When you have your child on a special diet for healing, often one of the biggest obstacles is their own beloved Grandma and Grandpa. I know that we can all be guilty at times of wanting to ‘make kids happy’ with a special treat, but the problem is, it’s no longer ‘special’ when they’re getting it every day! For the times when you need to be especially strict about what goes into your children’s mouths, you may consider sending along the Feingold Association article below to your family members or close friends.
A quick side note…
As I was getting this post around, I found some remarkable similarities between Dr. Ben F. Feingold:
and Dr. Weston A. Price:
- They were both from around the same era (Price was about 30 years older than Feingold…)
- Both tirelessly studied the role nutrition plays in our health.
- Both have strong intelligent women championing their cause: Jane Hersey from the Feingold Association, and Sally Fallon Morell from the Weston A. Price Foundation.
- Both have vibrant, thriving organizations providing great resources and information in their name to a world more and more desperate for healing (as our food supply becomes scarier by the day).
The following article, Dear Grandma and Grandpa, is reprinted here with permission from the Feingold Association. (Be sure to see my little disclaimer at the end.)
Dear Grandma and Grandpa… Doting aunts and uncles, teachers, and friends…
There’s a special child in your life who needs your loving support.
The purpose of this article is to tell you about a program that could make a difference in the life of that child, and to show you how you can be a part of its success.
Back in the 1960’s, a remarkable doctor began to experiment with certain types of allergic reactions, and this eventually led to an understanding of how various chemicals can influence behavior, as well as one’s ability to reason and learn.
After a long and distinguished career as both an allergist and pediatrician, Ben F. Feingold, M.D., had reached the age where most men ease into retirement. Instead, he accepted the challenge to create the department of allergy for the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco, and serve as its Chief.
One of his patients was an adult who did not respond to traditional therapy for hives. Suspecting that this woman may be sensitive to aspirin, Dr. Feingold researched the scientific journals and uncovered some surprising relationships.
He found that not only is aspirin a problem for some people, but other substances, commonly found in our food supply, have a chemical similarity to aspirin. This includes certain food additives as well as some fruits and a few vegetables and other foods. (The chemical name for aspirin is acetyl salicylic acid, and from this comes the term “salicylate” which we use to refer to these foods.)
Using the time-honored technique of an elimination diet, he asked patients to remove several additives and the salicylates and to observe if there was an improvement. The aspirin-sensitive patient was the first of many to follow Dr. Feingold's suggestions, and the results surprised and intrigued him.
Not only did some health problems diminish on this diet (asthma, hives, nasal congestion), but he kept hearing that patients became calmer and better able to concentrate when the additives and salicylates were removed.
Some of the children who were being treated primarily for allergies but who also had behavior or learning problems were suddenly functioning well, both at home and in school.
After helping hundreds of children and adults in his clinical practice, Dr. Feingold published the results of his work in professional journals, and in 1973 presented his findings to the American Medical Association. At the request of a major publisher, he wrote of his findings in the book, Why Your Child Is Hyperactive.
Today this effort is being carried out by a network of volunteers parents, teachers, doctors, nurses, counselors, dietitians who have seen the program work for themselves or their families, or for others they care about. Dr. Feingold's work has reached around the globe and helped children and adults throughout the world. People who follow the Feingold Program need to restrict their intake of the “natural salicylates” (apples, oranges, etc.) for a few weeks, and then may add them back one at a time. Only those that are not tolerated are removed (but they can be retested in the future). Beyond that, people on this program can eat virtually any kind of food; the change in their diet is that they eat the brands and flavors which, according to the manufacturer, are free of certain synthetic additives.
Synthetic dyes are the most infamous of the additives we remove. You may have bought a box of little bottles of red, yellow, green and blue “food colors.” They are powerful substances which are synthesized from petroleum (crude oil) and are suspected of causing serious health problems, including cancer.
Most of the dyes originally used in foods have been banned, and those that remain have been found to trigger various behavior and learning problems in sensitive children. Some studies suggest that these chemicals can “short circuit” the electrical impulses in the brain, interfering with the ability to think and reason.
