EAT YOUR GREENS

by Juliette Wollard

I remember a time when I was blissfully unaware of all the things we had to look out for in food. I ate reasonably well and enjoyed my food. I didn’t have a high sugar diet but then again I never looked at the packaging of what I ate - I just ate.

The day came when I had a child, and boy, did my world turn upside down! I was suddenly aware that I was responsible for the wellbeing of another person and that it was my job to give my son the best possible start in life. That is where my journey into nutrition really began.

I decided that it was of fundamental importance for me to know what I was doing so I went on a diploma course in nutrition. This opened my eyes to a whole new world and I started buying only organic food, looking out for the sugar content in things and making everything I could from scratch.

My mission was to give my son no added sugar for as long as I could hold out. Excessive you may say. Maybe, but from the research I had done I found that the longer you can keep a child away from processed, refined sugar the stronger their immune system would be. So how does sugar work to deplete the immune system? Well we all know that the body needs vitamin C in order to keep the immune system healthy. The white blood cells are what absorb this vitamin C. They also absorb the glucose that is sugar in the same way as they absorb vitamin C. Are you seeing the connection? The white blood cells don’t distinguish the difference between the two and they only have a certain capacity, so once they are full either with vitamin C or with glucose that’s it. The more sugar you have, the less vitamin C can be absorbed, and this is but one of the dangers of too much sugar in our diets.

You may be thinking, ‘But I have a sweet tooth, what will I do?’ Don’t worry, there are many other ways to sweeten the things we eat without having such a negative effect on the body. For babies and children who haven’t yet developed a sweet tooth the best thing is never to introduce it into their diet to begin with.

As my son became older the challenges kept increasing. We had become pescetarians (eating only fish and vegetables) so I was even more conscious of making sure he was getting all the nutrients he needed to help him grow up strong. He decided when he turned three that he didn’t really like eating vegetables anymore. So, how does that work? A vegetarian who doesn’t like eating vegetables; what on earth could I make to give him everything he needed? This is where I started to get clever and came up with recipes that would camouflage many things he thought he didn’t like. Since there was still the issue of getting my son to actually eat vegetables we began growing them ourselves. I thought that if he could see the whole process and be part of it that he would want to eat the things he had grown. This did work to a certain point and we are still going with this. The other thing that helped was getting him to cook with me; getting him busy cutting veggies, and stirring, meant that the food was his creation too.

The latest thing we are working on is making sure that he has five fruit and vegetables a day. Now it’s a competition to see if he can get one from each colour group, red, yellow, green, orange and purple.

With children we constantly have to invent ways to excite and entice them to join in and food is the same. If we can give them the taste of different types of food and broaden their palates they will be more likely to try things and be adventurous when they are older. In the ever-changing world in which we live we may see the need to grow our own food increasing. If we can prepare our children and get them enjoying the process they will be much better prepared to embark on the new phase with open arms.

Mummy’s Magic Muffins

• Makes 7 large or 15 small ones
• 225g (8oz) wholemeal self raising flour or spelt self raising flour
• Pinch of cinnamon
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• 50g (2oz) of your favourite chopped nuts - I like almonds the best
• 50g (2oz) desiccated coconut
• 175g (6oz) grated carrots
• 175 (60z) eating apples, peeled and grated
• 75g (3oz) chopped dates
• 2 small organic eggs beaten (or egg replacement)
• 100ml (4fl oz) sunflower oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all the dry ingredients together in one bowl, and wet in another. Add the dry ingredients to the wet slowly. Spoon the mixture into the tray and bake for 20 minutes at 180ºC.

For more information about the importance of nutrition and for support in this issue, or to hear more about our Well Being in Schools initiative, please visit www.inspiringlife.co.uk or www.worldhealingproject.com or call Juliette on 07740 663 493.