Food for Thought

A wonderful friend of mine asked if I could email her our philosophy on how we feed the boys. I started writing her an email, but realized that how we feed the boys is something we are very passionate about and also take a lot of criticism for... so I thought maybe sharing it here would be a good idea. So, here goes...

I have never liked my body, nor have I ever taken good care of it. I starved myself for years and years, and although I was incredibly skinny, I hated myself more than I could ever put into words. Then the medications they put me on made me gain a lot of weight and I hated myself then too. But when I got pregnant, I realized that my body was no longer mine or about me, but that it was the vehicle I was using to create two new lives. My thoughts about my body and how I cared for it changed drastically. Who knew that the first time I would love my body was when I had 50 pounds of baby protruding out my front?!

When we found out we were having twins, we were instantly and constantly bombarded with the increased risks we would face. It was quite terrifying to say the least. I knew that many of these risks were beyond my control, but I knew that what I ate, what I fed my babies, and how much weight I gained were within my control. My doctor encouraged me to gain as much weight as possible through healthy foods (and a bowl of ice cream every night- doctors orders!) Two fantastic books helped me shape my pregnancy "diet" (or reverse diet of sorts!): Eating Well When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, or Quads by Dr. Barbara Luke. I made giant lists of foods in every food group and how many servings of each I had to have each day and plastered the fridge with my lists. I literally ate all day long, but I ate fresh fruits, veggies, whole grains, proteins, and full-fat dairy. I had to learn that fat was not to be feared, but it was necessary for my babies to grow properly. I came to accept that natural fats were good for me and my babies!

After the boys were born, my diet was still their diet, as I breastfed for 19 months. I realized that I was shaping their food futures and I took this very seriously. Although I was eating 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day to keep my milk supply up, I was eating only healthy foods (and still dropping weight like crazy!). I worked hard to eat as many different foods as I could, so as to introduce the boys to as many flavors as possible. I even pushed myself to eat things I normally wouldn't eat, just so the boys could experience it and possibly be more open to those flavors as they got older.

Then it was time for the fun to begin... Baby Food!!! I did a lot of research on baby food, and came to find a lot of downfalls to store bought jarred baby food. For one, they had a lot of additional ingredients in them... many had sugar, some had coloring, and almost all had additives and preservatives. The boys bodies felt so clean and pure, the thought of giving them these chemicals grossed me out. They were off to this fresh, pure start and we wanted to keep it that way. So off I went to the local farm market (which we are lucky enough to have just down the road) to load up on fresh fruits and veggies. Making the boys baby food quickly became my favorite activity. Once a week, my mom would take full responsibility for watching the boys while I spent an uninterrupted hour or two in the kitchen steaming, pureeing and freezing dozens and dozens of servings of fresh baby food. It was such a glorious break from the daily grind of caring for twinfants!! We started the boys on vegetables with the the hope that they would learn to like the more savory flavors of veggies before they got hooked on the sweet flavors of fruits. They quickly gulped down fresh green beans, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and squashes of every shape and color. Then we added fruits... homemade applesauce (no sugar added!), pears, bananas, fresh peaches, plums, avocados. The boys devoured them all- each and every fresh, healthy one of them... because they didn't know anything else. Then we added in spices... cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, garlic, cayanne pepper! We played around with all sorts of flavors and the boys chomped down whatever we gave them.

When it was time for finger food, we stuck with healthy options. We skipped most of the Gerber snack foods because they are made with bleached grains and sugar as their second ingredient. I know they say "Made with whole grains!" but go take a look... you'll find whole grains as the 18th ingredient. The boys ate plain cheerios and small chunks of fruits and veggies. When we introduced grains, they got whole grain pasta, whole grain bread, and whole grain crackers. And they LOVED them... because they didn't know anything else. And that was the key. They didn't know anything else. Unfortunately, it was around this time that everyone wanted to start giving them fun foods... bites of ice cream, a finger full of frosting, a chunk off of a chocolate chip cookie. Because what is more adorable than an 8 month old happily slupring on chocolate ice cream? We politely, and sometimes not so politely, asked people not to feed those things to our boys. Its not that we thought the sugar would kill them. It was that they didn't know those foods existed and to us, they didn't NEED to know. They happily ate a plateful of spinach for dinner every night. Why on earth would we let them know that they could demand cookies instead?!

