The Primal Parent

Shared Custody and Other Family Battles

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Primal or not, we’ve all had our personal values disregarded or even blatantly disrespected by family members at some point and in some fashion. It happens when our kids stay with ex-spouses or with grandparents, or when they go out for the day with aunts and uncles. It is a problem for health conscious parents, for religious and non-religious parents, and for parents with alternative social values.

We worry about our kids when they spend a significant amount of time with people who do not jive with our own beliefs. What’s going to happen to them, we think, when the values we teach are constantly contradicted? Won’t they get confused? Will they struggle to make a choice between two loved ones? Or worst of all, will they end up taking the path that I am so ardently trying to keep them from?

Maybe. Unless you have the opportunity to change the way these outside influences think, or unless you choose to shelter your kids (god I hope not) then, frankly, you’re stuck with the possibility that your children may not conform. Conflicting influences exist. Sorry Charlie.

I gave a list of possible solutions to common problems in my post Combating Outside Influences, and I suggested a few ideas about how to help kids take ownership of their diet in Peruading Kids to Go Primal. Today, I am going to give you my own personal experience with how I have dealt with my daughter’s diet outside of my home. It’s probably going to be TMI but you know how I am by now.

Split Custody

Dad in the beginning
My daughter’s dad and I divorced before she turned two. We’d been together for 10 years and cooking up Paleo meals together for a few years. After we broke up we split custody. We didn’t talk much anymore but I saw him shopping at Whole Foods a few times so I knew he held on to at least some of what we had learned together. I got glimpses of the lunches he packed for daycare and had a pretty good idea that he fed her well. But he definitely wasn’t die hard about diet like me. I tried to talk to him about it occasionally, but he didn’t like talking much back then. I also sent emails but didn’t want to be too annoying, because I knew that wouldn’t help. In the end, Evelyn’s diet 3 days a week was a black box to me. Taking Evelyn to her dad’s house each week was a great exercise in living for the moment and accepting my lack of control. Ultimately, the fact that the two of them have a strong, loving relationship is more important to me than what she eats when she’s with him

Dad’s parents
When Evelyn was 4 or so we left California and came to Colorado. His parents are here and they enjoyed having her over on Saturdays. When I first arrived I hadn’t talked to his mom in three years but that didn’t stop me from reminding her about how we ate and why. I don’t think she agreed with me but she listened and respected my wishes for the most part. If I hadn’t had the guts to talk to her, Evelyn would have got cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, pasta for dinner, and cookies and chips all day long. Some of that did seep through but for the most part Grandma made chicken and veggies and things like that on Saturdays.

Dad now
Now Evelyn’s dad is here in Colorado and we share custody again. He usually has her two nights out of the week. He’s a great dad and Evelyn loves him to death, but he’s even further from Paleo than he was when we broke up, at least so I gather from Evelyn. She tells me that he eats grains a lot but that he doesn’t give them to her. Who knows if it’s true. All I can do is teach and offer her the best when she’s here with me. What she eats with her dad is their business.

Day Care

When my daughter turned two, after my husband and I split up, I had to start working again and that meant day care for Evelyn. I searched far and wide for a day care that would be sympathetic to our diet. I interviewed all the surrounding day care providers until I finally found one that was run out of a really cool couple’s home. They were kind of raw vegans but this is back when we were mostly raw Primal so they sympathized with us. They were fine with Evelyn bringing a packed lunch. Since kids at day care have treats often, I always provided some allowable treat for those special occasions so that she wouldn’t get stuck eating birthday cake every other week. Since she never ate treats at home back then she thought it was cool to have her own special treat at school sometimes. She didn’t care about the birthday cakes and cupcakes.

My Parents

I moved out to Colorado to help my mom take care of my dad who is dying of Alzheimer’s and Vascular Dementia. My daughter and I said goodbye to her dad and my boyfriend, Julian, in California to move in with my parents for three months. It was supposed to be a temporary thing to try and get things in order. It didn’t work out that way. We neither got anything in order nor made a temporary move.

It was pretty scary for me at first. My parent’s diet is horrendously ugly. Neither of them eat any nutrients at all. Their diet consists of 100% packaged grocery store non-food and they eat sugar all day long, if they eat at all. It’s quite amazing how long a body can hold up essentially eating itself.

My dad is completely on another planet now, but at the time was just very confused, suffered multiple pains, had gout, etc. My mom is pretty much mental. Her diet is even worse than my dad’s. She eats bread and butter, pies, “nutritional” shakes, coffee with gallons of ultra-pasteurized cream, and sometimes a bite of meat. She’s confused, depressed, in constant agonizing pain, and on and on. She is also a prescription drug addict like my sister was, who was also living in the house at the time and also eating a terrible diet. Not a single one of them exercised even a minute of any day for many years. And on top of all that my mom is a fundamentalist right-wing Christian.

So this is where we lived. Everything about the situation there was 100% in opposition to the way we live our lives.

My daughter didn’t care about any of it. Thankfully, she was too young to get the fact that my mom and sister were high on Valium and Vicodin all the time. She loved them all dearly, and they her, and since she knew her own diet so well, we survived it. There were pies, cakes, and cookies on the counter at all times and my absentminded parents often offered them to her. But Evelyn never accepted. She would come to me instead and ask me for legal treats because she was making a strong connection between junk food and misery. She learned a lot there, partly because I guided her and partly because she observed it herself.

