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By
Colleen Huber, Naturopathyworks.com
If you're a health-conscious parent, which choice should you
make at a child's birthday party?
- Forbid your child to have cake and ice cream
- Avoid taking your child to any birthday parties
- Take healthy food to the party for your child
- Take enough healthy food for everyone
- Let your child eat what everybody else is eating
Growing up in a family where sugar was not eaten, I actually have
strong opinions on this matter. My father was the strict disciplinarian
who never allowed any sugar, and either kept us away from other
kids' birthday parties in order to avoid the aggravation, or
let us go, but made us sit out the cake and ice cream festivities.
My mother, on the other hand, pitied us deprived children and urged
that we be allowed to have some treats, if only for social mingling.
Relatives fretted that we would not turn out normal. Friends stuck
by us, but worried that other friends would reject us for being
"health nuts." Our teachers didn't know what to make
of us. One of the first books I read in first grade even claimed
that ice cream was a healthy food, and it seemed that my peers considered
it to be one of the basic food groups, all of which certainly steamed
my father.
What was a small child to believe?
Actually, as long as I can remember, I have always been grateful
that my father's view prevailed over (or drowned out) all others,
and that I have avoided any sugar cravings, sugar illness or withdrawal
to this day.
It may seem odd to read a term such as sugar illness, but I suspect
the reason I have never had headaches, PMS, depression, hypertension
or weight gain--despite eating like a horse my whole life--has everything
to do with not having sugar in my diet. Marrying late, my husband
and I conceived our first child on our first attempt. I was 41 at
the time. Is it a coincidence that I have never had sugar in my
diet? Both sugar consumption and infertility are at all-time highs
and worsening in recent decades.
Sugar: The Fuel for Disease
But sugar illness goes far beyond the above symptoms. Diabetes
and obesity are epidemics in this country, and quickly increasing
around the world. They, as well as cancer, feed directly on sugar.
Cancer's fuel for growth is sugar.1,2 Hypertension
due to arterial smooth muscle overgrowth and atherosclerosis have
been tied in numerous studies to insulin in the bloodstream.
Uffe Ravnskov, MD, an award-winning medical researcher many times
over, has shown through his study of the Masai people of Tanzania
that they have the cleanest arteries in the world on their traditional
diet of only meat, blood and milk (no sugar, no insulin). However,
Masai who migrate to cities with more westernized cuisine with refined
carbs both in and out of Africa develop Western-type cardiovascular
diseases.3,4
In fact, insulin, rather than sugar itself, may be the most serious
problem. Studies of centenarians show almost nothing in common.
Some smoke, but some don't. Some are active, and some aren't.
Some are serene, yet some are excitable. However, what they did
have in common was low blood sugar and low insulin.5,6
Now that I am a parent myself, I desperately want to pass on all
the health advantages I have had over the years. My first inclination
then is aggression against anyone offering candy and the like. However,
as a parent, I also try to find or create situations within social
events in which my 3-year-old does not have to feel unpleasantly
isolated. So my choice on the multiple-choice question above is
the fourth option: To provide enough alternative food for everybody
at the party.
First, when I call to accept the invitation, I let the mom or dad
know that we don't eat any sugar at all. If they don't
understand, I describe the problem as an allergy, which given all
the pathology, it is.
The Alternatives
Then, I offer to bring whole fruit, nuts, carrot, cuke and celery
sticks, cheese, watermelon-only popsicles, etc. for everyone. (Watermelon-only
popsicles are the easiest recipe I know. Just stuff small chunks
of watermelon fairly tightly into popsicle molds. Freeze for a whole
fruit, unsweetened summer treat. Peaches and plums also work.)
While the cake is being cut, I distract my child with any interesting
baby, pet or object handy. After the cake has been distributed,
we get plates of whole food for ourselves and mingle freely. Older
children, of course, are less appreciative of their parents'
presence at a party but, by then, they are old enough to be challenged
with choosing only whole food for themselves, just as we expect
them to refuse cigarettes.
Also, after having been taught through their early childhood how
their healthy, whole food diet can peacefully co-exist with their
friends' different food choices, the older child and teenager
can have the grace to maintain their friendships. This I know from
personal experience.
But there is another advantage these days that I could not enjoy
as a teenager. Now that "low-carb" diets have become widely
accepted, the whole food teen can stay popular with others just
by being fashionable.
If your children demand poor-quality foods, it's because they have
previously found their way into their school or your house, or they
have been advertised persuasively to them. If you demand more healthy
whole food at your children's school, you won't be alone.
More than two-thirds of Arizona parents recently surveyed favored
eliminating junk food machines from their children's schools.7
This was even after they were reminded in the survey that such
machines were a source of income for cash-strapped schools. Private
schools are not so strapped as to sell out their students'
health, however. Waldorf schools often advertise an organic whole-food
menu for children.
In Goes the Good Foods, Out Goes the Bad
If the food in your house is part of the problem, start shopping
just the periphery of the supermarket where the whole foods are.
Skip the aisles of processed and sweetened foods and drinks. Leaving
bad food behind at the supermarket makes a whole food/sugar-free
diet a whole lot easier. Whatever you do, don't bring cookies
and ice cream home to your kitchen, where they will sit a few feet
away from you like ticking bombs and quickly find their way into
everybody's tummies.
After all, you are only human. Don't make your temptations
any more difficult than they already are by bringing them into your
house. Start the clean sweep of your pantry during a summer break
or long weekend, so that neither you nor your children will be tempted
by junk outside the home within those first critical 48 hours.
When the cravings become bothersome, massage both ears to cover
the ear acupuncture points related to addiction. Broccoli, cheese
and liver are foods high in chromium, which are important specifically
for sugar cravings. Drinking water is the best way to flush out
toxins and metabolites more quickly.
When you create a whole food household for the first time, your
children may balk, but within a few days, they will learn to accept
the food that you are providing them and let you know that they
are feeling better.
You may be surprised at how well they can rise to the challenge.
Children diagnosed with depression, when advised that if they stop
eating sugar their depression will go away, usually rise to this
challenge and heal themselves naturally without drugs. Grant your
children this learning experience, and let them grow to be as grateful
to you as I am to my wise father.
 Colleen
Huber, 46, is a wife, mother and student at Southwest College
of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, Ariz., where she is training
to be a naturopathic physician. Her original research on the mechanism
of migraines has appeared in Lancet and Headache Quarterly, and
was reported in The Washington Post.
Her
double-blind placebo-controlled research in homeopathy has appeared
in Journal of the American Institute of Homeopathy, European Journal
of Classical Homeopathy, and Homeopathy Today. Her Web site, Naturopathy
works, introduces naturopathic medicine to the layperson and
provides references to the abundant medical literature demonstrating
that natural medicine does work.
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