Hiding supplements and dense nutrition in foods

[mtn.mama]

I haven't found a solid way to do this. I can't ever predict if she's going to want what I sneak stuff into. Many things have worked once. Honey, peanut butter, chocolate. That's about it. Though maybe kefir will pass for us and I could hide stuff in there. She doesn't do applesauce or any other "dippy" type stuff.

How do you get nutrients into your picky eaters?

I plan to make a meatloaf laced with liver and greens tomorrow...

[FireWithin]

I usually put stuff into ice pops. I've begun making a fruit whip that contains sunbutter and banana masking flavors. It is like a smoothie with gelatin added to make it fluffy like ice cream.
My three year old will usually eat two small pieces of frozen liver (he will eat anything frozen) if I dip it into something strong tasting. I use Bragg's liquid aminos.
My boys love guac so I can usually put a little bit of something in there.

I would love to do a coconut oil, nut butter chocolate thing but have been unable to yet.

[Theloose]

We have the exact same issue of dd not being consistent about what she'll eat. What's working for us is to spike the things that dd is really excited about. Homemade cheddar bunnies to be like her friends, juice 'medicine' just like Jane and Michael in Mary Poppins. Pancakes like the kid in the YouTube video, and now, lollipops. Oh, and applesauce just like her (really picky) friend. We see most often. I think the reason it's working is because she wants so badly to be like everyone else (since we're not really, in any obvious ways) that she's excited to have her own version so she ignores the taste.

Also, a lot of the supp I want her to take are things I need myslf - like calcium and magnesium and biotin and milk thistle. So I mix them into the whole batch and it's not as big a deal if she doesn't eat it cause I can and it's not wasted.

And finally, I'm playing with the idea now that it really is the minerals that are super important, and that not getting enough of those effectively elevates your need for a lot of the vitamins. We're getting similar behavior improvements from mag as from the b complex. It's a LOT easier to get natural calm into dd than nasty tasting b complex powder.

I'll come back and add our favorite ways of hiding specific things.

[mtn.mama]

T's never had jello, but I'm going to make some this morning with fresh juice. I'm thinking of stashing milk thistle and calcium and zinc and pascalite in it.

And I'm considering lacing her honey with SA-vitamin C and B12.

[Theloose]

B12 isn't an issue for us at all, since the sublinguals taste like candy. That way some of it is absorbed in the mouth, too. Adding B12 to food won't help much, if the issue is low HCl/malabsorption. In really high doses, some will diffuse, but a lot more can be absorbed in the mouth.

Are most of those supps liquid for the jello? Cause I'm picturing ground milk thistle seeds, and it doesn't sound that appealing...
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We use bone meal for a calcium supp, and find the biggest drawback to be that it gets gritty and affects texture. I'm finding that if I heat it up with any liquids (like boil it with the tapioca glue for bw pete stuff) that it takes most of the texture out.

Biotin and folate are tasteless. Metagenics' folapro is a tablet, but Thorne's is a capsule that can be emptied.

Country Life molybdenum is a tasteless tablet that will soften/break up in warm water. Dd ate a couple straight at first, then got bored of the idea. Nutricology makes a liquid version that you just need a few drops of (I'll do up to 6/day). It has a bit of a taste, but disappears well. I've dropped it on pancakes and it disappears. Now I mix it into drinks and she doesn't notice.

Natural Calm magnesium, we started making tea each night before bed, and would give dd a little bit of warm natural calm mixed with some honey. She loves honey, so she'd drink a few sips, but would rarely finish the drink. Now, I make a little extra when I make it for myself at night, and in the morning, I put it in her water bottle (along with Mo and iodine) and water it down. Now that she's actually drinking water, it works like a charm.

One trick that seems to work well is to mix all the supps into a tiny first serving of a food she's asking for, then once she eats that, she gets seconds. Seconds aren't always finished, but it doesn't matter because they're not spiked.

Another, to get her to drink, is to have her own little shot glasses that she drinks from. Also, when she was still getting lots of milk and didn't seem to get thirsty, was to add a pinch of salt to her water. She was much more likely to drink it then. Course that only lasted a week or two before my supply disappeared, so I don't know if it was just a novelty...

[dannic]

subbing--this is getting to be an issue for us here...she's almost more likely to take it if I just dump the open capsule in her mouth. The only thing I can get her to take regularly is CLO, go figure! I can sneak bone meal into smoothies...the pops sound like a good idea. And the cocoa balls...I've go to work on this. (Heck, maybe I'd be more likely to get stuff in ME if I made cocoa balls, lol!)

[Theloose]

Dd's favorite treat right now is chocolate lollipops - chocolate melted with coconut oil, bone meal and biotin. I think there's about 3-4mg biotin and 100mg calcium in each. She LOVES them.

