Food Fight

Yesterday at the park I struck up a conversation with a grandmother who’s visiting from Argentina to help her daughter, who just had her second child.  The older sibling, a little girl named Carla, is only 15 months old.  Carla’s grandmother told me that the little girl’s world has been turned upside-down with the baby’s birth, and for the past week she has refused to eat anything except fruit.

Every couple of minutes, the grandmother would interrupt our conversation to walk across the playground and shove a blueberry into Carla’s mouth.  She told me how worried they all were, because prior to the baby’s arrival Carla had been a good eater.  I told her that food is one of the few things over which children have control (bowel movements being another, to a certain extent).  When they feel their world has become unpredictable, they try to gain a semblance of control by using the only means at their disposal.   Carla is a bright and perceptive little girl, so she understands that her food intake is of great interest to the adults around her.

From my experiences as a teacher, I know that food is a hot-button issue among parents.  Most of the calls I received after school were from parents complaining that I didn’t make their children finish their vegetables!   Several times I saw one desperate mother strap her child into the car seat after school and then force-feed him the remainder of his lunch… Scenes like these hurt my heart, because I understand that the parents have the best intentions but also know that they’re making matters worse and setting up their child for a lifelong dysfunctional relationship with food.

I loved this article on helping your child establish a healthy relationship with food from the beginning.  Everything it says is spot-on and following this advice will help prevent or heal food-related issues.  The article also reminded me of a story from my childhood, which I want to re-post from my old blog as an example that a child’s relationship with food will change when your approach to mealtimes does, too.

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When I was three years old, my family moved to a small condominium complex in Mexico City.  Our next-door neighbors, a registered nurse and her husband (a doctor), also had two young children.  The girl, Lorena, was my age, and we quickly became close friends.

Lorena was a pale and skinny little thing who was afraid of everything (including her over-bearing mother).  She would categorically refuse to eat anything except canned tuna fish.  Her mom would sit with her at the dinner table for hours, forcing her to gulp down cream of spinach or some other healthy food.  After hours of fighting (several times she even tied her down in desperation), her mom would break down and open a can of tuna.

Apart from the eating issue, Lorena suffered from a slew of “ailments”, including allergies to cats and mysterious rashes.  She took medicine constantly and was regularly covered in ointment to heal her hives.

When I turned five, my family and I moved to the countryside near San Diego.   My parents bought a beautiful hilltop  house with a swimming pool and two acres of open land.  The first summer we were there, my mom called Lorena’s mom and, after much negotiating, arranged for the little girl to travel with some relatives to San Diego so she could visit us for two months.

When Lorena arrived, she brought a small suitcase with her clothes, and a larger one filled with medication, ointments, and cans of tuna fish.  A letter from her mom stated: “Lorena is a very picky eater, and frankly it’s a struggle to get her to eat.  When you get tired of fighting with her, feel free to open a can of tuna since it’s the only thing she likes.”

My mom took one look at the quivering little girl, stashed the medications and tuna fish in the closet, and announced that it was lunch time.

“What’s for lunch?” my brother and I eagerly asked.

“Turkey sandwiches and carrot salad,” answered my mom.

“I don’t like turkey and I don’t eat carrots,” said Lorena.

“OK, then don’t eat,” replied my mom calmly.

“Can we eat her food?” we asked, ravenous after playing outside all morning.

“No, that’s Lorena’s food.  She’ll eat it when she’s ready,” answered my mom.

“I’m not going to eat,” replied the defiant five-year old, pushing her plate back and crossing her arms in front of her.  “I want tuna fish.”

“There’s no tuna fish,” said my mom patiently.  “There’s turkey sandwiches with carrot salad.”

My brother and I wolfed down our food, and when we were done, we grabbed Lorena’s hand and ran outside to play in the pool.  My mom put Lorena’s untouched food away and picked up the phone to arrange for swimming lessons, because five-year old Lorena didn’t know how to swim.

That evening, after chasing frogs, riding tricycles, and going down the water slide for five hours, we were called inside for dinner.

“I don’t want to eat any of that,” said Lorena upon eying the chicken, potatoes and vegetables my mom had prepared.

“Well,” answered my mom calmly,  “This is what’s for dinner.”

Lorena sat pouting with her arms crossed while my brother and I inhaled our portions and asked for seconds.

The next morning, we woke up to scrambled eggs and refried beans.

“I don’t like eggs or beans,” grumbled Lorena.

“Well, it’s what’s for breakfast,” answered my mom, while my brother and I piled our plates high.

To make a long story short, Lorena went on a two-day hunger strike.

On the third day, my mom served Lorena her usual portion of whatever was on the menu, and Lorena ate.  And ate.  And ate.

She ate vegetables, chicken, meat, potatoes, rice, eggs, milk, fish, fruit, and everything else my mother served her from then on.

Over her two month stay, the frail weakling of a child gained 10 pounds, achieved a healthy sun-kissed glow, and learned to swim.  Her allergies never manifested themselves (even though we had two cats) and she didn’t have a single rash during her entire eight-week stay.

Towards the end of the visit, my mom arranged for Lorena’s mom to spend a week with us in San Diego before flying back with her daughter.  When Lorena found out her mom would be arriving the next day, she broke into a rash and pooped in the pool.

And she refused to eat anything other than tuna fish for the rest of the stay.

A Mission of Nutrition

I’m aware that what I’m posting here might not be viewed favorably by everyone, and that’s OK.  I just ask that if you have negative comments, please keep them to yourself or write them on your own blog (I won’t approve negative comments for this post, so don’t bother writing them).  This is a very sensitive topic for me, but I chose to write about it both for future personal reference, and to provide an alternative to mothers out there who might find themselves in my shoes.  Thank you!

