Diet changes for the Freels!

Timmy is young enough that he doesn't really miss gluten things. Connor, on the other hand, was a solid mac n cheese, bread, pancake, cookie loving little guy. I didn't feed him much of the sweets at all before, but I'm afraid to say Annie's organic mac n cheese and sandwiches were a lunch staple in our house. I already fought enough for him to eat chicken and veggies and fruit for dinner...I hated fighting about lunch too. So I started incorporating some sneaky nutrition fixes where I can, and I feel like I can really relax and let them enjoy what they like without fretting too much about whether they're getting all the vitamins and minerals they need to be truly well.

Some of the things I've done are straight out of "Sneaky Chef" by Missy Lapine, some from "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld and some from the "Nutrition Book" by the Sears family. Others I've concocted on my own but work well. Keep in mind some of the things in these books will need to be adapted heavily -- Lapine in particular loves her some wheat germ, which is a definite no-no for gf kids. She also depends a lot on milk, bread and pasta as kid friendly vehicles for sneaky stuff, so it's not easy to adapt some things. A few things that DID work for me though...

- I started putting 1/4 cup of pureed pumpkin, yam and carrots into their Annie's Gluten Free Mac N Cheese. Connor actually ate MORE with this in it. Miraculous. It makes it sweeter and richer tasting, as well as making it a deep orange color that is more appealing.

- Added avocado to homemade chocolate pudding. I put in a half...might cut that a bit next time because it did have a slight aftertaste.

- Added Tbsp of pureed pumpkin to grilled cheese. No kidding, smear it on the gf bread making sure to cover it with cheese, the kids will snarf it like it's going out of style.

- Made strong raspberry juice concentrate to add to cold water...a Tbsp flavors it nicely with very little sugar. You could do this with nearly any fruit...I just cook down two cups with two cups of water, boil for 10 mins and voila! Some fruits do better with a little lemon added. For kids who can tolerate milk, raspberry and blueberry juice is absolutely ideal to add to "chocolate" milk. I put in a Tbsp of juice and less than a tsp of chocolate and it tastes richer and is a deeper chocolatey color with 1/5 the sugar.

- I add pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots to everything. Waffles, pancakes, muffins, tomato sauce. Rich in vitamin A and lycopene as well as vitamin E. So important for healing children!

- I'm using purees to replace half the fat in recipes where fat is not critical to the success of the recipe...for example, you can easily replace most of the fat in brownies with pureed blueberries. I put 1/2 cup of applesauce to replace half the butter in chocolate chip cookies.

- I buy one 64 oz jar of 100% fruit juice. I usually water that down to 1 oz of juice to 8 oz of water for Timmy, and 3 oz of juice to 6 oz of water for Connor. If you consequently buy fruit juice concentrate, you can mix it up in the 64 oz container and by filling it up to the top, you have already cut the juice in half with water (concentrates are usually 32 oz -37 oz). I then add a smidge more water for Connor; he's used to seeing me add water and always requests it, and has started rejecting undiluted juice boxes as too sweet.

A few guidelines I'm trying to stay with...

- Less than 40 g of added sugar. I don't count natural fruit sugars, just sucrose and doctored fructose. My personal demon is high fructose corn syrup so none of that. It horrifies me to my very soul that there is MORE than that in a single 12 oz can of root beer. The average person eats 153 lbs of sugar a year, or more than 1/2 cup a day (according to Duke University studies). And that's just sugar...if you add high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, people eat over 300 lbs of sweet stuff. No wonder type II diabetes is rampant. Besides, in cutting sugar myself, I'm finding that I enjoy other tastes more now that sweet isn't primarily what I'm after.

- Organic wherever possible. Tough to do up here with fruits outside of the summer months, but I belong to a local organic CSA for veggies. Sure makes a big difference to health and less impact on pocketbook.

- If I buy a treat, I look for real ingredients. I'd rather the boys have full fat ice cream with four real ingredients once a week than low fat ice cream with 30 "WTFO?" ingredients every day. Otherwise, if something is going to be doctored, I'll do it so I KNOW what's in it. Honestly, who knew polysorbate 80 is a standard low fat additive? What is polysorbate 80? Bad juju, my friend. I made my own chocolate frozen yogurt the other day with sugar, cornstarch, yogurt, cocoa and avocado. Pretty tasty and very healthy. Or a chocolate banana almond loaf sweetened with honey...high fat but it's good almond fat and extremely low sugar. Who knew dessert could have the same sugar content as a bran cereal? Or should I be shocked that the bran cereal has as much sugar as dessert? Accordingly, anything with sugar content over 15 g (again, exception is fruits and 100% juices) is treated as dessert.

- Sneak nutrition in but present healthy options still. Let kids pick what kind of fruit they want for dinner. I allow all fruit and veggies they want for snacks but rarely allow crackers or granola bars; those are saved for high calorie expenditure activities like bike riding or park time. We have things we call "sometimes treats." He asks for them a lot but knows that those are only for "sometimes." Shhh, even "sometimes" foods are doctored by mom -- my chocolate chip cookies have peanut butter and flax seed for vitamin E boost, applesauce to cut the fat and sugar, and almond meal in addition to garfava and brown rice flour to add healthy fat and fiber.

- I'm also trying to teach Connor about why he can't eat certain things but immediately have a tasty option to present when he has to forego something. I hated having to tell him no when the other kids enjoyed a cinnamon bun at the Art Festival but I whipped out mom's homemade cinnamon sugar gfcf corn chips and he happily munched those down, at a cost of 110 calories and only 4 g of sugar. Wonder how much those other kids ate...

- Connor gets to pick meals for dinner and help prepare them...this has gone a long way to making him at least try things...I get out books with pictures of the different food, he picks it and then helps me throw it in the pot to cook. He'll actually eat carrots and beans when he helps. I'm really pleased with how this is going, but we also get into food ruts when he discovers a favorite and mommy has to overrule his picking ham and peas over rice pasta for the fourth night in a row.

What are you doing to boost your family's health?