Preschoolers Don't Need Special Foods

Companies that sell baby food have a problem, babies quickly grow up into wobblers, toddlers and pre-schoolers. This means that baby food companies constantly need to find new customers. You may have noticed that they are working on solving this problem by introducing snack and entree meals just for very young children. Gerbers has Graduates for Toddler (finger foods) and are now introducing Graduates for Preschoolers. These are similar to Karft's Lunchable Juniors.

The only thing these foods have going for them is convenience, but the cost to you, your child and the environment is tremendous. These convenince foods cost way more than the same foods you slice and dice yourself and the packaging cost are probably higher than the food costs. Don't be fooled by suggestions of nutrtition, a slice of fruit is always healthier than dried fruit leather. These meals and snacks are also high in sodium and low on fiber. After age one, children can eat a wide variety of foods, preschoolers (after age 3) can eat just about any food that a school age child eats. They don't need "special foods"-- especially ones that are not nutritious.

Don't let these and other companies fool you into trying and buying their products. Do you know what the Nestle's senior vice-president for infant nutrition said about you "Once we make the consumer need apparent, mothers will understand it." (Business Week, 8/18/08) They admit that they are trying to create a need, dont' fall for it and become addicted.

Get the answers you really need from a regiestered dietitcian and mother, at my website and in my book "Simple and Savvy Stragegies for Creating Healthy Eaters. (http://www.creatinghealthyeater.com/)

Addiction to Political Polls and the Bath Room Scale

The bathroom scale and political polls have much in common. Both are used to give us information. The bathroom scale tells the user how much he or she weighs and can certainly warn of unhealthy or unexpected weight gain or loss. Political polls are used to judge the current popularity or approval rating of a candidate. Although both are tools, used too often or incorrectly they can do more harm than good.


So why are we constantly using polls and bath room scales? What are we hoping to discover? Can’t we think, see, feel, and judge for our selves? Do we need to know what everyone else thinks to decide how to vote or what to eat? It seems it just gives us something to obsess about, while avoiding the real issues. Let’s get in touch with what we know is right for our bodies, our minds, and our country. Use the bathroom scale and a political poll sparingly, as one of many tools towards creating a healthy body and a healthy country. A poll result is only a number created by the manipulations of math. Your weight is a number describing how much gravity you exert on the earth. Don’t let it control you. It’s only a number that will certainly change.