
my sugar snack.”
“No Finnegan,” I said. “You didn’t finish your
breakfast.”
You know what the little monster did? He opened
his mouth wide and bit me on the calf like a freaking piranha. I screamed, he
screamed and everyone got super mad. I could have killed him. Really it was a
proud moment for me, not.
Recommendation:
- Pick
one time a day when you allow the sugar snack and be consistent, always
make it the same time every day.
- Separate
all the sugar snacks from the non-sugar snacks into different drawers or
shelves so your children can easily tell the difference.
- I
promise this rule will be a lot easier to follow once your children get
into a routine. Most days I don’t get bitten.
Special Note:
- When
looking at packaged food to see whether or not it contains sugar, only
look at the ingredients, not the nutritional breakdown. Take for example
orange juice that is made from whole oranges. The nutritional breakdown
will state that the juice has sugar in it because oranges do contain
natural sugar. But the ingredients will not list sugar, unless of course
they’ve added refined sugar. Remember you are decreasing the amounts of
foods that have added refined sugar, not naturally occurring sugar.
Exceptions:
This is the only rule that has an exception. If
you have a birthday party or some special event your children are attending
during the Cleanse, go to it and let them eat whatever they want.
Birthday parties make me cringe. I know it
means a morning of basically an I.V. strapped to my kid’s arm, pumping sugar
into their veins. Throw your hands up and grab yourself a slice of cake as
well. I do really respect the families that only serve ice cream and cake and
don’t send us home with a goodie bag full of candy.
Also Halloween—don’t implement the Cleanse
during this candy-rich holiday. There is just too much sugar flowing in the air
to ever be successful. In my house, I use to let my kids eat their Halloween
candy as fast as they could. I wanted that shit out of my house as quick as
possible. Now, however, since finding out how horrible artificial sweeteners
are for Wyatt, we had to limit the candy. So now on Halloween night, my boys
are allowed to eat 5 pieces of candy. The rest they leave beside their beds,
and the Halloween fairy comes and takes it away. In place of the candy, the
Halloween fairy leaves a really nice piece of dark chocolate and other candies
that aren’t loaded with crap and a really cool toy. I highly recommend coming
up with your own Halloween fairy version. (Thank you very much Julie O’Shea for
introducing me to your Halloween Book Fairy).
Rule 4: Talk About the Importance of Good
Nutrition
Many parents would argue, and possibly be
right, that toddlers will not be able to understand why it’s important to eat
right. Well, I argue that it is never too early to talk about good nutrition. If
you start talking about nutrition before your child can understand, you have
started at the right time. It’s like safe sex. Do you want to talk to your
child after they have gotten their girlfriend or themselves pregnant or before?
Do you want to talk to them about safe sex when you think they are ready for
sex? Because I’m pretty sure, whether we like it or not, most kids have sex
before they are ready. Odd comparison, but it works. Do you want to talk to
your child about nutrition after the McDonald’s bags are piling up in their car
or before?
My preschool teacher always jokes with me that
Wyatt is the only one that knows what a collard is. And not only does he know
what a collard is, he knows that a collard has calcium which helps makes his
bones stronger. I don’t know if he actually understands what all that means,
but he can recite it back and, one day, without me knowing, it will click.
Bottom line—it’s never too early to start
talking about good nutrition.
What I do in my house:
I’ll try and fit in at least one nutrition
comment a day. Take for example last night at dinner I served artichokes. My
boys are fascinated by their huge leaves and spiky tips. So I took this moment
to say, “Hey guys lets look up on Mama’s phone what’s kind of vitamins are in
artichokes that make them good for us.” A quick search on Wikipedia told me
that artichokes are one of the highest sources of antioxidants. Who knew!
You
don’t have to be a nutrition expert to insert one tidbit of healthy information
into any conversation; you just have to remember to do it.
Recommendation:
When your children aren’t screaming or super
grumpy during any random dinner, try and work in a conversation on healthy
food. You might be surprised at what a fun conversation you end up having.
Rule 5: Be Proud
No, be really proud of yourself! During the
Cleanse you are going to take an enormous amount of sugar out of your child’s
diet and add in a lot of vegetables while enduring a million, possibly
gazillion temper tantrums for rocking your toddler’s world. And let me tell
you—I’m giving you mental high fives because I’m impressed you are committing
to a healthier life for yourself and your child. This Cleanse sounds simple,
but it’s an extreme toddler makeover. Let’s be real, if you switch out the kind
of toothpaste your toddler uses it can be earth shattering. Change in a
toddler’s life is hard. If your child is the kind that munches on gold fish and
gummies all day, then his world is about to be rocked. In all seriousness, pat
yourself on the back every second of every day when you are in this cleanse land.
Day-to-Day Schedule:
Below you will see a fourteen-day plan. The first
5 days are spent planning. Each day you have a single task to accomplish. Don’t
take these planning days for granted—they’re a critical component to the
cleanse. Think workout—if you workout with a coach, they make you warm-up first
because its truly an important part of the workout. I’m your coach here, and
I’m telling you not to slack off on these 5 prep/warm-up days.
The next 7 days you implement and live by the
rules. The last two days are for you to assess how it went, and whether you
think it’s possible to translate the cleanse into long-term dietary habits.
Again, don’t slack on the cool down either.
Day 1-3: Figure Out What You Currently Eat
Take three days to write down everything you
and your toddler eat—including all the snacks and random handfuls of whatever.
After those three days look it over and ask yourself the following questions:
How many vegetables am I eating in a day? How many vegetables are my children
eating in a day? And lastly, what foods are we eating that contain sugar.
Seeing how many vegetables you and your toddler
are eating will give you a great benchmark of how far you need to go. In my
house, before Wyatt was diagnosed with allergies, we were only eating
vegetables at dinner, and honestly, it was a pathetic serving at best.
Day 4: Write a Meal Plan
Making a meal plan will make your life so much
easier. Even when I’m on a binge—yes, even my family regresses—and we are eating
like crap, my life is still easier with a meal plan. Most importantly, map out
when you are going to serve your three servings of vegetables.
In Chapter 5, I provide a full week worth of
realistic meals in case you need some ideas.
Day 5: Organize Your Sugar
Pull out of your cabinet everything that
contains sugar and move it all onto one shelf or drawer in your kitchen.
Unfortunately, if you guys are cereal eaters, this means all those boxes need
to be moved to that shelf too. (Cereal does make for a great sugar snack.)
Day 6-12: Go Time!
Print out the rules and paste them on your
fridge. For seven days—one simple, full week—you need to make this happen!
Follow the rules and your meal plan. If you make a mistake or have a bad day,
let it go and get back on track.
Day 13: Assess How it Went
What worked for you? What didn’t work? The main
goal of the cleanse is to get
families to eat more vegetables and less sugar—was this achieved?
Day 14: Decide Whether You want to Stay on the
Cleanse or Not
The cleanse might not be realistic for
everyone, but it is a very sustainable and healthy diet. In my house, we follow
these rules unless we are on vacation. I have to admit, it is a little sad that
my kids are so freaking happy to have cereal when we are on vacation, but it
makes me feel good they don’t eat that kind of sugar every day.
Even if
you are desperate to serve cereal again, think about creating a variation of
this cleanse for your family that you could realistically live by.
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