Mark’s Daily Apple

Reader Response: Practical Advice for Parents8

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Caution: It is a dietary mine field out there. Kiddie junk food high and low! Parents, proceed at your own risk. And remember. Your seedlings deserve better.

Nancy S. offered these comments in response to last week’s News on the Seedling Front.

As a parent, I could really use some practical, realistic ideas about what to do for my kids. Specifically, lunch-box solutions that will keep them eating healthy and able to concentrate in school (and not trying to trade away their lunch for some kid’s HoHo). As a parent it is so easy to feel overwhelmed by all the stuff you are probably doing wrong, so having someone help you do what is right can go a long way to helping solve the problem!

Nancy’s comments really got us talking and sharing “war” stories. Many of us have been there or are in the midst of it now. Mark, himself, has a 14-year-old and 17-year-old. Parents’ jobs can often be thankless. Whatever it counts for, we understand – and empathize! We’ll devote a short series, in fact, to the seedlings questions Nancy and others have raised regarding day-to-day, in-the-trenches options.

Now for some practical tips and humble advice for all the parents and grandparents out there… But before we venture into these swampy, menacing waters, we should offer a fair warning. What’s that saying about “Beware those who enter here”? The subject of kids and food is not for the faint of heart. No mincing of words. In a recent post Mark had this to say about The Art of Compromise in the Primal Blueprint: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. This goes double when dealing with seedlings. With that said…

• Perhaps it goes without saying, but the first step is to make the commitment to a healthy diet yourself. As we all know, the “do as I say not as I do” philosophy just doesn’t cut it. Kids watch you like hawks and remember like elephants. Be honest and get your thinking out on the table – your personal health goals, your favorites, your failings. If they know you understand that making these kinds of changes can be difficult, they’ll likely be more open with you about their choices and concerns. As with everything in parenting, genuineness and credibility will get you further than some unapproachable projection of perfection.

• See the process as “training your child’s tastes” rather than imposing a certain diet from day one. Viewing the process through a “training” lens will encourage a little more fun and flexibility. The focus should be on the positive – incorporating the new – rather than simply slashing and burning everything they’re used to. Use the familiar to help switch gears. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Every kid loves comfort food, and it doesn’t always have to be unhealthy. Think about stews, meatloaf (with reduced or substituted breadcrumbs), hearty soups, flavorful salads with some creative condiments (e.g. veggie loaded homemade pesto or hummus). Look for specific foods and menus next week!

• Buck the processed and sugar laden beverages. Water, decaf tea, milk. You don’t need anything else. (But you can consider organic, no-added-sodium vegetable juice. Little ones especially may go for it.) Make regular drinks special by getting some natural mineral water (Gerolsteiner, Pellegrino, etc.) and putting a slice of lemon or some cherries in it. As for cocoa, it’s a dessert that’s at your discretion. Choose the genuine article (organic if possible), and barely, if at all, sweeten it. (This alteration may take some time – all part of the taste training.)

• You can never start too early. Skip infant cereal. Keep kids away from any form of sugar as long as humanly possible. Some parents/grandparents/relatives will give kids sweets before kids even know what they are or have any interest in them. These people tend to do it for entertainment or nostalgia sake. Here’s our take: milk your kid’s naive ignorance for all it’s worth. And tell well-meaning relatives that some things are just off limits (at least for now).

• You can never start too late. Parents can worry that once they’ve gone down a certain road with their kids that it’s impossible to turn it around. If parents can make the commitment, they can get their kids on board. Sure, expect complaints, but don’t get thrown by them. It will take extra time, but stick to your guns and don’t forget to make it fun for everyone. Which leads us to…

• Make the changes a family commitment and even an opportunity for family events. Strawberry picking season is coming up. Make a day of it at an area farm. Or let them help you shop at a farmer’s market (little to no processed foods here!). It’s a great opportunity for kids to see just how many vegetables and fruits there are and to find their favorites when all the “junk” is out of the picture.

• Make it fun. Try an “international dinner” one night a week when you fix healthy cuisine from a different culture. Decorate, download music, dance, go whole hog. The little ones will love it, and the older ones will enjoy it too (however much they roll their eyes).

• Give them responsibility. If your children are old enough, put them in charge of planning and preparing one healthy meal a week.