Like most additives, they were used in foods for decades before our government considered conducting any safety testing on them. But even today, there is no requirement that a food dye, or any other additive, be tested for its effect on behavior and learning.
The other problem additives are the artificial flavorings and three preservatives: BHA, BHT, TBHQ, which are also made from petroleum. We recommend our members avoid the use of synthetic sweeteners such as aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal).
Because we are all unique, a compound that appears to be tolerated by one person may be a real problem for the next. Other factors include the age and weight of an individual, as well as the amount of the chemical they consume.
Synthetic food colorings, originally made from coal tar oil, have been around for many years. You probably ate them as a child when you had an occasional lollipop, candy cane, or jelly beans.
But the key is “occasional.”
Your day did not begin with red, white and blue toothpaste, followed by cereal filled with fluorescent marshmallow bits, imitation orange juice, topped off with a synthetically colored and flavored chewable vitamin. Wasn't your toothpaste white, your cereal beige, and if your mother made you take vitamins didn't they taste awful? When you got sick the medicine was probably dark and unpleasant tasting, a far cry from today's shocking pink, red, or purple artificially colored and flavored potions.
The problem seems to be that our food supply has changed drastically in the space of a few decades (even Jell-O was all natural when it was first introduced!) but little bodies haven't changed.
The child who consumes these additives may be getting an overload, taking in more toxic chemicals than his small body can handle.
Grown-ups can have a tough time coping with these powerful chemicals as well. Some of us are more sensitive than others, and we have different thresholds of what we can tolerate.
Dr. Feingold noted that, except for terminology, there is no difference between a chemical we call a food additive and one we call a drug.
If all this sounds like a farewell to candy, ice cream, soda, and miscellaneous junk food, that really isn't the case. The secret is in knowing which candy bar, which brand of ice cream, etc. is free of the harmful additives. Of course, we ask you to offer these foods after a child has eaten a good meal.
The Feingold member can provide you with the names of acceptable products available in your supermarket. Whether you're looking for a pancake mix, salad dressing, chocolate chips, or any other food, you should be able to find a suitable brand in our Foodlist. Chances are, you are already using many of these products.
You will probably be able to use your favorite recipes, but simply substitute one or two ingredients. For example, desserts would be made with pure vanilla, not imitation vanilla or “vanillin.”
Feingold cooking is basic old fashioned real food, and you can find it whether you cook from scratch, prefer mixes, or use prepared products. You can even find real fast foods; the secret is in knowing what to look for and what to avoid. That's where we can help.
Now that you've read, Dear Grandpa and Grandma, here's my disclaimer:
Of course I need to clarify that I don’t recommend buying mixes or prepared products often, but if you do so once in a while, choosing organic options is much better than grabbing any old box off the shelf! (Read more here about why buying organic is important.) What I love about the Feingold Association is that it's helpful for those who are just not going to switch completely to “cooking from scratch” or buying more organic–some won’t even come close. Everyone is different, so this program helps those who won’t (or can’t for whatever reason) go ‘hog wild’ like I did after finding the WAPF led to my food conversion.
More you might like:
- For when you get home from Grandma's: Counteracting the effects of junk food.
Anastacia Schiele says
Not this Grandma!
Cathy Barrow says
Won’t be this Grandma!!
Nancy Mick says
Not this grandma!!! Never will I ever…. I love my babies too much to serve them junk!
Meagan says
GREAT idea Kelly. I fear this issue when I get older!
Trina says
I am right there with all of you. I was fortunately supported with our food choices (in the beginning) but when she turned one and I continued to be picky with what I allowed my now three year old to eat, all I heard was how we were depriving her. Since I had prior support with our food choices, I assumed I still had support. Just because she hit a milestone did not mean she could eat junk! Her daycare even loved the healthy foods she ate and constantly commented on how she was the healthiest child that attended.
As she started talking more, I quickly found out that many people, Grandma, aunts, even the daycare itself, were slipping her non-approved foods without my knowledge, each knowing full well my stance on it. I am very lucky that our daughter has developed a taste for the good foods. I have seen her offered “other” foods and she has turned it down, or eaten only one piece then turned it down.