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.”   -Bertrand Russell

I nursed Zach exclusively from the day he was born, but because he gained a lot of weight and grew well, I soon realized that breast milk wouldn’t be enough for him (he was 10 lbs. at birth and has been in the 98 percentile for size, weight, and head circumference since his first check-up).  At 2.5 months of age he weighed and measured more than most 6-month olds; he was constantly crying, nursing non-stop during the day, and waking up to nurse desperately several times a night.  Imagine a growth spurt that never stops… He and I were both exhausted!

My mother, a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine, had become familiar with a doctor in Colombia who had developed a special soup for newborns that had wiped out malnutrition in several rural areas of his country, and which has been used by millions of families around the world for almost 50 years.  She had recommended the soup to several of her patients, and their babies were thriving!

I began making this soup for Zach the day he turned 3 months, giving him a few ounces and following up with my milk.  The first day, with much hesitation, I gave him two ounces in the morning, two at lunchtime, and two in the evening.  That night he slept from 8pm to 4am.  Not only did his body readily assimilate this food, but his entire personality changed.  He immediately stopped crying, became more engaged and focused, napped more consistently, and started regularly sleeping 6-8 hours in a row at night (when before he would sleep 3 hours if I was lucky!).

I was both sad and happy; sad because my baby had been HUNGRY for weeks and I had done nothing to help him, and happy because I had finally found the solution to what was ailing him.  Every few weeks, he demanded an increase in the amount of soup I was feeding him and was angry when he emptied the bottle… It was like he was telling me that this is what he needed to thrive!

Just like we tailor education to fit the needs of each child, we must tailor nutrition to satisfy each child’s requirements as well.  Expecting all 3-month olds to have the same nutritional needs is as crazy as expecting all 6-year olds to have the same cognitive abilities and interests.  

I weaned him from breast milk by the time he turned 5 months because he is lactose-intolerant, but thankfully the soup provides the nutrients, vitamins and minerals he needs to continue to grow strong.  I am approaching the weaning process considering the soup to be “breast milk” and all other foods to be “solids”; as he becomes more adept at eating with a spoon at the table I will slowly reduce the amount and frequency of the soup until he’s obtaining all his nutrition from solids, ideally sometime between 9 and 12 months of age as recommended by Dr. Montanaro.

A Mission of Nutrition

The soup was developed by a Colombian doctor, Hernan Jaramillo, who worked with malnourished children in a rural area of the country.  Before he initiated his nutrition program, malnutrition was rampant at the hospital where he worked and babies were dropping like flies.  Mothers who didn’t have enough breast milk were told by doctors to put their babies on formula, causing the parents to go into debt and making already weak children sick (because formula is full of chemicals, processed cow or soy milk, and sugars).

Dr. Jaramillo understood that although breast milk is essential, it does not measure up to the complete nutrition that the child was receiving in utero.  As any true scientist would do, Dr. Jaramillo studied the composition of breast milk and conducted HIS OWN tests on the digestive systems of newborn corpses.  His experiments led him to conclude that babies are perfectly capable of digesting and using the nutrients from whole foods when prepared in certain ways (in stark contrast to the campaigns of “only milk for the first 6 months” promoted by medical associations, who are financed by the pharmaceutical companies that make infant formula).

A few years after Dr. Jaramillo introduced the soup in the pediatrics ward of his hospital, the level of infant malnutrition in his town plummeted to – and stayed at – 0.05%, while in other comparable regions it’s anywhere between 50-100%!!!  He implemented the policy of feeding all the children in the hospital this soup as a complement to breast milk (or in the place of formula) from the day they were born, and soon the hospital pediatrics ward emptied out because the children weren’t getting sick anymore!!  He also noticed that their cognitive development had increased dramatically; even children with mental retardation were benefitting, in many cases improving enough to go to normal schools!

The beauty of this soup is that it is made with the foods that families already have in their homes.  Even the poorest family in the countryside has the ability to make it, saving THOUSANDS of dollars (a study calculated that the Jaramillo diet is 10 times more affordable than purchasing formula) and providing their child with appropriate nutrition and a dietary education that lasts a lifetime.

My mother’s Mexican housekeeper, whose 6-month old granddaughter has benefited tremendously from the Jaramillo soup, recalls that when she and her siblings were babies, their mom would breast feed them but would also give them atole (a porridge made from corn) and mashed fruits and vegetables from their small plot of land.  “We ate what we had, from the time we were babies, and we all grew up strong and healthy, with none of these allergies that kids have now,” she told me.

I decided to go back to the basics and chose to listen to my maternal instincts, the wisdom of my cultural heritage, and especially to my son.  As Montessorians, we dedicate our lives to supporting each child’s right to develop to his full potential.  This support must include the area of nutrition, for what is our body and brain but the product of what we consume?  Without appropriate nutrition, the brain and body cannot function correctly.  An incomplete nutrition is as much an obstacle to development as a crib or a walker.  Isn’t it time we did something about it?

Here is Dr. Jaramillo’s website (in English): http://dietajaramillo.org/jaramillo_en/index.htm  (Note: some of the links show up in Spanish but when you click on the link, the ensuing text is in English)

Here are the instructions for the soup: http://dietajaramillo.org/jaramillo_en/complementaria.htm

There are two Facebook groups where parents share their experiences and provide advice to others interested in making the soup.  They are both in Spanish but worth visiting if you can understand the language.  The soup gets nothing but rave reviews from parents; many admit to being hesitant at first, but all are thrilled by how happy, strong, and healthy their children have become:

Yo tambien alimente a mi hij@ con la Dieta Jaramillo

Dieta Jaramillo – Sopa Jaramillo

On my next post I will explain how I make the soup, in case anybody finds it useful.