• Take it in steps. If you’re facing a major overhaul, take the “whole foods” step first. Out with the processed foods. It will do kids good to see what goes into real food. If they can’t make it or bake it from scratch, it’s not for dinner. Sugar (in all its forms) could be the next step. (But you’d be surprised how much sugar you already cut out going the “whole foods” approach.) We’d recommend putting fruit juice in this category, but keep plenty of actual fruit available for them. Another good “step,” as Nancy mentioned, is cutting gluten from your child’s diet. This may be particularly useful for children with ADD or ADHD, many of whom may be gluten sensitive. You can also experiment with reducing/eliminating dairy to see if it makes a difference for your child.

• As you continue to progress in stages, don’t worry about absolutes. Remember, the Primal Blueprint allows for personal compromises. Kids should have the same opportunity we do to practice a little indulgence. Children who are old enough to understand the conversation can and should have a say in what they want their indulgences to be. Let it be a continuing collaboration of interests and reasonable limits.

• Buy better quality. Take the money you save in chucking the processed food from the grocery list and invest it in better quality produce, meats, cheeses and other whole foods. Let’s face it: iceberg lettuce doesn’t inspire anyone. Baby romaine or this Spring’s fresh spinach – that’s what we’re talking about. Set up a mini salad bar and let them add their own veggies and other fixings.

• Don’t underestimate the power of presentation. Children are blessedly predictable in this regard. Shamelessly use it to your advantage.

• Allow a little give for special occasions, but don’t totally backslide. You might instigate a revolt if you suddenly scrap Thanksgiving pie or Junior’s favorite birthday cake. Believe it or not, they might be lobbying for more than a sugar opportunity. Traditions mean more to kids than we often understand. Choose your battles.

• Supplement wisely, as we always say. A quality, complete kid’s multi-vitamin can cover your bases. We’d recommend a fish oil supplement as well, but O.K. the idea and particular supplement with your pediatrician first. Look for an appropriate children’s dose that is guaranteed, independently tested pure from toxins. (The kids’ versions usually come flavored to boot.)

Thanks to Nancy and everyone who have offered seedling questions and comments. As said, look for more on this topic next week. In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with feeding the seedlings in your life.

fishy fish arcade, foreversouls, pengrin, Peter J. Zaki, elmada, roboppy, Nanon, yoppy, Erin Nealy Flickr Photos

Further Reading:

Seedlings and the “Need” for Nature

Questions About Soy Formula

Children and the Importance of Sleep

If you like this post please share it with StumbleUpon.

Posted: Health, Health Challenges, How To, Raise Healthy Seedlings

Healthy Tastes Great!4

Tired of the same old protein night after night? Maybe you eat fish regularly, but don’t often venture beyond your staples of salmon and tuna? Then give Mahi Mahi a try. It rarely disappoints.

Pan-seared Mahi Mahi with Sautéed Vegetables

Rinse and pat dry two fillets. Heat pan with dab of coconut oil. Pan sear fillets on medium-high heat and then cook until done (approximately 5 minutes a side) on medium heat.

In separate pan, use coconut oil or butter to sauté a mix of peapods, bell peppers, white onion, broccoli, and other veggies of choice with salt, pepper, garlic, a ½-1 tsp. fresh minced ginger and splash each of extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil and rice vinegar at end of cook time.

Heap veggies on fillet and let rest covered for 2-3 minutes.

Grilled Mahi Mahi

Marinade two fillets of Mahi Mahi fish for 1-2 hours in a mix of ½ cup lime juice, ½ cup coconut oil, 1 Tbsp. cumin, and 1 tsp. minced garlic. Prepare grill, placing rack 5-6 inches above coals.

Place fish on foil, skin side down and place on grill rack. For fillets an inch or less, grill for approximately 7-8 minutes. For fillets larger than an inch, 9-12 minutes are recommended. The fish is done when the middle is opaque but moist.

Grilled Mahi Mahi is a great quick and simple meal to serve with guacamole and cut veggies or a “salsa salad” of chopped tomato, red onion, avocado, and black beans if desired. Season salad with lime juice, cumin and salt and pepper.

Baked Mahi Mahi with Pesto and Tomatoes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Rinse fish fillets and dry with towel.

Finely chop a small bunch of fresh basil with several stems of parsley and three large cloves of garlic. Sauté in pan with coconut oil or clarified butter (melted with white milk solids skimmed off). If desired, after somewhat cooled, blend more completely in food processor.

Place fish in small baking dish, and “butter” fish with clarified butter or coconut oil. Set aside. Mix additional butter or coconut oil with mixture of water and fresh lemon juice. (You’ll need enough to not quite cover the fish in the pan.) Mix with liquid sauce chopped basil, parsley and garlic. Bake in the oven until the middle of the fish is opaque but still moist.

Discard liquid.

