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request for advice-Picky eater with Sensory Issues
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 231632" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>On the issue of carbs:</p><p></p><p>It is worth taking into consideration - I do acknowledge the dietary problem presented by carbs, since I myself have to be extremely fussy about my carb intake. However, I have modified a lot of my own personal paranoia over carbs (and I do freely admit I can be over-the-top when it comes to monitoring my own carb intake) by reading the scientific literature in the current diet book I'm using. It's produced by CSIRO which is a very reputable scientific research unit in Australia (a QUANGO). In their book they outline just how much you can get away with, depending on your age, your gender, your metabolic rate, your level of activity - and it helps you calculate this. CSIRO are at least as reputable as FDA or similar. Probably more so. It's less a diet book, more a text book on healthy eating for all ages and all reasons - backed by peer-reviewed scientific research.</p><p></p><p>A lot also depends on what you are trying to do, in your attempts to get nourishment into your child. I've mentioned in examples before, a friend of ours whose daughter was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (same as Witz's) when she was 3, by which stage she was small, thin, weak and unable to walk without support. The parents were told she would be lucky to live to reach her teens, by which stage she would be permanently in a wheelchair and completely dependent on them to do everything for her. It certainly seemed so. If she fell she couldn't stop herself. She had reached a point where she could no longer walk up or down steps. And her mother, previously a whole foods vegan who was incredibly anti-commercial, anti-technology, tossed out a lot of her ideas and embraced whatever she could to get the calories into her daughter. Needs must.</p><p>The little girl was generally too tired to finish a meal, too tired to chew for long. Her mother had been raised (as I was) that you eat at the table and stay there until your meal is finished; leave the table and the food is gone. But she soon realised that her baby was dying from lack of nutrition. The more she fell asleep mid-meal, the less she ate and the less she ate the weaker she got. Vicious circle.</p><p></p><p>So the mother began to make high-calorie, high-carb foods for her. High in fat, often the animal fats she had previously rejected. Her reasoning was turned on its head - animal fats are the ones that stick to your ribs (and artery walls). Animal protein is easier to metabolise, because it already more closely resembles the building blocks your body uses. Technically, cannibalism is best for an invalid, but it's very bad for the race overall because you lose energy in converting even human protein, to human protein. Someone always suffers and over time the numbers of the species drop off. OK, that's gross but a fact dug from somewhere way back in my scientific education. Sorry.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, the mother began allowing her daughter to leave the table to play, but would follow her around and slip another spoonful of dinner into her. She bought a popcorn machine - for her, the ultimate in commercialised, unnecessary technology - and used it many times a day. Because of the unlimited supply of high-butter popcorn, the house was always full of neighbourhood kids (which was stimulating for the little girl) and so with friends around wanting to play, a constant supply of high fat, high carb food (and Pringles chips, similarly highly processed, high-fat, high carb) the little girl grew stronger and gained a little weight. She always looked like an anorexia case and the parents often had to fend of social services because people would report them, constantly.</p><p>(Incidentally, I never allowed my kids to have Pringles chips - too highly processed, too high in fat and carbs with no redeeming virtue whatsoever - for them. For our little friend, however - they worked wonders).</p><p></p><p>That little girl has grown up steadily getting stronger. She's just been living in Scandinavia for a year on exchange. She is now 21, hasn't used her wheelchair in years, graduated school, is a strong swimmer, walks better than I do - but is still stick thin. She now eats the vegan diet endorsed by her mother way back when, but has a higher fat/carb intake because if she cuts back too far, she gets weak and sick again. She loves her beans but needs the easy calories.