Julian’s Colombian Family

Last year we stayed in Colombia for five weeks with Julian’s family. I have to admit, I did a pretty terrible job with this one. My Spanish isn’t good enough to explain to his family all the complexities of our diet so I trusted Julian to do the job, but he didn’t express the passion or the importance of it, so while we were in Colombia, Evelyn ate bread almost every single day. Mostly everything else she ate was ok. She didn’t really like corn foods, and she’s not a huge fan of rice, but gluten!

She hadn’t had much exposure to gluten before this. Her dad had always kept her diet gluten free since I have celiac disease. Now I was seeing a kid I’d never seen before. She hadn’t experienced the terrible twos and in all ways was a really easy kid. And then suddenly, at 4 years old, she was having tantrums and crying hysterically over not getting her way. It all cleared up, never to return, once her diet was back to normal.

This year when we go back to Colombia we will have a better plan. First of all, we won’t stay with family; we’ll rent an apartment. And second, now that I know what Colombian food is all about, I’ll suggest a few safe recipes and help more in the kitchen.

The Whole World

The whole world around us eats like shit. If you let your kids out of your sight for a minute you had better be ready for what might end up in their mouths. But let them out of your sight you must. We can only have control up to some reasonable point.

We can teach our children, we can inform our care takers and family, we can even bring alternative foods for our kids to eat when we’re away, but that’s about it. We pretty much have to accept that it’s a cruel world out there and hope that our kids grow up strong and smart in spite of it.

What are some of the situations and people that you have dealt with since going Primal? Every one of us deals with this at some point, if not constantly. It’s really helpful to hear (and to vent) about this stuff. If you need to take the discussion further than the comments, I opened up a new forum on the topic.

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56 Comments

  1. Peggy, very nice real-world examples. My son is becoming well educated on proper diet. He is struggling to find discipline when he is with his mom or at friends. He complains when he chooses bad foods, but tends to blame the situation. His mom is slowly coming on board with the Paleo concepts (in part because she sees the good changes in me), but still making grains and sugar available. At least it’s in lesser quantities than it used to be. It’s very tough for someone without Celiac or other food related health issues to just jump on board and especially to stay on board. I think a slow not-in-your-face approach really helps acceptance too. It takes time. I often think back to how long it has taken me to reach this eating zone. It seems obvious now, but it certainly was not an easy or quick journey to get here.

  2. Peggy~
    Great post!

    Far too many divorced couples make their child’s diet part of the war between them and then the child starts getting stressed out around food.

    Bravo for your clarity on your priorities & knowing what you could & could not control!

    • Lyle,

      Good point. I didn’t get to my own level of compliance or understanding over night. Nobody does. We should be more patient with people. It’s good for the soul.

      Sondra,

      Far too many divorced couples make war period. That was one thing I was always determined not to do. Maybe that’s what got me off on the right foot with accepting what goes in my kid’s mouth out side of my house. Although, I definitely don’t have it as bad as a lot of people who’ve left comments.

  3. “The whole world around us eats like shit.” So true, Peggy!
    I don’t have kids to worry about what they’re eating, which is good, because I’m still figuring it out for myself. I have Celiac Disease as well, and the hard thing about it for me is that my friends and coworkers will find GF cookies or doughnuts or whatever at the grocery store and buy them for me. I’m getting better at saying “thank you for thinking of me” and pitching it in the trash, but at first I felt really obligated to eat it because they bought it special for me. Sometimes I feel like they’re subconsciously trying to bring me down with the same shitty foods they eat, and I have to remind myself that it’s just that they don’t know better.

    I’m curious – does your daughter have Celiac, or was she just reacting to gluten grains because she doesn’t usually eat them?

    • I don’t know, Jennie. I had her tested when she was a baby, and the test came back negative, but genes can turn on at any time in life, so who knows by now. She reacts poorly to grains in general, especially when she eats a lot of them, but that was unlike anything I had ever seen in her. It makes me wonder.

      I know what you mean about gluten free goodies. After my head injury someone brought me a box of gluten free frosted cinnamon rolls. I was like, omg, what are you trying to do? Take me out once and for all?

    • Jennie,

      I’ve had the exact same problem. I felt really obligated to eat what people bring “just for me”. I no longer to it. It only takes one rejection and they won’t do it again. I feel bad doing that, but much better the next day :)

      Lyel

  4. My boyfriend’s kids (6 and 8) spend half their time with us and half with their mom. We eat a 90% primal diet. My boyfriend and I both feel VERY STRONGLY about the importance of a healthy diet (and exercise, and intellectual stimulation, etc, etc.). His ex-wife feeds them crap.

    I am pretty zen about the kids constantly getting treats from school, or grandparents, or neighbors, etc. But it kills me to know that half the time they are eating terrible food. And they eat far worse than the standard american diet with her. I would take some level of comfort knowing they were eating healthy harvest breakfast cereal with an occasional apple, a ham and cheese sandwhich on whole wheat bread with granola bar and orange juice, and meatloaf with mashed potatoes and oversteamed broccoli with “low-fat” margarine (gag). But no, they are eating pop tarts, cocoa puffs, breakfast sausage, luncheables (probably one of my preferred options), chips, capri suns (whatever happened to apple or orange juice?), nachoes, pizza, waffles, french fries, etc, etc.