My treat right now is peanut butter mixed with coconut oil, lots of cinnamon and some cocoa and shredded coconut and honey. Then I added bone meal, milk thistle, lots of biotin, and a little folate. I can eat it by the spoonful - it tastes like candy. Dd was intrigued, but didn't try more than a little bit. Then I rolled it all into little balls, with her on my lap, and she grabbed one. I'm not sure how much she ate and how much just melted in her fist but it was interesting to see that the form/presentation totally mattered to her.

[chlobo]

Originally Posted by whoMe

Dd's favorite treat right now is chocolate lollipops - chocolate melted with coconut oil, bone meal and biotin. I think there's about 3-4mg biotin and 100mg calcium in each. She LOVES them.

My treat right now is peanut butter mixed with coconut oil, lots of cinnamon and some cocoa and shredded coconut and honey. Then I added bone meal, milk thistle, lots of biotin, and a little folate. I can eat it by the spoonful - it tastes like candy. Dd was intrigued, but didn't try more than a little bit. Then I rolled it all into little balls, with her on my lap, and she grabbed one. I'm not sure how much she ate and how much just melted in her fist but it was interesting to see that the form/presentation totally mattered to her.

What kind of bone meal do you use? I wish I could get Adam to eat nut butters (peanut is out right now due to mold) but he's just not interested.

[dannic]

Not WhoMe, but my brand bonemeal is NOW--it's free of our allergens for sure (gluten, dairy, wheat, soy, citrus...) I think it's corn free as well--hold up, I'll check--contains no chemical additives, colors, yeast, wheat, soy, gluten, corn or milk. one serving contains 1000mg calcium, 1 mg iron, 500 mg phosphorus, and 25mg mag. HTH!

I bought some allergen free choc chips last time I was in the city--carried them around in my purse so they wouldn't melt in the hot summer heat (in the car)--I'm gonna have to use them for something like this, I'm thinking...but, sheesh, they were pricey! 5$ a bag!

[Theloose]

We do NOW bone meal too. And dd got hooked on peanut butter watching me and dh eat it on apples and bananas. Now she likes it on rice crackers and carrots too (thanks to grammy).

[Koalamom]

It is hard for me to add since my 2 yr old will eat most supplements straight, and chew them partly and drink water back after like mama does.
But things we do are:

Cod liver oil: Put the oil on a spoon and place a berry on the spoon too. She eats the whole thing and never complains.

Most supplements hide well in apple cider. It is stronger than the juice, and most anything crushed up is unnoticeable.

We drink alot of smothies, and dd loves them with all the superfoods like bee pollen, camu camu or acerola (for natural vit C), spirulina, chlorella, greens, chia seeds, etc

Also we like blackstrap as a nutrient dense treat.

We have been loving sesame salt with nettles and dulse in it, and dd loves steamed greens sprinkled with the sesame salt. Or it is so good on toast.

Also is dd doesn't finish her smoothie, I freeze it as a pop, and she usually finishes it later on in the day.

To get more minerals, when we soak beans and nuts to sprout, we use ocean nutrient solution or good quality sea salt for the nuts and beans to convert the minerals to a more usable source of minerals. We also use this sea water solution on our gardens and they are full of extra nutrients. This means that your kid can just eat regular food and will be getting more good stuff as a bonus.

And nettles is one of my dd favorite drink. We don't usually have juice as a drink (only apple cider for when we take supplements). I don't let it sit for more than 4 hours. Any longer and she wont drink it.

I let my dd be in charge of putting the veggies in the juicer, and she feels involved with the food. She loves the different colors of the juices. Especially beets- It is her pink juice.

I find it helps to explain to your child too why you are eating these foods. My dd doesn't always want to eat her greens if she has other yummy food in front of her, but I explained one day that it would make her skin nice and help heal her rashes from leaky gut, and she eats her greens every time first now and says that her skin feels nice. Even if kids are young, they need to know that food has an impact on their bodies. Or they will just think that mom is a nut for trying to get all these foods into them.

Whoa, I am rambling on a bit I think. Hope you find useful info from this.

[Koalamom]

Now I am interested in the bone meal for calcium. Never tried that, we use new chapter or garden of life calcium, but I wonder if bone meal is cheaper? And where do you get your bone meal? Online?
Any info on bone meal and why it is good?

[mamafish9]

Originally Posted by whoMe

And finally, I'm playing with the idea now that it really is the minerals that are super important, and that not getting enough of those effectively elevates your need for a lot of the vitamins. We're getting similar behavior improvements from mag as from the b complex. It's a LOT easier to get natural calm into dd than nasty tasting b complex powder.

I'm interested to learn more about this. We ended up following this route kind of by default - DS is happy to take his brainchild minerals, but rejected the vites because of the taste.

One thing is that by getting his zinc up, and by using enzymes, I think we've really increased the nutrition he's getting from his food. I've heard parents of ASD kids say that enzymes really reduce the B supps their kids can tolerate, so it makes sense to me that digestion supporting minerals could have the same effect.