</p><p></p><p>What we eat, what we NEED to eat, varies a lot depending on our environment and our bodies. In Tibet they live on a high fat, high carb diet because it is what their bodies do best on. In Western culture it's a disaster because for us, we get too many calories too readily. Each one of us in America or Australia can reach out and find more calories each day than we can ever use. It's all too readily accessible, not just to our hands but to our bodies. When I first went on the Atkins Diet (which I don't recommend, by the way, except as a valuable learning exercise) it made me realise just how much we are pushed into eating refined carbs. Try to find low-carb options when grabbing a fast-food snack - it's almost impossible! Every burger comes with a huge bread roll. Even sandwiches in gourmet lunch shops serve foccaccia or a thick spare tyre of bread. Often hidden inside the fast food will be more carbs. Order a curry - it comes with a huge serving of white rice. Or spongy naan bread. We can't get away from it, it's ubiquitous.</p><p></p><p>But that's for 'normal' people. When we're trying to get calories into our recalcitrant kids, we take whatever we can get. Of course we try to herd them towards good nutrition (and hopefully, away from empty, refined carbs) but to begin with, we take what we can get (into them).</p><p></p><p>I am now at the stage of urging easy child 2/difficult child 2 to cut back on her fat and carb intake. She is also working this out for herself and choosing to eat more salads. We went out to a restaurant on Tuesday, with sister in law & her daughters (a farewell lunch before their trip home). We could choose anything on the menu. Interestingly, niece chose the very meal that easy child 2/difficult child 2 would have chosen six months ago - pasta carbonara. I swear, my girl would have lived on that in perpetuity if she could have afforded it. But I watched as my sensible girl chose a salad, with grilled chicken. Not because she is trying to lose weight (I hope not - she is stull underweight and knows it) but because her doctor has made it clear that her stomach problem will do better on a lower carb, lower fat diet.</p><p>I had fish and chips, with salad - and gave all my chips to difficult child 3. He's male, he's young, he's incredibly active, he burns it all up. And yesterday when shopping, I bought difficult child 3 his favourite treat - a bunch of Dutch carrots. These are baby carrots still with their green tops, very Bugs Bunny. Given a choice between a bag of sweets and a bunch of Dutch carrots, difficult child 3 will go for the carrots every time.</p><p></p><p>By all means keep the problem of carbs in mind, but the first step - get them to eat, an increasingly wide variety of food. Generally if they're faddy about food, they won't be paying too much attention to what everybody else thinks. So peer pressure, advertising, etc - won't be influencing them. The main influence is their own tastes. So once they've got a wide enough variety, THEN you introduce better quality.</p><p></p><p>I guess we can put it this way - eat first, ask questions later!</p><p></p><p>With kids like this, it really is a case of throw out the rule book - at least while it's not working. Later on you can bring it back in, we'ce come a very long way with difficult child 3 and are now at that stage, Sandy.</p><p></p><p>A modified suggestion on carbs, for those who feel the need to keep them in mind from the earliest opportunity - as soon as you can with your child, substitute whoegrain options. Get them used to the nuttier taste sooner if you can because it WILL mean they have a healthier diet later on. For example, thanks to my own current very strict diet I only eat brown rice rather than white (and then, only small amounts). Due to the hassles of cooking brown rice and then white rice, husband said he was happy to eat brown. difficult child 3 then tried it and said it was OK. So I have given him brown rice mostly, in the last year. He now likes it but will eat white also, about half the time it's offered. But if your child will eat white rice, a switch to brown shouldn't be too difficult. The problem arises if your child's preference for white rice is associated with a need for the rice to be gluggty and creamy (as in, they only eat risotto). That's when the switch to brown rice will need to wait a while longer. Meanwhile, you make risotto but pack it with as much protein, vegetable and calories as you can. In our case, I was never allowed to add anything other than stock to the risotto (easy child 2/difficult child 2 - no "bits" please, mother). Now, difficult child 3 gets his risotto with the lot - peas, carrots, chicken meat, cheese, butter, garlic, saffron, onion. And, of course, home-made chicken stock.</p><p></p><p>I need to go - difficult child 3 needs his lunch! Today I think it could be either a smoke salmon and salad sandwich, or maybe (because it's cold) I'll make him a chicken risotto. Or a brown rice fried rice.