Healthy Nutrition by Example

Now, years later, I still do my best to keep them on the right diet. But now they know the outside world. They go to school and birthday parties. They smell the French bread out in the streets.

I know mothers wonder how I do it, it is so tough.

Well, as parents, we must be an example; focus and commit.

Start when the child is conceived. We already know the consequences on a fetus when a mother takes drugs, drinks alcohol or smokes. Well, there are also consequences when the mother does not feed herself well.

Should she eat chocolate every day, I bet anything the child will be attracted to chocolate. So food before and during pregnancy is very important, as it is while nursing.

I ate a great diet during my pregnancies and was very healthy, I was very thin and full of energy.

Later, when my children were older it was evident to me that I must not compromise. They would receive only the best food.

While they’re nursing, this isn’t a problem. I do not need to say how important the quality of the mom’s diet must be while she’s nursing. It’s when the child begins eating that parents must be cautious.

Regardless of how young he is, a child will remember what you gave him to eat. Give him only fresh, raw, organic food. Give him a stalk of celery, a piece of apple or have him drink a glass of cucumber juice, and he will love vegetables forever.

On the other hand, give him some cookies and yogurt, and the child will always ask for more.

I remember taking my young children to a green house here in France. At mid-afternoon, as I gave them fresh fruit to eat, other women said to me, “How lucky you are they eat fruits, our children refuse them.”

I could see these children were given cookies, compotes and yogurt (cereals, sugar, milk). Before the age of 3 – an important age for the child when the child is under our influence - we give him the path for the future. We can do it. We must do it. It is our responsibility as parents. This way, when the child can make his own decisions, he will have already established a pattern. He has developed some strong tastes even though other types of food may attract him.

After age 3, I would say it’s important to increase the variety of food we offer that child, so the child can experiment with new things and be less attracted to other outside food.

There are plenty healthy raw foods to offer.

Expand the variety of vegetables. Let him use vegetables to create patterns on his plate, he’ll love that. Add a fun sauce with stalks of carrots or celery and he is in heaven.

And sauces are infinite: sauces with avocado, with fresh algae, with spirulina, with fresh herbs.

I promise that my children love all these different tastes as long as they were fresh, colorful, tasty, crunchy or mashed.

Food must be fun and it’s so much more fun when we let them do it. They love it, so let them. Not only will the child feel important, but the food he prepares will also become important. We have more more raw food to offer, such as all the dehydrated food: crackers, pizzas, burgers, fruits, pancakes, chips.

And don’t forget fruits. Kids can have them, so let them prepare sliced fruits with a great nutty topping, fruit ice creams, smoothies. But my children loved fruits best when they could pick them - apples, pears and berries - from our garden in Normandy. There is no better to eat fruits than directly from trees and children know it.

My son Pablo loves ice creams and everything sweet, but I have never seen him more radiant than when he wanders in his father’s vegetable garden picking and eating red cherry tomatoes, parsley, basil and wintercrest.

So the offerings are ample, but you must have everything available. You must be ready to do it. You must be an example. When children are young, they will follow you. They imitate you 100 percent. You say a bad word, they’ll do the same. You eat a piece of chocolate, they’ll eat a piece of chocolate. There is no room for misbehaving.

Now you may say, “What if my child is offered a piece of chocolate cake or a pizza and they eat it?” It happens. Remain confident you are creating the building blocks of their health. You are on the path to success.

There’s a good chance that your children will reject those offers, mine did.

At a very young age, my son spit out a piece of candy given to him. The yogurt too. And I remember my 3-year-old trying non-organic pizza and vomiting immediately. It works. Your efforts are not in vain.

That is education and example. Now explanation.

I think a third part of our mission is to explain to children what we have done, what choices we have made for them and why. When I first explained to mine the ecological disaster that has resulted from the amount of cattle raised on the planet to feed meat eaters, my daughter asked how many liters of water would be save is people would eat meat only once a week – she was 6.

Children are clever. They understand things well. The more we explain, the easier it is to feed them well. If they get attracted to bad food once, they will come back in line by themselves because they have developed a strong taste for what is good.

Last February, we took a plane from France to go to Hippocrates Institute. On the plane, my son refused all of the food they offered. My daughter, despite having plenty of alternatives that I prepared, decided to try a piece of pizza and ate some.

I could have said “no.” But I have always chosen to let them have their experience. When we got off the plane, Olivia told me she had a tummyache and felt so happy to get to the Institute because she knew she would clean her body. She’s only 9 and I must admit I was proud she had already understood and was familiar with that cleansing sensation.

On the return trip neither touched their airline trays.

The children know, the body knows. Trust them.

Now the children are older and we certainly argue sometimes when they ask for cooked pizza from an organic store. Then we have to compromise a bit. But apart from that, we go for plenty of veggies, fruits, pates, humus, juices, crackers, tartars of seaweeds. Olivia always says, “This is a king’s meal, Mom!”

Vol 29 Issue 2 Page 46