I like my kids the way I like my food: raw and untainted.
raw and untainted
It’s fine for any adult to be motivated to make healthy lifestyle choices, but if you’re a parent – and a parent of three – you’re making these choices for other people too. . .and you have to be prepared for resistance (mutiny. . .whatever).
Daddy has generally been a willing accomplice – anything that cuts the cooking and cleanup in half – but bending the kids to my will has been a wee bit of a challenge.
So, we took a page from The Golden Compass, and found a nice big acreage in the middle of nowhere, and the kids quickly learned there was nowhere to run. (If anyone has a better approach, please let me know.)
Based on our own stumblings, here are a few suggestions for taking the family raw:
Start with desserts.
The first raw dessert I ever made was raw ice cream. It took me 5 minutes using 5 ingredients. The kids loved it. Then I made macaroons – again, with a handful of ingredients, and again, a winner. So with two recipes, I was over the hump. Every live dessert I’ve made since then has been received with eagerness, followed by silence (while they inhaled it), and left me with dishes that hardly needed cleaning.
Some of our favourite raw desserts are ice creams & sorbets, cookies, puddings, ganache, candied nuts & seeds, parfaits, pies & tarts, caramel apples, compotes and fudge. Not a list to sniff at. The key ingredients in these items: fresh, frozen or dried fruits & vegetables; whole and ground nuts & seeds; nut & seed butters; coconut oil; maple syrup, honey, or agave nectar; sea salt, spices, and other flavourings such as vanilla bean/extract. These desserts are protein-packed, nutrient-dense and high in fiber. The fact is, there is nothing sinful about desserts and sweets when real food is used to make them.
Have a smoothie or shake every day.
Every smoothie starts with frozen fruit, to give the best texture: usually bananas, blueberries, other berries, mangoes, peaches. Fruits that can be added fresh are apples, grapes and citrus; pears are particularly good because they have a gentle sweetness and they add creaminess without needing to be frozen. Cover the contents with liquid: water, milk, pure fruit juice of any kind, or a combination of all. (It’s also good to throw in a small scoop of yoghurt.)
To this I often add a scoop of children’s green powder or a raw protein powder to ensure that, if there is any mutiny that day, they are still getting something healthy and they won’t starve.
This has been the routine from the time they could walk. Eventually, I started incorporating greens and other veggies. Starting small is key, and adding a squeeze of lemon or lime will help temper the “green-ness”. The key to blending veggies and greens is a good machine. If kids can detect the veggies, or the drink is too pulpy, they may not drink it, so the ingredients must be thoroughly liquefied.
Our shakes are all raw; I do not put milk in them. Why? Because it’s a good way to get kids off milk, if that’s something you’re trying to do, while still providing a milk-like experience. The most discerning taste buds will be fooled by raw shakes, which are often nut-based. Soaking nuts and seeds is an essential part of raw living, and it simply becomes part of the routine: It takes about a minute to measure and cover with water before bed; let them soak overnight; then another half minute to drain in the morning. If you can’t use them right away, throw them in the fridge until you can.
If nuts are a problem, or your machine can’t blend them, use banana, avocado, or pear (or a combination) as your base. These fruits produce a creamy base, and the taste can be easily masked, or embellished, with other spices and flavourings: cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa or cacao, agave nectar, coconut, or other fresh or dried fruits.
Eat lots of nuts and seeds.
Nuts are high in good fats and protein, so they’re filling, which is why they are a great substitute for almost all animal products. I started by making spiced and candied nuts & seeds to sprinkle on salads, and I made loads of granola for breakfast and desserts. Both of these make a great instant and portable snack, if you need to satisfy a hungry belly.
Since I’ve acquired my uber-blender, nut milks have become regular fare, mainly for shakes and smoothies, or for cereal, where any slight graininess isn’t noticeable. I’m also experimenting with almond yoghurt.
Cheese is a tough one, though. While nuts, like cheese, will absolutely satisfy any hunger pang – which really is the most important thing – I personally miss cheese for all of its other characteristics. That’s right. I’m an omnivore going raw, so it takes an omnivore to understand that there is no substitute for cheese.
What an omnivore calls cheese is something quite spectacular: it’s hard, it’s soft, it’s a little of both, it’s something in between, it melts, and it tastes like heaven hot or cold. What raw foodies call “cheese” or “cheeze” is actually pate; it’s never hot – and therefore never melted – and even when it’s dehydrated, it gets flaky, not firm. Do not get me wrong: these foods are super yummy, and incredibly satisfying, and they may help to ease the transition, but if you are craving the flavour and texture of real cheese, they probably won’t cut it. Ultimately, I crave it less than I used to, which is a direct result of changing my other eating habits, but I don’t know if I will ever completely eliminate cheese from my diet.