    It also kills me a little bit to feel constantly uncertain about exactly what effect their diet (and other home influences) has on them and how well they might behave were they eating well and exercising all or most of the time while staying with us.

    I apologize, this is a huge rant – but I never get to rant since I know very few people (I guess possibly no one) who feel passionately about diet like I do. And I feel very helpless about this situation.

    The positive: The kids are still young and have not reached the stage that they are willing to make their own choices and stand up for themselves. They know what is right (i.e., healthy), but do not have the willpower to refuse the junk food that they grew up on and love so much. We continue to teach them about the important of good and bad food for their body in hopes that in a few years they will make their own decisions. Also, they have come a long way. When I moved in with the family (~8 months ago), the kids could not identify the majority of fruits and vegetables I offered them. Things like tomatoes, cucumbers, peaches, and plums were UNKNOWN to them. Now they love asparagus, club soda with lime drinks, and banana pancakes. They don’t love everything though – we still have a lot of food battles and a ways to go…

    Have been enjoying your blog Peggy!

    • That sounds so hard to live with day to day, but you know, that’s how most of us were raised and while, yes it caused lots of pain and suffering, we have also made it out alive and well. All you can do is your best and then keep your fingers crossed. it sounds like you are doing a great job for your part.

      My daughter’s dad got me into Taoism years ago, and it has really helped with accepting the aspects of life I can’t control.

  5. My kids are 11yo and have been on some kind of food plan since they were six when I removed all artificials, fruit, many veggies, gluten and casein to manage behavioral issues. I managed this spectacularly well by choosing to do this the week before their birthday which also happened to be Easter weekend!

    It was very hard. Very. But it was absolutely essential. They couldn’t exist in the world appropriately even allowing for immaturity and general kid-ness.

    Homeschooling followed and that made it easier but going out was still hard. Homeschooling also taught me about socializing and the importance of letting go but if he ate anything he shouldn’t, then we had to deal with the tantrums and plain old obnoxious behavior. That was hard, too.

    But now my kids are older, they are making good choices. They now have the impulse control to think about their choices. They are in an alternative charter school that more or less meets their needs

    But there is a world full of crap out there, my husband isn’t Paleo and we fell off our wagon 18 months or so ago in terms of allowing gluten back in. I went Paleo exactly a year ago and decided to make the transition slowly for the family.

    They are at an age where I am soon going to lose complete influence so they need to be able to make their own, hopefully good decisions. They almost 100% paleo at home, they can have whatever they like outside. They make the choices they make and we talk about them and the consequences.

  6. Thanks for writing this, it’s been on my mind a lot lately! I’ve been trying to get my extended family on board with what my family eats and it’s been tough. My family feels that disallowing kids from ever having birthday cake or ice cream is neglectful. My son has started turning them down when they try to give him sweets behind my back (I’m very proud)!

    My son really feels that providing healthy good is a way to show you care. He gets really frustrated when his Dad gives them Top Ramen and Kraft Mac’n Cheese (which is sadly almost every night).

  7. Peggy,

    This is so true. And it really does talk about raising and educating ones child, and not just about food, but about everything. I’ve had issues when my step-daughter would visit her father and eat junk food all day, and when she visited her aunt and was “fed” religious views that differ from our views (we are not religious at all). I do believe that communicating with ones child immediately after a visit (so that they can remember better) about how their day/weekend went is a good way to get children to ask questions about why something may be good or bad for them. And it is then when we can educated or at least open their horizons to hopefully make better choices at an earlier age.

  8. Great article. I am a single Dad and my two young girls eat Paleo when with me, then typical “crap” when not with me. I figure I can give them the best possible nutrition for the eight meals a week I give them. When they are older, and understand that they can choose what they eat, hopefully they will make the healthier choices.

  9. Thanks SO MUCH for this post Peggy. I think about this kind of thing so often. We are incredibly close to our family, and spend an incredible amount of time with them. How Huck (my nephew) eats with me is very different from how he eats a at home. I think everyone around me is starting to understand what I mean when I tell them how healthy this is. I’ve stopped even calling it Primal and started calling it “whole foods” so they wont feel like its a “fad”.
    One of Huck’s favorite treats for along time (given to him by dad) was cheetos. We have kind of a family joke now, because one day he told me he REALLY wanted armpit hair like dad and uncle. I told him that cheetos keep you from getting armpit hair, so now he doesn’t like them. I never thought I’d lie to a 3 yr old, haha. But it worked. He’s definately starting to understand the difference between “real food” as we call it, and “icky stuff”.
    Part of the problem with my in-laws is that they have never had a problem with being overweight. They are all very thin (not necissarily fit) and generally dont have to worry about what they eat. What I’ve tried explaining is that this is only a weight loss solution for ME, because I gained so much in college. My husband was very worried about me feeding our nephew this way, because he’s tall and thin at 3, and definately shouldn’t be any lighter. I’m still trying to explain to my husband that Primal ultimately just keeps us healthy.
    I know I’ll have to explain to my mother in law one day about why I feed her grandchildren the way I do. I’m a planner, so I’ve already thought about how to explain it. I know she thinks treats are fun for kids, and I’ll just have to tell her (when its my own kid) that what is REALLY fun is being thin, healthy, and active. And it doesn’t come as easily with my family as it does hers.
    I do worry about giving my nephew so much fat here, when I know he often gets too many carbs at home…and the adverse effects of that. I don’t want this to backfire because of the difference in household. Do you think that will be a problem? Will a high fat high protein diet lead to health problem if paired with carbs too often? Thank goodness he chooses veggies a lot (over a cookie the other day! I was so proud!)