</p><p></p><p>The thing is, we NOW have choice. It wasn't always the way... and it took a lot of careful work to get us to this stage. NOW we can count carbs, but only now. And for difficult child 3 - it's still to early to worry too much. We still need to keep his diet diverse.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 231632, member: 1991"] On the issue of carbs: It is worth taking into consideration - I do acknowledge the dietary problem presented by carbs, since I myself have to be extremely fussy about my carb intake. However, I have modified a lot of my own personal paranoia over carbs (and I do freely admit I can be over-the-top when it comes to monitoring my own carb intake) by reading the scientific literature in the current diet book I'm using. It's produced by CSIRO which is a very reputable scientific research unit in Australia (a QUANGO). In their book they outline just how much you can get away with, depending on your age, your gender, your metabolic rate, your level of activity - and it helps you calculate this. CSIRO are at least as reputable as FDA or similar. Probably more so. It's less a diet book, more a text book on healthy eating for all ages and all reasons - backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. A lot also depends on what you are trying to do, in your attempts to get nourishment into your child. I've mentioned in examples before, a friend of ours whose daughter was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy (same as Witz's) when she was 3, by which stage she was small, thin, weak and unable to walk without support. The parents were told she would be lucky to live to reach her teens, by which stage she would be permanently in a wheelchair and completely dependent on them to do everything for her. It certainly seemed so. If she fell she couldn't stop herself. She had reached a point where she could no longer walk up or down steps. And her mother, previously a whole foods vegan who was incredibly anti-commercial, anti-technology, tossed out a lot of her ideas and embraced whatever she could to get the calories into her daughter. Needs must. The little girl was generally too tired to finish a meal, too tired to chew for long. Her mother had been raised (as I was) that you eat at the table and stay there until your meal is finished; leave the table and the food is gone. But she soon realised that her baby was dying from lack of nutrition. The more she fell asleep mid-meal, the less she ate and the less she ate the weaker she got. Vicious circle. So the mother began to make high-calorie, high-carb foods for her. High in fat, often the animal fats she had previously rejected. Her reasoning was turned on its head - animal fats are the ones that stick to your ribs (and artery walls). Animal protein is easier to metabolise, because it already more closely resembles the building blocks your body uses. Technically, cannibalism is best for an invalid, but it's very bad for the race overall because you lose energy in converting even human protein, to human protein. Someone always suffers and over time the numbers of the species drop off. OK, that's gross but a fact dug from somewhere way back in my scientific education. Sorry. Anyway, the mother began allowing her daughter to leave the table to play, but would follow her around and slip another spoonful of dinner into her. She bought a popcorn machine - for her, the ultimate in commercialised, unnecessary technology - and used it many times a day. Because of the unlimited supply of high-butter popcorn, the house was always full of neighbourhood kids (which was stimulating for the little girl) and so with friends around wanting to play, a constant supply of high fat, high carb food (and Pringles chips, similarly highly processed, high-fat, high carb) the little girl grew stronger and gained a little weight. She always looked like an anorexia case and the parents often had to fend of social services because people would report them, constantly. (Incidentally, I never allowed my kids to have Pringles chips - too highly processed, too high in fat and carbs with no redeeming virtue whatsoever - for them. For our little friend, however - they worked wonders). That little girl has grown up steadily getting stronger. She's just been living in Scandinavia for a year on exchange. She is now 21, hasn't used her wheelchair in years, graduated school, is a strong swimmer, walks better than I do - but is still stick thin. She now eats the vegan diet endorsed by her mother way back when, but has a higher fat/carb intake because if she cuts back too far, she gets weak and sick again. She loves her beans but needs the easy calories. What we eat, what we NEED to eat, varies a lot depending on our environment and our bodies. In Tibet they live on a high fat, high carb diet because it is what their bodies do best on. In Western culture it's a disaster because for us, we get too many calories too readily. Each one of us in America or Australia can reach out and find more