I make certain my daughter (even though she is three) is in the kitchen with me preparing and cooking the foods we eat. She also does the shopping. We go to the local farmers market every week and she is the one who picks out what vegetables we get. It makes it fun for me to decide what to cook based on her choices and she loves to eat what she picked! I think she knows more types of good foods than any of her friends and she always reminds me to pick up eggs.
There is no good solution when you are undercut in your food choices for your family, but stay firm and keep every one involved, whether it is in the shopping, preparing or cooking. I think that by keeping them involved they feel they have a choice and are more likely to keep eating or try new, better for you foods.
Kate @ Modern Alternative Mama says
People always think my kids are deprived because I don’t generally let them eat those types of food. But they’re not. We have ice cream almost everyday! (Made from fresh, raw milk; real maple syrup; and so forth.) I made coffee cake from almond flour last night — SO good! My kids get all kinds of awesome treats. But you know what? We don’t experience any negative effects from them. Commercial orange juice, I have noted, spikes my blood sugar more than any homemade dessert!
And yes, on rare occasions I do allow “natural” lollipops and such. I know it’s still cane sugar, but it usually doesn’t have the dyes. And yes…on even rarer occasions they get total junk. 🙂 But it’s very, very rare.
Carolyn Kennedy says
Sorry if this is “deep” :p
My mother is a diabetic who is addicted to sugar free anything (because that means it’s OK to eat 6 puddings!?), lives nearly exclusively off lean cusines and low fat art. sweetened yogurts, and I don’t think-other than a stick on the holiday table-she buys butter. She is HORRIFIED my overweight-but healthier than her it seems!- father drinks whole milk in his coffee.
My husband & I do not have kida yet, but I can already see this battle coming! I have already begun to give her literature, but sadly I feel that we will have to lay down the law. Feed our children OUR ways or no “unsupervised visitations”! Harsh I know, but I think it comes down to respect for us as parents. Everyone agrees it’s not smart to disagree with your spouse in front of your children, but it’s ok for G &G to do that?? Bad message!
I KNOW that sounds incredibly harsh and mean, but I think my (future) kids are worth it! Plus, it may be “easier” for us because I do have a boundary between my mother due to the dynamics of dysfunctional family dynamics.
Growing up, my mom was the one to diagnose & nix all sugars & dyes from our diet when I began to show maleffects. So, I don’t exactly understand why she’s given that thinking up and now “loves” and spoils with treats and gifts. Well I DO know, but I’m not going to psychoanalyze my mother any more here. :p
I have two nieces who each have food allergies that border on the extreme. Poor babies really suffer if they “cheat” or are allowed to. My mother is fairly good at helping them stay away from milk (their main allergy), but she also doesn’t understand “occasional” doesn’t mean every day she visits for a week!!
Freebies says
I am so lucky, my mom is totally on board with giving my girls healthy food. That is not to say mistakes are not made occupationally (but I make food mistakes too sometimes).
Now if we could just get the friends, Sunday School and School on aboard…
jene
jenna Food WIth Kid Appeal says
i always see the baby bells in the feingold pix and never stopped to figure out what’s in them that isn’t ok. i don’t buy them, but if hubby sees them at costco he gets a giant bag.
Magda says
Yeah, I get the big bag at Costco, too. My 15 month old loves them! I know they’re not raw or grassfed but I believe they are full-fat, not made from skim milk. I’ll be checking on it this weekend.
Heather M says
Steena B,
Supply your mom with the foods you want the baby to have if he is going to her house.
Kristi says
We started doing Feingold in the fall with my now 6 year old son. At first my parents weren’t on board. It took them witnessing his behavior after they gave him a rainbow popcicle one afternoon to believe me. About 2 hours later he was climbing the walls and very irritable. Now they’re all in on how we’re eating for him. I’ve even got them buying fresh eggs and butter. LOL But they still drink diet soda like it’s water.
With my 7 month old they’re a little better. But since she doesn’t have any problems yet, they don’t see any direct correlations. She’s never and will never have the rice cereal and I haven’t even given her any grains yet. When asked why, I read the ingredient list and asked them if that was what they wanted their granddaughter eating. Slowly they’re getting it. They think it’s adorable that her favorite foods are strips of steak, pork chop, and avocado.