    • Oh, and when I say “carbs” I mean bad ones and grains in general. Not veggies and fruit…mostly things like corn and gluten rich foods.

    • I don’t know for sure about that, Lindsey. I know healthy fats are important for the health of our cells and hormones. I know that junk food is bad. It doesn’t really make sense to me to eliminate healthy fats just because he’s eating junk food some of the time. He needs those fats. It’s good you’re thinking and experimenting. Good job!

  10. Sigh @ the idea of on top of the difficulty of finding someone to marry/have kids with, hopefully she will be on the same page regarding diet as well…

    Hats off to all you parents!

    • Ha! No kidding, Evan. After my husband and I split up I was planning on staying alone till my daughter grew up. Seriously, I started dating and couldn’t even imagine hooking up with anybody that ate like everyone does. In the end I got together with a Colombian guy who despises the American diet as much as me!

  11. This is such a great post! I recently let my 2 oldest go visit my parents for 3 weeks. I wanted to be breezy about it but inside, it was killing me. I didn’t inundate my mom with what they cannot eat…instead I told her that they need to have fruits or vegetables at EVERY meal. I didn’t think it was too much to expect but I know how poorly my parents eat so I was worried.

    2 days into their visit they had melted cheese on buns for supper. That’s it. A week later they ate Lucky Charms with rice milk and a side of chocolate soy milk (at my sister’s house). It made me angry that the one request I had was completely ignored and, although my mom understands my diet, it was almost rubbed in my face.

    My Mom’s biggest problem is that she tells my kids to be secretive of what they’ve eaten so I won’t be mad. Am I mad that they let my child drink a Costco pop? A little…but it is crappy to tell them “Don’t tell your mom that you had Coke.”.

    I do hope that, with time, my children will be able to make better decisions about their own diets. We’re still so new to this lifestyle so all I can do is teach by example and discuss why we eat the way we do.

    • This type of thing (where people ‘sabotage’ other people’s, or kid’s, diets) really bugs me.

      I’m not a parent yet, but I do know that I want my children to have a positive relationship with food and not have to even spend mental energy researching and determining what is the best diet.

      I’m fairly certain we can all say we’ve spent a good chunk of mental, and probably emotional energy, researching about food choices and the like. Personally I’d like to have my kids avoid spending so much time and energy on that endeavor (mostly because I already put the leg work in for them).

      I feel like the treat/soda/ice cream/etc giving person just undermines all that. Bad if its a relative, wtf if its the other parent.

  12. What safe treats does your daughter eat? That’s great that you doesn’t get upset about not eating cakes and cookies!

    • Tara,

      I’ve always feared that people would tell my daughter to lie. I caught my mom doing that once and I told her exactly what I thought about it. I was like, really? You want to teach my daughter to lie!!? There is another conflicting value that we have to deal with.

      Amanda,

      My daughter’s safest treats are ice cream and chocolate. I know not everyone in the primal community would agree with that choice. But that’s what works best for her. Gluten free alternative grain treats are definitely not cool in my book. She also loves fruit and is usually happy with that.

      • Yeah…I dislike the moral issues that comes along with teaching a child to lie to their parents. Grandparents are in a place of trust and it’s frustrating that they push them to lie.

  13. I enjoyed this post. I have five kids (#6 on the way) and the oldest is 10. We’re not as strict with the kids but more is caught than taught in this regard. When one of my boys takes too much dessert, another will tell him that he’s going to get type 2 diabetes.

    I find it interesting that you shudder at the idea of sheltering your child, but isn’t that exactly what you are doing? Sheltering is just parenting. We make decisions for our children that they lack the wisdom and discernment to make for themselves. We try not to expose them to things we think will be harmful.

    Children are always getting brainwashed. They take whatever they’re born with and add to it the things they find attractive as they grow up. If parents don’t provide that, then the government is happy to step in and tell your kids how to think about everything.

    • Parenting is definitely not sheltering. Babies are sheltered in the sense that they know nothing. And then little by little we show them the world as we teach them what we think about it. We cannot show them everything at once, it would be both impossible and damaging. I would say parenting is a process of revealing.

      My parents sheltered me. They chose not to teach me about drugs, sex, foul language, and thousands of other things that they didn’t agree with. I don’t do that and I don’t believe it’s a good idea. Of course we have to choose a time to expose kids to things but I don’t think that’s the same thing as deliberately sheltering them.