Move with the Seasons.
This is perhaps my Numero Uno Recommendo to anyone embarking on a raw journey with kids. Ease into it in the spring, when the home-grown greens and root veggies are starting to emerge; go full throttle during the summer and fall, when the produce is at its best and most abundant; and ease off a little, as it suits you, during winter, which is when we tend to crave more warming foods (here in the north), and the fresh selection isn’t as good. It’s simple, really. If there’s no good fresh produce to be had, then you won’t have the ingredients you need to give it an honest go. Remove as many obstacles as you can. And don’t forget: moving with the seasons is easier on your wallet too.
Everyone goes at their own pace.
Daddy was the first to say he had no use for bread; it gave him an insatiable thirst. My 7 yo has voluntarily gone off dairy and bread, saying he feels kind of “puffy” afterward. I, on the other hand, am a bread fiend, and as stated above, a cheese freak – or “user”, for lack of a better word. My 5 yo and 2 yo are heavily dependent on bread and dairy, so for now, I enjoy it with them. But as I keep pushing fresh raw plant-based foods at every snack and every meal, we reach less and less often for the other stuff.
No two bodies are the same, so no two people should eat the same; a tough thing to grasp when you’re feeding a family of five. And a lot of work. But as the kids get older, they like to prepare their own meals and they can only choose from what’s in the fridge and pantry. I make certain that both are filled with healthy options.
Cultivate a love of food.
We grow a lot of our own food. We read the seed catalogues together, and we plant, water and harvest the food together. We shop together – not ALL together, because I’m not insane – but I usually take one of the kids with me every time I go to the store. We talk about food all the time: about what we’re eating, how it was made and how it could be different. We plan our meals together, we create our meals together and we snack in between together. We go on food adventures around the property, picking apples, grapes, berries, mushrooms and herbs.
Food is a big part of our life and daily routine. Because we immerse ourselves in the pleasure and production of food at every stage, then we are highly conscious of every morsel that goes into our bodies. The kids question everything, and I love seeking the answers.
Control the food at home, if nowhere else.
We are pretty strict about the kind of food we bring into the house. If there’s no junk around, no one can eat it; and if it’s gone long enough, no one will ask for it. But this is all we can do, because we do not live in a bubble. We visit grandparents, cousins, friends and neighbours; some of them eat some of what we eat. But not all of them, and not all of the time. When we go to a strange house or facility, I suggest what to avoid and what to enjoy. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t. They usually gravitate toward the more friendly stuff, because it’s what they recognize from home.
We do eat out occasionally – usually out of necessity (because no one in their right mind would actually plan to take three young kids to a restaurant for enjoyment) but we do it less and less often because “family-friendly” restaurants are LIARS!!!. . .I mean, the food isn’t so friendly to families. (Heads up: ”Wednesdays – Kids Eat Free” means there is a kids menu and your kids eat free ONLY if they order from IT; furthermore, the kids menu is a list of items that the restaurant couldn’t pay ME to eat.) There are very few good vegetarian – and absolutely NO live food restaurants – within an hour’s drive of our home. It’s pretty much the only downfall of living in the country – our closest community is a real “meat-and-potatoes” town.
Water frequently.
Every child has his or her own stainless steel canteen. We introduced them at the sippy cup stage, and it became an extension of them as they grew. I keep them filled every day, throughout the day, and stick them on the lowest shelf of the fridge door, so they can reach them on their own. We take the canteens everywhere with us, even to other people’s houses, where water flows just as freely; however, if they always carry them, then they never need to ask anyone for a drink – and so, cannot be offered something other than water. We’re also lucky, where we live, to be drinking from a well.
I do believe that this is one of the best things we can do for our kids: provide them with clean, great-tasting water, and give them the power to imbibe whenever they desire. It’s simple and requires almost no effort or expense. . .but the rewards are mindblasting: it keeps us hydrated (obviously), it fills our bellies (yes, really) and it helps flush out loads of other junk (no kidding) which they may not so easily give up.
It’s a scary thing, messing with your child’s diet, for the sake of health and wellness. But even scarier, I think, is not messing with it – and letting them eat garbage – simply because you want to keep the peace. It’s a common (if oversimplified) question in health food circles: Which is more cruel – giving your kids food they may not like because it’s good for them, or giving them food they want even though it could make them sick? The answer is easy; the execution is what is hard.
Modifying our diets, with permanence in mind, should be a slow process. It has taken us a few years to get to this point and we are still “feeling out” if we want to go further. There’s an ebb and flow to it. It’s been a small challenge getting the rest of our circle of family and friends used to our new eating habits, and sometimes I’m amazed I still have my sense of humour. But as they begin to accept it, the whole process gets easier for us.
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AWESOME post!