In terms of hiding things in food, we can't do fruit, and DS doesn't drink things, so that takes away a lot of good hiding places.

One thing that matters for him is that once I have started hiding supps in something, that I don't change it. So I have some stuff that goes in his coconut milk yogurt, and I add the same ones every time. That way, he knows what to expect from the taste - if I vary it, he's way more suspicious.

I find ground meat (especially lamb, because it has lots of fat) is great for sodium ascorbate powder.

And I have a mix of vit c, mag, and milk thistle that goes in nut butter or pine nut ricotta, into gf tortilla. I'm hoping to add folate and TMG into that mix as well (I know the folate is pretty tasteless, not sure about TMG). I also drip his zeolite onto this, since he's pretty solid about eating it. I think for him, boring is better in terms of his supps - consistency and routineness really help.

I'm also careful not to spike new foods, or foods he really loves in their non-spiked form, unless I'm prepared to deal with losing that food for a while.

The other thing I think about a lot is "prioritizing" his supps. I'd love to get B vites into him, for example, but right now, supping zinc and mag, and beginning basic metals detox (liver and methylation support), seem most important in the short term. And trying to get B vites into him would be a big fight and seriously hamper my ability to get ANY supps into him. Hopefully once we address those most urgent issues, then we can take stock and figure out what the next high priority supps are. And hopefully by addressing things like zinc and metals, we can increase his absorption and ability to get nutrients from his diet - so decrease the need for supps.

[Theloose]

Okay, my vitamin vs minerals theory (it gets kinda rambly watch out):

In my own experience, needs for some vitamins can keep going up and up, unless you find the cofactor that goes along with it. I think my whole pantothenic acid saga is in the detox pathway guinea pig thread. I'm currently needing quantities of vitamins that are significantly higher than what you could ever get from food, and I don't think it's just the supplement form not being as available.

So I have this concept floating around in my head, but haven't figured out a good visual/description yet. Basically, we can use high doses of things to pull certain reactions in the body in the direction we want them to go. But our bodies are *supposed* to be handling the balance on their own - which means we're depleting *something* by taking higher and higher amounts. The goal is to get everything in the right ratios so we don't *need* to supplement and create that pull.

The minerals seem to be big regulators - calcium lowers the activated vit d, which closes ca ion channels, prevents lead absorption, and more. Mag help you use the calcium, helps close ca ion channels, takes some burden off of taurine production, and is required for so many enzymes. Those enzyme are what we're shifting around the balance of with the high dose vitamins.

Then there are the trace minerals - things like molybdenum for sulfur and chromium for insulin and iodine for thyroid and hormone regulation and...

And most of the vitamins need to be replaced on a day-by-day basis. It's hard to *really* have a long term deficiency that takes a while to correct. Versus the minerals, which are stored in the body long term, and are building blocks for all these enzymes. It seems a lot easier to have a long term deficiency of those (even passed from mom), messing up how our bodies regulate the rest of the good stuff. My intuition is saying that having good mineral levels acts as a buffer of sorts, so that the fluctuations in vitamins don't have so much of an impact. Especially for our situation.

I *know* that I have a lot of trouble getting in enough of the big minerals like calcium and magnesium. My morning sickness severity seems to be closely linked to how much calcium I'm getting, as well as my blood sugar. As in, the calcium seems to help stabilize my blood sugar so there aren't giant swings. Alternatively, I could try high dose B6 to block hormone receptors or...

follow?

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Which reminds me, I might be a convert to solaray calcium hydroxyapatite instead of bone meal. maybe. It's essentially refined bone meal in a capsule. Hopefully in theory there's less risk of heavy metals (want to check that) and it's a much finer, blander powder. Disappears into a spoonful blackberry applesauce, especially with a layer of unadulterated stuff on top

And the perque chewable multis appear to be a go, *if* dd gets a whole (adult dosage) one. I think we'll be doing them every other day...

[chlobo]

Originally Posted by whoMe

Okay, my vitamin vs minerals theory (it gets kinda rambly watch out):

In my own experience, needs for some vitamins can keep going up and up, unless you find the cofactor that goes along with it. I think my whole pantothenic acid saga is in the detox pathway guinea pig thread. I'm currently needing quantities of vitamins that are significantly higher than what you could ever get from food, and I don't think it's just the supplement form not being as available.

So I have this concept floating around in my head, but haven't figured out a good visual/description yet. Basically, we can use high doses of things to pull certain reactions in the body in the direction we want them to go. But our bodies are *supposed* to be handling the balance on their own - which means we're depleting *something* by taking higher and higher amounts. The goal is to get everything in the right ratios so we don't *need* to supplement and create that pull.