Heather M says
Steena B,
First and foremost YOU are the babies mother and I would hope your mom would respect that. You will probably really have to put your foot down. I went and am going through the same thing with my mom, they just don’t understand. I am 38 and things have really changed since I was growing up and my mom has a difficult time understanding that, but she is listening. I do give her a small amount of wiggle room. She had no idea food coloring was made from petroleum. Print out as much info for your mom as possible, even info about the baby cereal posing as real food. Print out from Weston A Price the babies first foods. Expect to get flack from people (anyone) they just don’t understand. All the brainwashing that has taken place about our food system is hard, but possible, to fight against. People are getting sicker and sicker but yet don’t connect the dots:( The more you learn the easier it will be. Try and have some friends that are on the same food mindset as you. Support is great.
Donna Bauman says
This reminds me of a quote from Maya Angelou that said something like….”We did then what we knew how to do. But when I knew better, I did better.” Once you know how bad all the fake food is, how can you not want to try extra hard to avoid it? The problem is that while you may now know better…. Grandma, grandpa, aunts, cousins etc may not have been so “enlightened” and some of them don’t WANT to be enlightened…. People can only change when they themselves are ready to do so. So it is a delicate dance to manage your own family’s health when you visit relatives. I say the solution is to pray ….. for patience and acceptance to not say something offensive when this happens and also for the grace that God will help the offending family members understand why this is important to eat differently than the “average” person. But still there has to be a way to do this to have love so that families don’t break up over this… a delicate dance indeed.
KitchenKop says
Donna, you make a great point – it really IS a delicate dance, but an important one to get just right. Your child’s health is very important, obviously, but family relationships are just as important. 🙂 Knowing “which battles to pick” will be a huge part of it.
ValerieH says
There was a time when our elders were a source of wisdom. I wonder what it was like when the grandparents were the ones pushing real food and the moms thought processed foods were modern. Maybe Nana was from the old country and kept trying to give the baby egg yolk but the mom was listening to the “experts”. That mom is now the Grandma. We lost a few generations to processed food. We have to go back to the wisdom of our great-great grandparents.
KitchenKop says
I know, that’s sad isn’t it?
Steena B says
Wow! Thank you! I have a four month old, 20lb, exclusively breastfed baby boy. I fully intend to only breastfeed until 6mknts and then begun introducing banana, avocado, sweet potato, etc. However everytime I am around my mother, she asks when I’m going to give him some cereal – he needs “more than me” she says. The last time I saw her I joked about how excited baby seemed the last time I ate an ice cream cone. “Did you give him some?” she asked. Can j just say :O :O :O NO!!!!!! She then said that she would have! I said well, not until he’s a year. “A year!” she said, “haha not when he comes to grandma’s house. I can see that I’m going to have a battle on my hands getting my mom to support my food decisions! Do you have any recommendations for dealing with food issues at such a young age? I’m not yet as focused on food dyes and sugar but the fact that before a year bab shouldnt have cows milk, eggs, etc. She will probably also flip when rice cereal isn’t his first food!
Thanks to any who have advice 🙂
P.S. Sorry for typos, I’m on a phone and can’t review what I wrote.
Heather says
Steena, I have no advice but rather a sympathetic shoulder. We have fought, and lost, those battles with our 21 month old and the local grandparents and are facing them again with our 3 week old. It starts with exclusively breastfeeding (Why don’t you just give him some formula? Surely it will help him sleep better.) and also ends there too (You are STILL breastfeeding? That just isn’t normal). Until your son starts a wide variety of solid foods it’s easier because she won’t want to make him sick by feeding him foods that he isn’t accustomed to yet. However, once he starts eating a variety of solids it’s all downhill. I send real milk, bacon, and fermented goodies but she gives him Fruit Loops, low fat yogurt with artificial sweeteners and Doritos.
Sigh
I think I will try emailing her this letter. Hopefully this, with any advice more experienced real food moms can give will help me sway her opinions before my daughter starts solids too.