  14. What a great post. This is hard to do. I’m fortunate that I stay home with my kids so 99% of what he eats is why I choose to feed him. We’re been pretty strict primal since I had my second baby forthe last three months. It’s been very good for all of us to be back on paleo after some time while I was pregnant and didnt eat very primal the first couple months.
    I’m also pretty lucky that my parents and in laws also know we eat this way. When I see my parents, they live out of town, so it’s usually a weekend thing, they get us primal stuff. Eggs for breakfast and then they always have meat for meals. They also are fairly health conscious so what they get isn’t horrible. But most of the time I kinda forget it. We just eat as primal as possible and I figure why stress about the little things because we really don’t go down there that often. And I’ll be honest, if my 91 year old grandma makes me her terribly unhealthy homemade buiscuits, I’m eating them and dealing with the consequences.
    My in laws live fairly close to us so we see them often. Until just recently, when my sister in law went paleo and told them all about it, and then we said we eat the same… We hadn’t really told them about how we eat. It was frustrating going there because they gave my son pretzel after pretzel just not knowing. And I didn’t want to make a huge issue. But now they know how we eat an they make food acordingly. There are still temptations, like the ice cream cake they bought for birthdays. But we just share one piece between me, my husband and son. But, it’s really awesome, we’ve been not eating sugar long enough now my son doesn’t really care about the cake. He took a few bites but was way more interested in playing. So I’m hoping that we can do what we can here at home but that as he gets older he has a base to make decisions by. We have no allergies here ( Except I’m a little sensitive to dairy) so I just want to not be so super strict and not fret over the small stuff. All I can do is try to help him understand what foods are good and what foods aren’t too good.

    • Cassie,

      What an ideal situation! Mine was like that for the first two years of my daughter’s life. I didn’t have to worry. And even now, she’s with me mostly, so there’s not much sense in worrying. In my experience if I talk to extended family seriously about the diet, people are generally willing to help out on the one or two days we spend with them. It’s split parents that are usually unwilling to change. I suppose it’s because you’re essentially telling them that the way they eat (and maybe even live their life) is wrong and you want them to accommodate each and every weekend.

  15. Pingback: Shared Custody and Other Family Battles | Low Carb Daily

  16. Not only does the ‘a little bit won’t hurt’ line get me going, it’s the enthusiasm with which sugargraincanola CRAP is presented: “OOOH! CAKE! YAY! If you eat three microns of carrot that’s enough for me and then you can have CAKE! Won’t that be GREAT!? Just nibble a little of that stuff Mommy gave you and then you can have CAKE!!!”
    Pardon me, but that’s called undermining. I back you up and you’d bloody well better back me up too.
    What does it take to convince people that they do not have to buy the love of their littles with food and toys? And that doing so at the expense of a) the relationship with the child’s (other) parent(s) and b) the health and behaviour of the child is JUST. NOT. WORTH IT?

  17. I found myself nodding along to this post throughout. Thank you for providing such a detailed, personal account. I can see how coming from a background like yours would give you the resolve you have. That time spent at your parents’ would have had me clawing the walls.

    I sent my mother The Primal Blueprint and her husband reported back that she’s eating cookies for dinner. Well that’s just great. I think these geezers are rebels without a clue, and my vegetarian sister is the doctor in the family. I urged her to try it for 30 days, since you know, maybe she’d have a little longer to spend with her grandkids that way. A little guilt now and then can be helpful.

    My kids are seven and five, and my older one is like me—prone to anxiety and mood swings and huge self-doubt. Eating Primally has helped me TREMENDOUSLY with this and I yearn to get him Primal too but I feel like I won’t be able to really eliminate grains (and sugar!) without a test.

    My family got rid of the packaged processed food a year ago but we still have sourdough bread, oatmeal, O’s and Crisp Rice cereal (from Trader Joe’s) and as much as I agonize giving it to my kids in the morning, I am just not ready for that battle, maybe because I’m not armed with enough alternatives. Lunch and dinner are pretty Primal at least and the biggest sweet treat is gluten free ginger snaps.

    Still, there are vast improvements. Mostly everyone I know in our suburban enclave is a carbivore, even if they do belong to a CSA and make tons of organic veggies. My kids’ sweet tooths are radically less intense than their friends, who come to my house and eat and eat and eat and EAT because all they eat in their homes are carbs. My son comes home from the neighbors having eaten Wheat Thins and breakfast bars, acts like a little a-hole and feels victimized when I tell him he shouldn’t eat those things, and then I sympathize with him because I don’t know for sure (I mean I know but not enough to tell the neighbors not to feed him, but maybe I’m just a wuss) and don’t want to make him feel fundamentally flawed while the other kids get to “indulge.” It’s frustrating, but like one of your earlier commenters said, it’s a process and a journey that takes time and we have already come so far.

    Do you recommend the Cyrex Labs test? Has your daughter been tested? I’m itching to buy it but want to make sure this is what I should do since it’s $150. I loathe our pediatrician and would rather order it up on my own…any insight you can offer there would be great.

    While my husband is supportive of my diet, he is skeptical and won’t join me until Christmas when it will have been six months because he’s seen me change my eating habits before only to watch me fly and then crash. He loves the reduction in my anxiety but has also seen me turn into an uber-bitch until I upped my fruit intake. That wasn’t fun for anyone and I was a virtual Nazi with my son. I’ve relaxed some since then and remind myself that Nina Planck says in her book, Real Food, that as a child she ate healthy at home but whatever she wanted outside of home because it it an uncontrollable environment. Of course when we were kids it was a little different, but not much. I love that you’re into Taoism by the way. The Tao is my favorite spiritual text.

