Natural Revolution Empowering Natural Living
As a parent, you want to give your children the very best chance at life and provide them with the beneficial aspects of nutrition that you can. The first three years are incredibly important to the child’s development and its critical that the source of foods come from the best possible places; ideally mother’s breast milk, which contains a host of immune-building nutrients to help the development of the child’s immune system and cognitive brain function.
As a parent, it is important to carefully consider the types of foods you give your child at home and in restaurants, as research has shown that repeated exposure to chemicals and additives in foods builds taste preferences very quickly.
With the consumption of these foods that are laced with chemicals and additives, as well as GMOs, the child’s IQ can be reduced, and is not the only health risk your child faces if he eats a diet consisting mainly of processed foods and snacks.
A junk food diet can also set the stage for obesity, asthma, eczema, and a variety of allergies, behavioral problems—from hyperactivity to aggression—as well as inflammatory conditions and autoimmune diseases.
A 2010 study revealed just how big an impact a poor nutritional start can have on your kids. Those who ate a predominantly processed food diet at age 3 had lower IQ scores at age 8.5. For each measured increase in processed foods, participants had a nearly two point decrease in IQ.
As you might suspect, the opposite also held true, with those eating healthier diets experiencing higher IQ levels.
The National Institutes of Health even states that four of the six leading causes of death in the US are linked to unhealthy diets.
The rates of autoimmune diseases such as Autism have increased over 400% since the 1970′s to today. Mix that in with the higher rates of cancer, depression, obesity and other health conditions, we have a nation of sick people getting sicker by the day. Do you think the food companies might be affiliated to some degree with pharmaceutical companies, since they use a concoction of chemicals in many foods that they sell in commercial food stores? The saying states: there’s no money in healthy people. So, one must ask themselves a very important question: if the U.S. is arguably the best healthcare system of any developed country in the world, why are we so sick? Sicker than any other develop country in the world!
So the importance of proper nutrition simply cannot be overstated. Yet despite all this knowledge, food and beverage companies and even supplement makers are foisting products on children that are FAR from health-promoting, making your role as an educated parent all the more important.
Lies Told By McDonald’s CEO
Claiming “chicken nugget Happy Meals and fat-free milk” are healthy.
According to the McDonald’s website, Chicken McNuggets contain roughly 30 ingredients, including: sodium phosphates, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate and calcium lactate.
The “fat-free milk” Thompson touted numerous times is actually chocolate milk, containing 10 grams of added sugar, which as registered dietitian Andy Bellatti told me, is more than 75 percent of a day’s worth for children ages 4-8 (per the American Heart Association’s guidelines). He added: “As it is, American children are consuming an exorbitant amount of sugar; no one should be encouraging sugary beverages simply because they contain calcium and vitamin D.”
“We sell lots of fruits and veggies at McDonald’s and we sell side salads for a dollar on the dollar menu.”
In 2011, McDonald’s made a big deal about how it would automatically include apple slices in Happy Meals. Considering that McDonald’s is now the single largest purchaser of apples in the nation, that may qualify as “lots of fruit.” Then again, the company is also the single largest purchaser of both beef (a billion pounds a year) and potatoes. I suppose Thompson would count fries as a vegetable?
“We provide high-quality food, we always have. It’s real beef, it’s real chicken, it’s real tomatoes, real lettuce, real fruit, real smoothies, real dairy, real eggs.”
Really? The “real eggs” in an Egg McMuffin are “prepared with ” the following:
Liquid Margarine: Liquid Soybean Oil and Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean Oils, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Mono and Diglycerides, Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Sorbate (Preservatives), Artificial Flavor, Citric Acid, Vitamin A Palmitate, Beta Carotene (Color). Can you pick out the dangers along with the GMO derivatives in this laundry list of chemicals?
But wait, there’s more. The Mango Pineapple Smoothie also contains “low fat smoothie yogurt,” consisting of: “Cultured Grade A Reduced Fat Milk, Sugar, Whey Protein Concentrate, Fructose, Corn Starch, Modified Food Starch, Gelatin, Active Yogurt Cultures.” And did I mention the 47 grams of sugar? But I am sure it’s “real sugar,” right Mr. Thompson?
“We are not the cause of obesity.”
Did he not see “Supersize Me”?
OK, McDonald’s is obviously not the only cause of our nation’s health woes, but research has shown a connection between the location of fast-food outlets and adverse health outcomes in communities.
For example, one study found that nearly one-third of U.S. children ages 4 to 19 eat fast food, which increases the risk of obesity due to an increase in daily calories. Another study showed that students with fast-food outlets near their schools were more likely to be overweight, and to consume more soda and fewer fruits and vegetables. And this connection was stronger for African-American children, while a third study found a similar pattern among low-income African-American adults.
