Quote:
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Originally Posted by hakeber
Have you not seen a problem with fruit overdosing in your house?
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No, but I could imagine it happening. If a child eats nothing but fruit, they're going to get upset tummy. If they eat nothing but cheese, same thing. Nothing but bread... same again. It's about balance. Kids need fats, greens (chlorophyll and protein) and sugars. Not enough of any one of that triad and there will be imbalance... it isn't so much that it's "too much" of one as not enough of the others to balance it out.
If my kids did OD on fruit, I'd bring in some soaked nuts, or some coconut and olives (fats), which they love, and make sure they got some greens (they will eat greens wrapped around things, like a burrito). ETA - I don't mean I wrap greens
around a burrito.
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| If kids don't need as much protein as that, why do you think he was craving chicken? |
I've seen kids crave bread and coke, too, but I don't think it is as easy to identify the bodily need as looking at what they want. For instance, I had pica during both pregnancies - I craved dirt, and I drooled over dirt covered potatoes and could have rammed fistfuls of soil into my mouth when visiting a plant nursery - I loved the smell so much. But I knew it wasn't dirt I was craving but something IN the dirt, I was mineral deficient.
We need to stop looking at protein as "protein" and instead see it as "amino acids" ... all the secrets of protein cravings are revealed when we
understand protein.
We cannot assume his bodily need is "chicken" or "protein" any more than we can assume mine was "dirt". You have a sign... a sign of
what is the question.
I also know of icecream cravings, pickle cravings... you name it and there is an unhealthy craving that is an unidentified deficiency. I cured my pica by remineralising with quality food minerals. It helps to identify the lacking nutrient. We also know if the nutrient need is not being met by indulging it because our craving doesn't stop... it continues, to the detriment of other nutrients, causing a loop.
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| I'm not entirely sure I buy into the less protein thing myself. For one, my own anecdotal experience tells me that I will get very, very ill-- think dizziness, fainting and vomiting-- if I don't eat protein every few hours. I have been like this my entire life. My own family was vegetarian my entire childhood, but they weren't concerned when I ate lots of dairy, cheese, beans, and nuts. They just let me do my thing. When I tried to not eat like that, eating more fruit and ignoring protein, is when I started to get sick. |
I didn't mean to imply "ignore protein". My concern is the fixation on it, and the overconsumption of it. This has been shown to be a major issue in your country (generalising, I realise not all are from America), you eat way too much protein and it starts by using it as a mainstay in childhood meals, the old "meat and three veg" dinners most of us were reared on.
Have you tried eating, pound for pound, the same amount of greens with fats, like olives or green coconuts and covered in flaxseed oil, as you would eat "protein"? It would be a VERY big bowl of salad if you did, and more than enough protein... we under-eat greens, in a serious way, and mistake our amino acid needs as "meat" needs. Perhaps try to identify which amino acid you are quickly deficient in, and eat foods that are high in that.
The planet is covered in what we need... GREEN. Regardless how much meat a person eats, if they're not eating leaves as the dominant food, like a gorilla, as well as fruit, they won't come anywhere near the brilliant pristine state they were designed to.
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| Further, think about the term "hunter/gatherers." |
A human being came up with that term. And it FAR from convinces me, as I have looked at the evidence, I really really want to be convinced but it really is lacking, and not just due to the "missing link". Plus it has been disproved by the finding of other human bones, plus it is a guess, like most science that dates back far enough. This is too big a topic, however, if you think about it long enough it becomes clear... when we were first put here, be it by evolution, a creator or whatever the belief, - we had no tools. What we ate before fire and tools was not animals, because we had no way to eat them. We had nothing to hunt
with. Before fire, we did not eat raw meat and this is evidenced by the almost universal human disgust at the thought of eating raw meat. None of us thinks "oooh, yummy!" a the sight of road kill yet
all omnivores or carnivores do. Plus our physiology and anatomy are not designed to rip apart a body and digest it, we have a herbivores digestive juices and acids, a herbivores teeth... the list is massive... we are nothing like a carnivore
except that we eat meat.
But just because we
can do something doesn't mean we
should.
Fire and tools made that possible - our design however, was not cut out for those changes to our diet. We have only been agricultural for a few thousand years.
Yes, we need protein... but so does a gorilla, so does an elephant...the biggest strongest animals on earth do not eat meat... it is a fallacy that complex (or "complete) protein is necessary to create strong healthy people... on the contrary, it has created weak and chronically ill people who needed to create antibiotics to survive.
I am at risk of getting dragged into a meat vs veg debate here, when my point is to decrease the focus on "protein" and refocus on easily assimilated amino acids, taxing their little systems less.
No doubt some kids are drawn to chicken, aside from the taste which is not to be underestimated, they probably lack particular amino acids. Supplements of tryptophan, leucine and many other amino acids are a huge cash cow in the health industry even though most people eat meat. That is partially because amino acids (protein) are altered and destroyed by cooking.
) but eating is not one of them. It's just food...what she needs for her growing body (apparently a lot as she is about to start puberty and has had several growth spurts recently). If she wants to open a can of tuna at 11 pm after she's already had dinner and two other snacks, who am I to say no?
"grrrrr...don't patronize me, mommy!"
drop and everyone else was like, haven't you ever let your kid out of the house?
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