Avoiding Foods That Are Not Really Food
Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food. Anyone who does not understand that concept, how can he understand the diseases of man?
—HIPPOCRATES
Two hundred years ago, we knew exactly what we were eating because we grew a good portion of the food ourselves. Then the Industrial Revolution came along and our agrarian society of self-sufficient food producers began its insidious transformation into a nation of urban consumers. Just a century later, our knowledge of how to grow food, discern its quality, and prepare it has disappeared.
As we’ve become less self-sufficient, we’ve also become sicker. Our outsourced food is produced, processed, and depleted by industry. Even “whole foods” like meat or milk in a sense have become “processed foods” based on how the animals were raised or the food was processed before arriving at our table. Additives—from flavoring agents to dyes to preservatives—further stress vulnerable children in ways that aggravate or trigger chronic illness. We’re allowing industry to safeguard our children’s food, and, by extension, their health.
Food’s impact on children’s health and development is tremendous. The food we eat communicates with our bodies intimately, from our digestive tract to our immune cells to our mitochondria, down to our very DNA. And the kind of food we eat determines whether this epigenetic communication will be loving or damaging. Our DNA then responds in kind by either: (1) upregulating a complex array of enzymes and other proteins that enable cells to function optimally, or (2) initiating production of inflammatory components that trigger a cell danger response. There is one main guiding principle. Nutrient-dense foods nourish us on a cellular level, which can transform ailing cells into thriving ones.
It can feel daunting to reduce processed food. It’s difficult to take enjoyable foods from children, particularly when they already struggle with other issues. But most parents in my practice say that changing to better foods ultimately made life much easier for their families. The improvements they witnessed after changing their diets convinced them never return to old habits like using junk food as a bribe to mollify picky eaters or tantrumming children. Just a few simple changes can make an enormous difference in your child’s life.
We must once again become participants in the story of our food.