    I also tell myself that the human body is a miraculously, mercifully resilient structure. I ate like crap MY ENTIRE LIFE until I was 41 (including through two pregnancies and breastfeedings) and I thank my body every day for its healing capacity. Your daughter has an amazing head start and already makes such wise choices. I am awed by this. And inspired too.

    • Elise,

      That’s a good point to remember. Our bodies WANT to heal themselves. As soon as our kids grow up and are less enchanted by junk food, they will probably take what they’ve learned from us and eat well. Then their bodies will heal from the nights at friends houses and weekends with dad.

      I don’t know about Cyrex labs. My naturopathic doctor used genovalabs and had me tested for IgG and IgE allergies. Years ago of course I was tested for celiac but I don’t know about all those other IgA tests cyrex does. That’s beyond my scope.

  18. Would those of you with kids whose behaviour changes when they eat non-primally (not necessarily full-blown chemical-laden SAD, just including grains and dairy) mind talking a bit about what changes you see and what led you to conclude it was dietary?
    I’m having a huge struggle with my husband and his family right now about what my child eats – I think she needs to get off grains and dairy because she gets black circles under her eyes and acts like a total hooligan (she’s 2.5, so this is on top of the unpredictability of a toddler) but I keep getting the ‘that’s normal, all kids are like that’ argument (which is classic system justification/Semmelweis reflex and I don’t accept).
    It would really help if you could share your childrens’ symptoms so I could speak on this from somewhere other than a mathernal instinct/N=1 perspective.
    Many thanks in advance!

    • Lauren,

      I get dark circles under my eyes when I eat foods I’m allergic to. Maybe you should get her tested for allergies? If she’s eating lots of grain and dairy it’s likely that her immune system is compromised, even at 2.5, and she’s developed allergies already.

      My daughter gets bloated often when she comes back from dad’s house. I know that symptom well. We both get bloated when we eat grains. She gets majorly constipated when her diet includes both cheese and grains. Otherwise, she poops regularly and effortlessly. The other day some “fruit snacks”, those nasty corn syrup, food coloring quishy things, got into her snack at school – she told me about it when she got home – and she had terrible gas that afternoon. When I take her out to ice cream she gets insanely hyper, thankfully there is a park across the street, and she becomes very “delicate”. We have to be careful not to upset her.

      With attitude problems I have found that if I ate the same thing and have a similar attitude, she can really go wild, but if I have my head on straight and am extra careful, I can keep her positive despite the junk food. That’s not ideal though.

      • So much of successful parenting is not getting sucked into the emotional vortex of someone else’s dramas, isn’t it? I try to respond to the need rather than the behaviour, but that’s going to be a life-long learning curve.
        I agree about the allergy testing, just wasn’t sure if it could be effectively and non-invasively done on such a young person. I’ve made a note to call my ND about it tomorrow. Bloating is hard to identify under that toddler belly-forward stance. Mood and sensitivity are definitely tip-offs, just really hard to convince other family members of – the norm for toddlers is assumed to be moody and hyper. Test results in black and white should help. I hope.
        Thanks for your reply!

    • Almost forgot to mention the food cravings. If she eats junk or grains, she will crave more food all day long. She’ll just want to eat and eat and I have to tell her just to forget about it. That’s it’s not real hunger. That’s a pretty confusing concept for a kid.

  19. I have one comment to make about those that would tell your child to lie to you. People who do things that they know are wrong and hurtfull to children do this (child molesters is the one that comes to mind). I would consider bringing this fact up in some way when you find that “loved ones” are teaching your children to do this. I in no way am conecting molestation to treats, but the behavoir is the same and we know how damaging this is. Maybe connecting the two will give you a way to help those in your life understand just how damaging this can be in the long run. Someone who would give drugs or alchohol to kids would teach them the same. Teens are already going to do this to some degree – do we really need to teach them to do it at an even younger age?

  20. I agree that when others tell your children to lie to you, it’s a huge betrayal. However, I’ve had to resort to lying. My doctor is in on it, so does that make it okay?

    Lauren wanted to know what behavioral changes we see in our children when we feed them non-Primally, so here’s my story:

    My children have been in full-time daycare on a military base for about two months now. They’re 2.5 years old (twins) and went from being the sweetest, most loving children to biting, hitting, angry, temper-tantrum-throwing little jerks in the span of a week. The daycare uses strictly-enforced USDA standards for the kids diets, and the menu consists of 65% wheat and dairy products, 20% high GI fruit and juice, 10% legumes and nightshades, and 5% inferior protein. It’s really atrocious. “Vegetables” are corn, beans, peas and potatoes. Bread/crackers/cookies/pasta are served with EVERY meal. Seriously, I should scan a copy of the weekly diet for you all to see, you would weep.

    My kids have always had a problem with dairy, so I had my doctor write a note saying that they were allergic to dairy AND had celiac’s disease, hoping that that would be enough and I could bring in substitutes. Sadly, the school’s policy is that if a child is allergic to something, NO substitutions can be made to the menu. They just go without. So, my kids get factory-farmed chicken, high-GI fruits, corn and legumes all day long. No fats whatsoever (except those yummy trans fats). When the other kids have a snack of milk and cookies, mine are not given anything. It is unacceptable. When they come home, they have temper tantrums, demand “cake” and are generally horrible. Strangely enough, they are little darlings on the weekend. Hmmm…go figure.