KitchenKop says
I wish I had some good advice, but sending a copy of this article is all I can think of! I think the problem is that G & G so badly want to be seen as “fun”, and food ties in with that a lot in our culture. The only answer really is to educate them – if they understood that there really IS a direct connection between crap foods and the increase in childhood cancers or other illnesses, or artificial additives and ADD, etc., then I’m sure they wouldn’t be so gung-ho on feeding their grand kids that stuff, but they just don’t believe it, or they think, “A little bit won’t hurt.” But even a little of the additives can really mess up a kid who is sensitive to it.
Also, I’m going to add a link to the blog above to a post I did called, “Counter-acting the effects of junk food.” Good for when you get home from Grandma’s!
Amy Floyd says
We have been battling this for almost 13 years! And, sad to say, I’ve had to come to the conclusion that eating bad food at my mother-in-laws once a week is just a fact of life. The sad thing is — I encourage you so much to cook the things she grew up eating — salmon patties, black eyed peas, pinto beans, cornbread, stew beef, chicken pie. Even though she never uses good-quality ingredients, at least they are made with real food items. But she insists that the kids don’t like these things (they do), and she chooses to fix things like hot dogs or supplement her good dishes with microwaveable mac and cheese. The latest thing is that we asked her on two separate occasions to check the produce she buys and makes sure they are not coming from California because of the radiation threats. Well, she graciously sent home a generous meal on Sunday when the kids and I couldn’t go to church, and with the meal was a nice pretty package of strawberries, non-organic and from California! I refused to be the bad guy and made my children decide whether they would eat them. I must say I am proud that not any of my 5 strawberry-loving children even opened the container!
You would have thought she would have learned something when my now 8 year old daughter was 5 years old. We had to be very strong and insist that she not eat processed meats because of how it affected her behavior. But, both grandmothers had to learn the hard way on that one! My mother, duly taking note, now refrains from buying or eating common hot dogs and has asked me to pick her up a pack of the grass-fed beef hot dogs the next time I go to WF. But my mother-in-law, even after experiencing a very rough hyperactive session with my daughter those years ago, has gone back to her old ways. She insists that she is fine after eating all these foods. But she simply doesn’t understand that all foods that we eat today are processed differently than they were when she was young. And her memory doesn’t remind her that many of these convenience and overly-processed foods were not even available to her family until she was a young adult. And, then also, she does not link the fact that every member of her immediate family is on some sort of medication for controlling blood pressure, heart, or cholesterol! Oy!
My own mom lives right next door and is witness to our eating lifestyle on a daily basis. She has adopted some of our ways of eating and has experienced her own successful health consequences. Which, in turn, makes her more likely to pay even closer attention to the way we eat. Understandably, these things seem “weird” at first, but at least she is open to trying to understand. She even makes me gluten-free chocolate chip cookies using almond flour (which I give her), raw butter, and our own backyard eggs.
Anyway, all that to say, that we feed our kids the best we can AND we teach them why we make the food choices we do. We speak very openly about our food choices with our family members, and we do put our foot down in some cases, like in what we feed our babies and that we only drink water and milk in our family except in very rare, special circumstances. But if I were faced with a situation in which one of the grandmothers were being pushy or obnoxious about something non-negotiable, then I would just say gently that this topic distresses me, that my husband and I have made our choices with careful thought and prayer, and that I do not care to discuss this topic again.
My mom, incidentally, would have no problem reading this article and gleaning from it. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, would not read it.
Amy
Ashleigh says
You go mama!
I exclusively breastfed my daughter until she was 9 months old and she really didn’t eat much “real food” until well after one year. She was a healthy, chunky, happy baby that whole time while receiving only my milk! Now we are doing the same thing with my almost 8 month old son. He seems more interested in food than she was, but we will wait and offer table foods once he is ready and able to pick them up and get them to his mouth.
Thankfully the grandparents in our situation are all very supportive. It is with our neighbors and casual friends that I sometimes have to smile and politely refuse the offer of mum-mums, puffs, Cheerios, and other baby treats.
Stick to your convictions and know that you are doing the best YOU can for your baby.