Why Children Should Ditch Processed Foods
We tend to think that children are resilient – they don’t usually suffer from the chronic illnesses which nearly all adults eventually do – and so we mistakenly see them as stronger than us. Sure maybe I can’t tolerate sugar and grains but my kids can right? Wrong.
Modern foods undermine children’s health even when they show no outward signs.
Because of something called homeostasis it takes years for symptoms to maifest. Homeostasis is the process of achieving balance under pressure. This life saving process designates priority to one physiological process over another, maintaining ones health until the sacrifices begin to take their toll.
Obviously, anyone who knows better wouldn’t deliberately subject their children to a life of discomfort – colds, temper tantrums, crooked and decaying teeth, attention deficits, clumsiness, blotchy skin, weight gain, bad eye sight, heart disease, strokes, joint pain, and all the complaints of modern man – but believe it or not a diet based on grains is indeed responsible.
Most western mothers start their babies on grains within a few months of birth (if they didn’t already start with formula) and give sweet juice as a first drink. From the formulas and juice boxes babies are slowly poisoned with one of the most destructive grain derivatives, namely corn syrup.
Some of the specific ailments from which babies fed grains and sugars suffer are indigestion, crying fits, colic, temper tantrums, sleeplessness, the terrible twos (yes, this is not a natural part of child development!), ADD, irritability, and digestive problems. This list is nowhere near exhaustive and, in fact, it just keeps getting longer as people become more addicted to and reliant upon grains and sugars and less interested in eating the good old meats and vegetables which our ancestors have been thriving on for hundreds of thousands of years.
Children with strong genes, and children who do some fats and protein along with modern junk foods may manage to pass the formative years with few of these complaints. They may not exhibit only minor problems through their teens and twenties, but after their bodies have been making sacrifices for too long disease sets in and the once seemingly healthy child is now suffering just like the rest of us. Then begins the crooked teeth and braces, the problems in school, the shyness, the acne, the weight gain, and the slew of other problems that no parent wants to see in their children.
Feeding children, from birth, the diet nature intended, could save them from all this discomfort and pain.
The Hunter Gatherer Becomes Domesticated
Our pre-agricultural ancestors ate a diet in colossal contrast to our own. With their own two hands they hunted game and small animals. They used the whole kill and dried extra meat for times of scarcity. Their unique dexterity, peculiar to this species, allowed them to include plants and fish into their diet. They were able to climb trees for fruit and dig underground for roots. Their skill with tools allowed them to smash the skulls of their kill, providing them with nutrient dense brains – a delicacy to which no other animal had access.
Primal man was an intelligent opportunist and the only true omnivore on the planet. He adapted to his diet over hundreds of thousands of years, his body slowly coming to require and manage the nutrients it provided. And then, quite suddenly, about 10,000 years ago, as the intelligence of man grew and grew, he sought a way to defy the capricious wrath of nature and began cultivating grain to protect him through cold and famine.
The primal man’s diet and lifestyle changed dramatically with this invention. The diversity of his diet began to diminish as he ate only the foods within proximity to the farm. The amount of meat and fat he consumed dwindled as he replaced it with corn, wheat, and other grains.
Many aspects of his diet changed but the programing of hundreds of thousands of years did not.
His body had been carefully designed and tailored over the millenia to support a very specific balance of nutrients and activity.
This same diet which protected him from cold and famine, made him vulnerable to chronic illness.
We always hear that humans are amazingly adaptable, that man is well equipped to eat just about anything but, truly, anyone can look around today and observe this isn’t true. All around us people are sick and diseased. This isn’t for no reason. It’s definitely not something in the air. It is, rather, something in our food. The more “civilized” we become the more incompatible with our “civilized” diets we become.