calories each day than we can ever use. It's all too readily accessible, not just to our hands but to our bodies. When I first went on the Atkins Diet (which I don't recommend, by the way, except as a valuable learning exercise) it made me realise just how much we are pushed into eating refined carbs. Try to find low-carb options when grabbing a fast-food snack - it's almost impossible! Every burger comes with a huge bread roll. Even sandwiches in gourmet lunch shops serve foccaccia or a thick spare tyre of bread. Often hidden inside the fast food will be more carbs. Order a curry - it comes with a huge serving of white rice. Or spongy naan bread. We can't get away from it, it's ubiquitous. But that's for 'normal' people. When we're trying to get calories into our recalcitrant kids, we take whatever we can get. Of course we try to herd them towards good nutrition (and hopefully, away from empty, refined carbs) but to begin with, we take what we can get (into them). I am now at the stage of urging easy child 2/difficult child 2 to cut back on her fat and carb intake. She is also working this out for herself and choosing to eat more salads. We went out to a restaurant on Tuesday, with sister in law & her daughters (a farewell lunch before their trip home). We could choose anything on the menu. Interestingly, niece chose the very meal that easy child 2/difficult child 2 would have chosen six months ago - pasta carbonara. I swear, my girl would have lived on that in perpetuity if she could have afforded it. But I watched as my sensible girl chose a salad, with grilled chicken. Not because she is trying to lose weight (I hope not - she is stull underweight and knows it) but because her doctor has made it clear that her stomach problem will do better on a lower carb, lower fat diet. I had fish and chips, with salad - and gave all my chips to difficult child 3. He's male, he's young, he's incredibly active, he burns it all up. And yesterday when shopping, I bought difficult child 3 his favourite treat - a bunch of Dutch carrots. These are baby carrots still with their green tops, very Bugs Bunny. Given a choice between a bag of sweets and a bunch of Dutch carrots, difficult child 3 will go for the carrots every time. By all means keep the problem of carbs in mind, but the first step - get them to eat, an increasingly wide variety of food. Generally if they're faddy about food, they won't be paying too much attention to what everybody else thinks. So peer pressure, advertising, etc - won't be influencing them. The main influence is their own tastes. So once they've got a wide enough variety, THEN you introduce better quality. I guess we can put it this way - eat first, ask questions later! With kids like this, it really is a case of throw out the rule book - at least while it's not working. Later on you can bring it back in, we'ce come a very long way with difficult child 3 and are now at that stage, Sandy. A modified suggestion on carbs, for those who feel the need to keep them in mind from the earliest opportunity - as soon as you can with your child, substitute whoegrain options. Get them used to the nuttier taste sooner if you can because it WILL mean they have a healthier diet later on. For example, thanks to my own current very strict diet I only eat brown rice rather than white (and then, only small amounts). Due to the hassles of cooking brown rice and then white rice, husband said he was happy to eat brown. difficult child 3 then tried it and said it was OK. So I have given him brown rice mostly, in the last year. He now likes it but will eat white also, about half the time it's offered. But if your child will eat white rice, a switch to brown shouldn't be too difficult. The problem arises if your child's preference for white rice is associated with a need for the rice to be gluggty and creamy (as in, they only eat risotto). That's when the switch to brown rice will need to wait a while longer. Meanwhile, you make risotto but pack it with as much protein, vegetable and calories as you can. In our case, I was never allowed to add anything other than stock to the risotto (easy child 2/difficult child 2 - no "bits" please, mother). Now, difficult child 3 gets his risotto with the lot - peas, carrots, chicken meat, cheese, butter, garlic, saffron, onion. And, of course, home-made chicken stock. I need to go - difficult child 3 needs his lunch! Today I think it could be either a smoke salmon and salad sandwich, or maybe (because it's cold) I'll make him a chicken risotto. Or a brown rice fried rice. The thing is, we NOW have choice. It wasn't always the way... and it took a lot of careful work to get us to this stage. NOW we can count carbs, but only now. And for difficult child 3 - it's still to early to worry too much. We still need to keep his diet diverse. Marg [/QUOTE]
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