Sauté cherry tomatoes until softened and warmed. Serve immediately with fish, and drizzle pesto over both.

melodrama.ca, Chewy Chua, DR000 Flickr Photos (CC)

Further Reading:

More Recipe Ideas

Shellfish: Healthy or Not?

Imitation Crab: What is that Stuff?

Posted: Diet, Health, Healthy Tastes Great!, How To, Nutrition, Recipes

Washboard Abs on a High-Fat Diet, No Ab Workouts and No Cardio?43

Me (54) in my backyard this morning

Apologies in advance for the self-serving nature of this post, but I felt that it was time to answer more specifically many of your questions about my own program and to use myself as an example of how the Primal Blueprint works if you integrate all the elements.

As many of you know, I am coming off a three month rehab from knee surgery. I’m about 95% healed now and can even do my “Indigenous Peoples Stretch” (a full unloaded squat) – a sure sign that all is well. Throughout this time, I have maintained my usual diet and have done whatever upper-body lifting I could manage that didn’t also require substantial leg involvement (pushups, pull-ups, dips, cable-work, etc). Despite my (or should I say “because of my”) high-fat diet and doing pretty much zero cardio over the past four months (including a fair amount of down time before the knee surgery) my weight, my lean mass and my body fat have all remained steady.

I went on FitDay.com a few days ago (great site to reveal the truth about what you eat) and entered what was a typical full day of eating for me. The results were pretty much as I expected: 2,458 calories, 58% of which was from fat; 165 grams of protein (1 gram per pound of body weight) and 114 grams of carbs. Now some might say that eating less than 2500 calories is too low for a moderately active man, but there are two points to make here. First, I am never really hungry. On this Primal Blueprint eating style, I eat when I want to and stop when I no longer feel hungry. Pretty simple. If I skip meals, I don’t get light-headed or famished. I don’t ever feel like I need more calories or that I am missing out on anything or “sacrificing” some guilty pleasure. I get plenty of protein to spare muscle and add to protein turnover. I get plenty of fat for fuel – sometimes 65% of daily calories. Second - and this goes to the heart of the Primal concept – when you eat fewer carbs, your body readily accesses dietary and stored fat for fuel. Even at 8% body fat, I still have 46,000 calories of stored fat, at least 25,000 of which is available to use as fuel at any time. Theoretically, you could walk 250 miles on that. It’s a beautiful thing when you direct gene expression to “want” to burn fat instead of always storing it. You certainly don’t need cardio to produce the full effect (you can if you want, within guidelines). As we often say here “80% of your results come from how you eat.” Conversely, eating more carbs drives up insulin, drives carbs towards fat storage, decreases fat-burning by prompting fat cells to hold on to stored fat and makes you hungrier for more carbs. I could burn some or most of all that off again by doing tons of cardio, but that only makes me hungrier for more carbs and perpetuates the cycle. It’s like digging a hole to put the ladder in to wash the basement windows.

The other point I want to make is that I don’t do abs. By that I mean I don’t specifically do an ab routine or ab classes as any part of my workouts. On the other hand, I pretty much work my abs all day long without specifically focusing on them. And that’s an important distinction. Grok probably had a wicked set of abs. He had to. Abs are the center of the human movement universe. They are part of today’s “core”, the fulcrum, the key in Chi. But you don’t necessarily need to do endless crunches, sit-ups, roman chairs, leg raises or other isolation moves to strengthen them. Sure, you can if you want, but I think the best way to work your abs is involve them in almost every other movement you do. Every time you do it. When you do pushups, you should tighten your abs hard, likewise when you do pull-ups, squats, lunges, curls - you name it. And working your abs doesn’t stop in the gym. When you sit at your desk, you should take that opportunity to tighten your abs (and by abs, we mean the whole complex: rectis and transverse abdominus, internal and external obliques, and pyrimidalis).

Tighten that belly as if you are going to be punched in the gut while blowing out the candles on your birthday cake. Hold it for 10, 20 or more seconds a few times every hour. Now do it while slightly tilted to one side. Now the other. For even better results and a stronger core, you would simultaneously contract your buttock muscles like you are trying to hold in the bean dinner you had at Barry’s last night. Do these short exercise bursts while you are driving to pick up the kids or when stuck in traffic. Hell, I do some of my best ab work bent over doing sprint work on the stationary bike. It’s really all about squeezing, tightening and trying to shorten the distance between your sternum and you pubic bone. This is all considered isometric work, but the abs respond extremely well to it. Eat right and those well-worked abs will show!