    I am starting next week to bring their own food, but sadly, I cannot bring ANY nuts (in case someone else is allergic to nuts. They don’t care about exposing my kids to stuff they’re allergic to, because I’m pretty sure they think I’m crazy). Also, the kids will have to be SEGREGATED from the others while they eat (which makes me question their stupid nut policy even more). I’m not effing kidding. They will be taken into a separate room and treated like lepers. I really wanted to avoid this, but I can’t live with the way they behave when they eat even a modified version of the USDA SAD. I get at least one phone call a day, saying they’re biting, hitting, etc. Plus, they’re breaking out in psoriasis rashes all over their bodies and have dark circles under their eyes.

    To answer the questions I know you have while reading this, no we can’t take them to another daycare. They can’t stay at home either. Just wanted to vent and let you guys know how badly America’s military families are being fed, thanks to the wonderful policies of the US Government.

    PS Did I mention that 85% of the dependents on this base are morbidly obese and sick? The soldiers/airmen are fed the same crap, but they are made to exercise religiously [read: chronically]. Even so, a lot of them are losing the battle of the bulge and are being kicked out of the Air Force because of it. I feel like the only voice of reason on this installation and I am completely powerless to elicit any kind of change, except in my own home. But I guess that’s what the point of your post is, Peggy, we do what we can at home, teach our kids as best as we can, until the point when they can make their own decisions. Then we hope for the best. x

    PPS I’m pretty sure they’re biting because the other children are the most nutritious thing in the room. HA!

    • Wow, that’s some wild insight. What’s this world coming to?

    • Ouch! I teach in a middle school, and the kids here get pretty much the same thing. Think of your kids, only 13 and jammed in a room being required to sit still and focus for hours on end. I can’t bear to walk through the cafe at breakfast or lunch and see what they are feeding these kids, and for many of them it may be all they get all day. We don’t have lunch until almost 1pm, and although I IF most days and it doesn’t bother me, I know the kid’s bodies are eating themselves inside after a sugar-milk, danish thing, and sugar-cereal before 8am. I just give thanks I don’t have to teach nutrition because I could never teach the USDA “plate” but I don’t think primal would fly. It’s “not on the test.” I get to teach reproduction instead, that’s a fun time.

      I don’t have kids of my own yet, but when I do they will be primal all the way. My biggest personal hurdle are the well-meaning friends and family who fall all over themselves to give me GF replacement treats. It’s really hard to get around that gracefully.

    • I got kicked out of the Navy for being overweight/out of shape, after years of struggling with my weight and fitness. Mandatory exercise not only didn’t help, I acquired a repetitive stress injury in my left leg that the VA gave me a 10% disability rating for. I know now that I was pre-diabetic and literally starving my body – no wonder that I didn’t have the energy to exercise, and that I acquired a running injury so easily.

      And since it’s the military, even if some decent version of Primal or Paleo goes mainstream, it will probably be several years before the military catches up. It’s a serious readiness issue as well as a personal health issue that can largely be ignored because most people in the military are young and still have the capacity to eat total crap and function reasonably well.

      • I read a book written in the 70s or so, I think it was Blood Sugar Blues, maybe another one, in which the author had terrible acne growing up and when he went to the military it cleared up. Back then the food they gave the soldiers was not junk grain and HFCS. Hopefully the military goes back to its old ways. But with big grain business owning the government, it isn’t very likely.

  21. I got a little taste of what’s to come when my father-in-law jokingly offered my 9 month old a fruit loop. He just waved it in front of his face, no intention of actually giving it to him, but I surprised myself in how upset it made me. I have no reason to believe that my family won’t respect our food/parenting choices (on the contrary, all have been incredibly supportive even though we do lots of “alternative” parenting stuff), but my knee-jerk reaction to a little joke made me realize that it’s no joke to me.

  22. My husband and I debate what happens to Paleo kids when they grow up. Especially, when they go away to college, away from grass-fed beef and Mom’s pre-made lunches. They will go straight to the horrible buffet style cafeteria food, and their bodies won’t be able to handle it. Even if they choose to stay primal on their own accord, how can they keep it up on their own while learning the ropes of college, studying, and trying to fit into the world outside of home? Are there any adult Paleo children out there that can chime in?

    • Wouldn’t it be nice to hear? In a few more years I suspect we will be hearing those stories.

      I am trying to teach my kid and not just force feed her healthy food. I want Paleo eating to be second nature by the time she’s 18 and not something she has to try to think about. That’s the hope anyway…

    • I wasn’t Paleo as a kid, but I did learn to cook at a fairly young age. I can see a lot of differences between my younger sister (who is 19 and cannot cook even scrambled eggs) and myself as far as how healthful we ate. Then again neither of us went to a college where we needed to live in a dorm, although I am a full time college student now (while working full time and raising kids) and she is in nursing.