The minerals seem to be big regulators - calcium lowers the activated vit d, which closes ca ion channels, prevents lead absorption, and more. Mag help you use the calcium, helps close ca ion channels, takes some burden off of taurine production, and is required for so many enzymes. Those enzyme are what we're shifting around the balance of with the high dose vitamins.

Then there are the trace minerals - things like molybdenum for sulfur and chromium for insulin and iodine for thyroid and hormone regulation and...

And most of the vitamins need to be replaced on a day-by-day basis. It's hard to *really* have a long term deficiency that takes a while to correct. Versus the minerals, which are stored in the body long term, and are building blocks for all these enzymes. It seems a lot easier to have a long term deficiency of those (even passed from mom), messing up how our bodies regulate the rest of the good stuff. My intuition is saying that having good mineral levels acts as a buffer of sorts, so that the fluctuations in vitamins don't have so much of an impact. Especially for our situation.

I *know* that I have a lot of trouble getting in enough of the big minerals like calcium and magnesium. My morning sickness severity seems to be closely linked to how much calcium I'm getting, as well as my blood sugar. As in, the calcium seems to help stabilize my blood sugar so there aren't giant swings. Alternatively, I could try high dose B6 to block hormone receptors or...

follow?

-------------
Which reminds me, I might be a convert to solaray calcium hydroxyapatite instead of bone meal. maybe. It's essentially refined bone meal in a capsule. Hopefully in theory there's less risk of heavy metals (want to check that) and it's a much finer, blander powder. Disappears into a spoonful blackberry applesauce, especially with a layer of unadulterated stuff on top

And the perque chewable multis appear to be a go, *if* dd gets a whole (adult dosage) one. I think we'll be doing them every other day...

This all sounds reasonable to me. Makes total sense, unlike most of the stuff I read. Anyhow, let us know how you make out on the calcium. I'm due to buy some new stuff soon.

[kjbrown92]

Originally Posted by mtn.mama

T's never had jello, but I'm going to make some this morning with fresh juice. I'm thinking of stashing milk thistle and calcium and zinc and pascalite in it.

And I'm considering lacing her honey with SA-vitamin C and B12.

I haven't figured out a gelatin recipe that the kids will eat. I have the pork (Great Lakes) gelatin, and I used palm sugar and grape juice and none of the kids would eat it. They eat the gelatin in marshmallows though!! But I wish I could figure out the gelatin thing.

DH just declared my blender dead, so now I can't do smoothies, which is where I was emptying the Biotin capsules into. DS will take all his pills with grape juice, and DD2 will take the probiotic capsule just swallowing it. But I was putting some greens in the smoothies too. I added veggies to the pine nut "ricotta" to get more veggies into DS. Neither of them will eat the honey-peanut butter-coconut oil balls (though I will!!). That would be easy to stick some powder in.

How do we know if cooking will alter their effects (if we put the powder capsules in things like Blondies or Brownies)?

[Theloose]

I looked up heat processing and biotin, and found that it's pretty stable (but that only 1/8 of the supplement form is bioactive ). So it seems safe to bake that one in.

For jello, I was making it with straight (well, watered down) apple cider and mixing in some fresh berries. And making it more jiggler-style (my own preference). You could always look up some old jello salad recipes from the 50s

eta: minerals generally aren't changed much by cooking...

[WuWei]

Many bonemeal products contain high, even dangerous, levels of lead. Labels should be read carefully to make sure the product has been tested. http://www.answers.com/topic/bone-meal

A USP (United States Pharmacopeia) symbol means that the calcium supplement is pure from lead and other metals.
http://www.health.state.ny.us/diseas...osis/qanda.htm

Substantial quantities of lead have been reported in some over-the-counter calcium supplement preparations, including not only bonemeal and dolomite, but also over-the-counter natural and refined calcium carbonate formulations.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content...ct/284/11/1425

Many manufacturers that used bonemeal for calcium supplements now use the bones of younger bovines or equines, which have less accumulation of industrial lead.
http://www.ehponline.org/members/200...elfo-full.html


Pat

[chlobo]

Originally Posted by WuWei

Many bonemeal products contain high, even dangerous, levels of lead. Labels should be read carefully to make sure the product has been tested. http://www.answers.com/topic/bone-meal

A USP (United States Pharmacopeia) symbol means that the calcium supplement is pure from lead and other metals.
http://www.health.state.ny.us/diseas...osis/qanda.htm

Substantial quantities of lead have been reported in some over-the-counter calcium supplement preparations, including not only bonemeal and dolomite, but also over-the-counter natural and refined calcium carbonate formulations.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content...ct/284/11/1425

Many manufacturers that used bonemeal for calcium supplements now use the bones of younger bovines or equines, which have less accumulation of industrial lead.
http://www.ehponline.org/members/200...elfo-full.html


Pat

Wow, that sounds unsavory.

[lil_miss_understood]

Subbing