Why Do Kids’ Vitamins Contain Aspartame, GMOs, and Hazardous Chemicals?
Another industry that is shockingly irresponsible when it comes to children’s nutrition is that of dietary supplements. Take Flintstones Vitamins, for example, which is marketed as the “Pediatricians’ #1 Choice” of supplement for kids. A recent article by GreenMedInfo.com reveals several of the horrid ingredients in this well-known kids vitamin—ingredients that can have adverse health effects severe enough to warrant a trip to the hospital.
Flintstones Vitamins is produced by the pharmaceutical company Bayer. I’ve revealed some of the many skeletons in Bayer’s closet in the past — including their numerous drug-related lawsuits and intentional selling of AIDS-infected drugs in Europe and Asia. With that in mind, perhaps it’s not so surprising to find that their wildly successful kids vitamin contains some shockingly unhealthy ingredients.
Processed Food Contains Many Dangerous Ingredients
Fast food hamburgers are not the only type of heavily processed food that is questionable in terms of whether or not it should be considered real food. The following are just a few more examples, but you get the idea – any time food is heavily processed, it typically ceases to be beneficial for your child’s health. Many processed foods also contain dangerous MSG, to give the otherwise bland mixture some flavor.
- Chicken McNuggets, for example, have made it into mainstream news because of the potentially hazardous additives they contain.
- Soda can contain any number of health harming substances, from high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) to benzene and aspartame.
- French Fries are loaded with the worst types of fat on the planet — typically highly refined and genetically modified omega 6 oils, such as corn, canola, and soybean oils.
- Breakfast cereals are little more than disguised forms of high fructose corn syrup and many are loaded with genetically engineered grains.
How Do You Determine Whether or Not a Supplement Is a Good Choice?
To optimize your child’s health, your BEST solution is to choose the highest quality foods possible, and serve a wide variety of whole locally grown minimally processed organic foods. But how do you pick a high quality supplement, should you or your child need one? For starters, make sure it has the following characteristics:
- It is as close as possible to its natural (whole food) form, and ideally certified organic
- Use independent third-party labs that check the raw materials for contaminants and correct dosage.
- Follows industry standards for quality assurance including ISO 9001, ISO 17025 and Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) certifications.
- The utmost care has been taken in all phases of its production, from growing its ingredients, to manufacturing, testing for potency and quality control.
- It works! I always try to select from companies that have a long track record of providing high-quality products that produce good clinical results.
Your Child’s Healthy Diet Is Up to You
Junk food is not whole foods — it’s not even food. It’s a mixture of chemicals and additives to make it look and taste like real food. These “foods” are empty of any nutrition whatsoever. Fast food burgers, buns, twinkies, fries and other junk foods that are laced with chemicals do not decompose, even after a decade, because of all the chemicals and preservatives found in these ‘phake phoods’, which will give you a clear sign that it’s just not real food and serves no beneficial purpose as part of your diet. It’s very simple: Kids need real nutrients, not man-made chemicals that are nonexistent in unnatural foods!
Food is a part of crucial lifestyle choices first learned at home, so you need to educate yourself about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food and processed foods in order to change the food culture of your entire family. To give your child the best start at life, and help instill healthy habits that will last a lifetime, you must lead by example.
The simplest way back toward health, for children and adults alike, is to focus on WHOLE foods — foods that have not been processed or altered from their original state; food that has been grown or raised as nature intended, without the use of chemical additives, pesticides and fertilizers. The commercial grocery store isn’t the only place to shop. You local farmers market sells an abundance of nutritionally dense foods at the fraction of the price that you’d find in a commercial grocery story — and at the fraction of the cost!
Back in the early 70′s prior to fast food places popping up in China, the cancer rates were almost nonexistent. Today, cancer rates in china are skyrocketing. Do you think that just happened as a coincidence, or was there another factor that are spiking those numbers up where once they almost didn’t exist?
Shopping on the outside aisles of the grocery store offers less processed foods. You’ll notice that almost everything in a box or bag is on the inside aisles, so stay mostly on the outside aisles where fresh produce and a healthier assortment of foods may be. Also, investing time in the kitchen cooking fresh wholesome meals with vegetables and healthy meats such as grass-fed turkey or chicken and fish is essential to get a balanced source of nutrition, so that you can break free from the processed food diet that will ultimately make you sick.
Eating smart and with nutritious whole foods, and eating meals together as a family, your children will receive the proper nutrition their bodies need during the important developmental years while also developing a love for whole fresh foods that will last them a lifetime.
Contributing Sources for this article:
- www.alternet.org
- www.killeratlarge.com
- www.pharmacology.com
- World Journal of Gastroentology
- www.articles.mercola.com
