My oldest is 15, and she still doesn’t drink soda. They were all breast fed and they eat almond butter& jelly sandwiches on bread w/ #1 ingredient = cracked wheat berries (no white flour), water or 100%juice + fruit (today it was watermelon) for lunch. However, I learned when they were toddlers to be flexible, after I saw my daughter gorging down an entire pack of potato chips at a picnic.
“FDA’s data show that 79 percent of diet soda samples tested over a six-year period from 1995 through 2001 were contaminated with benzene at levels above the federal limit for benzene in tap water.
The FDA test results, buried deep within an obscure FDA food testing program called the Total Diet Study, were posted on EWG’s Web site, http://www.ewg.org, just days after a top FDA official assured the public that there was no threat from the presence of the toxic chemical in soft drinks. This weekend, Great Britain’s public health agency pulled some soft drink products from store shelves because of benzene contamination.”
I know this if off-topic, but since we are discussing the health of children, I want to bring up a topic that few people even know about. Most processed food contains some genetically engineered ingredients, since 80% of our corn and soybeans are genetically modified. They are *not* required to be labeled, and the FDA and food industry has been fighting any consumer requests for labeling. Although they are banned in most of Europe, the FDA has been a strong proponent. Anything made of corn, such as corn syrup or corn meal, is probably geneticaly modified. GE foods are made by combining the DNA of TWO DIFFERENT SPECIES. This is very different from hybrid or natural mutation, which is a natural evolution within the same species. GE seeds and animals are made in a laboratory, not by nature.
Genetically engineered food is made from seeds that are spliced with DNA from one or more species (fish + plant, bacteria + plant, etc.) Pioneer’s “Roundup Ready Corn” is spliced with a bacteria (or virus?) gene, which makes it resistant to Roundup so the farmer can spray the entire field, including the corn you will buy, with Roundup and the weeds will die but the corn won’t. GMO fish is sterile and grows larger; it is spliced with a gene from tomatoes.
One form of GE food is bovine growth hormone. I’ve bought organic and GE free milk since my kids were babies. So far, so good: none have hit early puberty. The rise in asthma and early puberty, as early as age 3, has been documented much lately and is attributed to the excess hormones in the food. I buy only organic chicken. I was heavily influenced by ayurvedic medicine since my college days, and made sure my kids ate according to the seasons and their body type (even did all that infant massage stuff with warm organic sesame oil, but they never laid still like the babies in the video).
Look for “GMO free” on the label. Organic rules were modified a few years ago, despite protests from the seed cmopanies, so you are safe from any DNA-altered foods when you buy organic. But hey, my husband doesn’t care – he loves anything high-tech. He says that if it’s science, he will eat it. LOL! IMO, eating GMO is like eating DDT or smoking cigarettes. We won’t know how bad it is for a few more decades. The research is either not being done or suppressed. So I tell him he can eat all the genetically modified food he wants, but the kids and I will choose not to.
IMO, the the best rule: limit anything in a package. The fresher, the better. The fewer ingredients, the better. Spices are foods too: turmeric, basil, dill, cayenne, coriander, etc. are just as important to eat every day as mangoes and whole grains. As I’m writing this, I am drinking my Coke. No diet drinks, either. That Nutrasweet stuff is really unehealthy!
