Thoughts on healthy eating

Daniel 1:12-16

12 Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink.

13 Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king’s meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants.

14 So he consented to them in this matter, and proved them ten days.

15 And at the end of ten days their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which did eat the portion of the king’s meat.

16 Thus Melzar took away the portion of their meat, and the wine that they should drink; and gave them pulse.

When my son Thomas was younger, I bought a box of Berry Berry Kix to use as his finger food. Every time I poured a handful of it onto the tray of his highchair, he grabbed the red pieces first, cramming them into his mouth excitedly. Once the red pieces were gone, he moved on to the purple ones, and only after he could see no more would he begin to eat the plain, uncolored pieces. When he got a little older and I allowed him to self-feed pieces of fruits and vegetables, I saw the same greedy grab for the brightest of them. Children naturally crave the healthy foods - fruits, vegetables, grains, and dairy products - that are best for them. When presented with an assortment of foods, they instinctively select the brightly colored fruits and vegetables that are so good for them. Food manufacturers capitalize on this impulse by adding bright, artificial colors to their processed foods - how ironic that (at least at first) when children beg for brightly colored cereals, snacks, and sweets they are actually asking for fruits! Repeated exposure to fatty, sweetened, and highly processed food, of course, can and will deaden the desire for healthy foods, and soon kids beg for the bright stuff for the sake of that sugar rush.

We’ve made a concerted effort to improve the quality of the food in our home - especially where our children are concerned. Most people know what constitutes a healthy diet - they just choose to eat other things. With our kids, we have the opportunity to teach them better eating habits than we were taught - we can buy them Lucky Charms, or we can teach them to eat rice, and oatmeal with fruit. To a child who is not fed fruit snacks, raisins are a great treat. If they are not fed chips and candy, oranges and strawberries remain sweet. Natural foods, wholesome and filling, will remain our children’s idea of perfect food if we do not teach them otherwise. I take great pleasure in the fact that when his grandmother took him out to eat on a recent visit, Thomas didn’t beg for ice cream or soda - he asked for orange juice.

Some things healthy kids love to eat:

• plain yogurt
• unsweetened applesauce
• apples, bananas, melon
• raisins
• shredded wheat
• carrots (steamed for kids who can’t chew really hard stuff yet)
• bite-sized fruit (grapes, strawberries, small orange sections)
• unsweetened cereals, rice, oatmeal
• milk
• squash
• cottage cheese
• peas and corn
• plain cream cheese
• wheat bread
• natural peanut butter (no extra oils or sugars)
• fruit juices
• honey

Now, doesn’t that sound delicious?