  23. Peggy, how many details of your lifestyle do you usually share with others when it comes to social situations (okay, you entertain a blog so probably many people know about this in detail)? I am asking because I often feel helpless in those situations. I do not want to pretend food allergies (which I do not have) and I do not want to discuss my diet with everyone. I suffer badly from irritable bowl syndrome so I often explain food choices with this but questions will follow and I also do not want to freely discuss details of my digestion with everyone who asks…So I too often eat my piece of cake and shut up. I do not even like cake…I happen to be a lean person and when I do not eat certain foods people think I am overly concerned with my waist line and I fear that this (false) image is going to be transported to my daughter…Can you relate? I really wish I was more radical…

    • My allergies will only take me so far. I’m allergic to rice, to bananas, asparagus, and plantain. I can’t eat wheat. But everything else I avoid because I just don’t digest it properly or don’t believe in eating it. What does that mean to people? Probably nothing at all most of the time. So I explain myself.

      I too am really thin and all through college used to be accused of being anorexic, which I found really really annoying. I was a vegetarian back then so I used to turn down food back then too, and I have never thought that eating cake and cupcakes and doughnuts was a good idea so I used to turn down that stuff too.

      I am not afraid at all to tell people why I do what I do. The detail you see on this blog is pretty much real life for me. I talk about it differently depending on the person or situation. There’s the “I don’t eat vegetables because my digestion doesn’t work properly from years and years of abuse,” which people tend to feel huge pity for. And then I tell them, don’t worry about, that’s life and I don’t care. And then there is the “Sorry I don’t eat cake because that stuff is poison and I don’t want to break out or get Alzheimer’s disease,” or some such caustic comment, the level of sarcasm depending of course on who I’m dealing with. I might choose to talk a bit scientifically or expose some details of my past or my digestion. It just depends, but always I say something.

      I have not eaten a piece of cake or just flat out disgusting non-food in 7 years. And I’m sure as hell not going to do it to save face. I have accidentally eaten wheat a few times and purposeful maybe twice. It was not a happy experience for me. Feeling crappy for three days is just not worth “fitting in.” For me. But we all have our strengths you know? One of mine is to clearly and convincingly say what I mean. It works for the most part. I think that anyone who is not a complete dolt could see that skipping a piece of cake is smart and not anorexic. For those that can’t see that, I don’t care what they think anyway. There is a whole world of people judging you. Can you really try to please them all? I’m not sure I would want to teach my daughter to disregard her beliefs in order to fit in. That could be dangerous.

  24. Thank you Peggy! Those are wise and inspring words! I think my lesson to learn is to stop trying to please everyone!

  25. Peggy, great post! You seem to have really taken a great stance on the situation. It has always been my experiance that the less you try to control things/situations/people/etc. the more willing they are to learn, and standing aside when it comes to your daughter going to her dad’s house is a great example of this. My children were with there dad for two months over the summer, and while I made a joke about a picture of my youngest eating honey nut cheerios on facebook, I was surprised at how little thought I gave it. There dad is pretty muscular, and active. He told them he got that way by eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I playfully pointed out that he doesn’t have any top teeth, and that he got that way from eating PB & J’s. We’ve also been talking a lot about choices. My mother-in-law is surprisingly very resistant to our diet. She’s a really open-minded person on everything, but there is a deep belief, especially in the older Irish that you need carbs. Something to “stick” to you. Something filling. She also thinks my kids are going to grow up to have eating disorders, because I deny them things that are not good for them. She thinks they will grow up and secretely binge eat chips and cookies, and then throw it all up because they’ve been taught that stuff is poison. I feel bad for her more than anything, because I know how much she loves them, and we adore her.

    Symptoms from eating sugar/grains include the munchies (spending all day saying I’m hungry, I’m hungry) having a tough time waking up in the morning – being grumpy in the morning, unstable moods i.e. having meltdowns, or reacting irrationally, being extremely uncooperative. My youngest suffers from allergies, and they seem to flare up, under his eyes become very red, itchy, runny nose, etc.

  26. Wow, Peggy, can’t believe I missed this post. And isn’t it timely with Michelle writing her story as well? I wasn’t going to get too personal on my blog but we have a similar situation: 3 nights with ex, 4 nights with me. My daughter comes home on Wednesday with a pudgy tummy, a bit more eczema, a bit more grumpy, a bit more labile. Then over the next 4 days we get our stable sweet little girl back. As far as I know she doesn’t get bread there anymore. But gluten-free industrial processed garbage is apparently ok.
    Good to know I’m not the only one who feels at the end of her tether sometimes. I’m lucky I have a beautiful smart daughter who makes mature sensible decisions. At least until she is a teenager. Then all bets are off :)

  27. i have to chime in here. i linked this post back to my blog, but this is something that i deal with all the time! we have a his and hers family. the youngest two (4 and 6) eat horribly for 12 days out of every 14. horribly to the point that applesauce is nasty. the OP sent marshmallows with the kids to eat because i was the horrible parent by not allowing candy and sweets. an entire bag of marshmallows ended up in the trash. the 6 year old now has a long list of his favorite veggies. loves meat. and looks much better after he spends a month with us. the 4 y.o. fights all the time as to what she will not eat. which is just about everything. she would rather not eat for the 2 days she is here and just wait until she gets whatever less than SAD crap she can get. which i’m sure is why she has childhood obesity and even cellulite. and is more delayed than she should be. alas, i have learned all i can do is be patient and do the best while they are here. and focus on the small successes we have had. oh and our other 6 year old (who is here 80% of the time) and our 12 year old do great!