High-fat diet, no cardio, no ab workouts. Talk about thumbing your nose at Conventional Wisdom!

Further Reading:

What is the Primal Blueprint?

My Knee is Killing Me… No, Really.

My Daily Salad

Are There Any Good Carbs?

What I Eat in a Day

My Weekly Workout Routine

My Sprint Routine Video

Chronic Cardio

If you like this post please share it with StumbleUpon.

Posted: Carbs, Diet, Fitness, Health, How To, Nutrition, Personal Improvement, Pictures, Primal Health, Sisson Said What?

How to Shop a Farmers’ Market3

They’re good for the environment, they help pad farmers’ pockets, they increase fresh produce consumption and strengthen community bonds. Seriously, is there nothing a farmers’ market can’t do?

To follow up on all our recent chatter about the benefits of farmers’ markets, we found this helpful video about what you can expect from your local farmers’ market, the benefits of keeping it local and how to get the most out of your retail experience.

via YouTube via foodtv.ca

Some take-home messages:

1) Don’t be scared to ask questions – Farmers are generally happy to discuss their growing process and can also tell you first-hand which produce is the best (or even give you serving suggestions!)

2) Think farmers’ markets are just for vegetables? Think again! Many farmers’ markets are also home to vendors selling meats, cheese, eggs or other products.

3) Don’t write off your local farmers’ market in the winter months – even though growing conditions may be bleak, many farmers will bring in produce from more far-flung locales, allowing you access to the foods you want while still allowing them to earn a living.

4) Although it’s preferable to eat locally-grown produce, regional climates, seasonal changes and growing cycles can seriously limit your selections at certain times of the year. A better policy is to stock up when an item is in season, but be amenable to subsidizing your selections with out-of-season items.

5) Don’t get hung up on price. You may pay more for organic or local produce, but the freshness (sometimes picked that same day), value and the knowledge that your supporting your local farming industry (and decreasing your carbon footprint) should more than make up for the slightly higher cost.

If you’re interested in learning more about farmers’ markets in your area, visit this USDA web page.

Further Reading:

Community Supported Agriculture

Urban Gardening

10 Ways to “Eat Green”

Posted: How To, Videos

Enough Omegas?9

Caution: Plastic Fish Do Not Contain Omega-3s

After much discussion some weeks ago about the importance of omegas, we thought it was time to get down and detailed. How exactly can you get enough omega-3s in your diet? We have some answers. As we mentioned earlier, the balance of omega-6 and omega-3 should partly determine your omega-3 needs, but we recommend 1-3 grams of omega-3 a day.

A big part of the nutritional breakdown relates to the type of omega-3. We’ll look at the three prominent members of the omega-3 group: EPA, DHA, ALA. Many of the food sources we’ve included are what we’d consider good or best sources, but we threw some commonly eaten but less beneficial sources in for comparison sake. The amounts are listed in grams per 100 grams (about 3.5 oz.) of food serving. You can find the full list of omega-3 content on the National Library of Medicine site.

Another source of omega-3s is eggs from chickens that are fed omega-3 fortified meal. The omega-3 content varies considerably depending on brand. (We’ve seen everywhere from 30 mg to 175 mg per egg.) Keep in mind that the fortified meal is usually flax fortified, which adds ALA omega-3s but does nothing in terms of EPA and DHA. You can occasionally find eggs from chickens that are fed meal fortified with beneficial algae (the initial source for fish EPA and DHA content) or fish itself. If you’re lucky enough to find them, we’re all jealous.

In terms of daily dose for omega-3s, consider the breakdown of EPA, DHA and ALA in your omega-3 sources. Definitely prioritize DHA and EPA. They are the most beneficial, and your body cannot efficiently convert enough ALA to compensate for a deficiency of DHA/EPA.

What does this mean for your daily diet? Considering a very minimum recommendation of 1 gram of omega-3 per day (more if you consume grain-fed meats and dairy), a good helping of mackerel or salmon certainly gives you a boost, but it likely doesn’t cover your daily needs. Most of us, while we don’t mind fish, aren’t about to eat it at every meal. (And with pollution concerns, it might not be a good idea anyway.) Ultimately, it makes sense for the majority of us to consider fish oil, which means a good, purified supplement of your choosing.

Feedback? Questions? Recipes to share? Let us know how you get your daily omega-3s.

Eva the Weaver Flickr Photo (CC)

Further Reading:

How to Eat More Fat

Dear Mark: Saturated Fat

fitsugar - Omega-3 Competition: Fish Oil vs. Flax Seed Oil

Posted: Diet, Health, How To, Nutrition