As the boys started to eat regular meals, we were very aware of the dreaded "my toddler only eats these" foods... Kraft macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, french fries, etc. Go ahead and list ONE healthy ingredient in each of those foods. I dare you. On the other hand, I can list a dozen or more chemicals in each. Chemicals that I can't name and you can't name, nor do either of us know where they came from or what they'll do to our bodies. And here's what we learned... We have never once said "The boys will only eat Kraft mac and cheese" because the boys don't know that Kraft mac and cheese exists. I'm sure if they did, they would only eat Kraft mac and cheese (because lets face it, the stuff is good!). Or hot dogs, or chicken nuggets, or fruit snacks. Or juice. Yes. Juice. Our boys have NEVER had juice. I know it seems like a rite of passage in infancy and toddlerhood... but have you ever asked why? Why do we fill our kids with liquid sugar? Why do we deprive them of water and milk? We couldn't answer that. We couldn't find a single benefit to giving the boys juice. So we didn't. They don't know what juice is. But they'll drink 15 ounces of water a day and happily drink all of their milk and they've never fought us on either.

Now that the boys are professional eaters (and man can they pack it in!), what we feed them has just become a way of life. We do 90% of our shopping at the local fruit market... all fresh foods, nothing packaged, nothing prepared. I do wish we could feed them all organic foods, but the price and the lack of guarantee that organic foods are actually organic has kept us from doing so. But they get plenty of fresh fruits and veggies. The only eat whole grains. They only eat real meats. For breakfast every morning, they get a protein, two servings of fruit, a whole grain, and a whole fat yogurt. For every single lunch, there is a fresh fruit and vegetable on their plate, along with a protein, a whole grain, and a serving of dairy. Same for dinner. One of every food group. And nothing that doesn't fit into a food group! They have still never had any of the dreaded toddler foods. And we work hard to avoid anything with chemicals in it- if we can't pronounce it, we try hard not to eat it! We also avoid anything with food dyes, as studies are now showing the many awful affects of colored dyes on children... and to be honest, something that unnaturally red is just gross! We've started exploring natural coloring... pomegranate for red, blueberry for blue or purple. It never hurts to be a little creative :)

I will say that we have recently started to allow the boys a few sweet treats. Each time, we explain to them that sweet things are a special treat, only for special occasions. And anything they get that is sweet is something we've made at home or that we know is homemade. A little bit of natural sugar won't kill them, but we refuse to feed them anything with high fructose corn syrup. So they get homemade cranberry or banana bread, they've had grandma's homemade oatmeal cookies, on occasion Jon has made homemade ice cream, or their favorite... pumpkin pie made with real pumpkin! We've even let them put a little whipped cream on it. Homemade of course. And this fall we enjoyed a homemade donut every Sunday morning as we took our annual Paddock Family Cider Mill Tour... when sweet treats are so special, they also make for wonderful and treasured family memories :)

So Heather... there it is. Our philosophy on how we feed the boys. We've taken a lot of crap for it. Jon's family use to tease us endlessly. I know it was all in fun but it would bring me to tears. Finally we walked out of a family gathering at the lake one day last summer because of how much they were teasing us and they finally stopped. For the most part. My mother loves to try to sneak the boys bites of things she knows we don't let them have and I've had to snap at her many times. Sometimes I leave playdates before lunch is served because I don't want to explain that our boys don't eat hot dogs and I certainly don't want to make our host feel badly for serving them. But how we feed the boys is something we feel very strongly about and we haven't changed just because others think we are weird. They are WONDERFUL eaters and it has made our life so much easier. We don't have struggles over food and we are quite certain that their diet has helped make them the smart, happy, easy going little boys that they are. Although a lot of people think we are crazy, I don't think we do anything drastic. They weren't hard changes to make. Our two driving forces these- Babies and toddlers will enjoy what you give them and if its not natural, don't eat it! If you give babies cookies and ice cream and juice and all sorts of unnaturally flavored foods, they will want cookies and ice cream and juice and things full of delicious chemicals. If you give them spinach and beets and chicken, well, you get the idea.

I will also tell you this. Although I have carried two full term babies who stretched out my stomach to unnatural lengths, and although my boobs sag quite pathetically after nursing the boys for a joyous 19 months... I have never loved my body more. For the first time in my life, I'm healthy. Not necessarily skinny. But healthy. And on top of teaching the boys to enjoy healthy foods and make healthy choices, I am also able to teach them something I never thought I could... how to love yourself for who you are and what you look like. So if you want to tease me about that, go ahead.

Hope this explanation is what you were looking for my dear. And I hope maybe it will help some of our other friends and our family understand why we do what we do :)