I have always believed that fat was a result of heavy thoughts, because the mind is a powerful thing. Now, I have the research to back it up.

The show "You are what you eat" showed people they had full responsibility over what they ate. I think they can call it "You are what you think", because a recent research discovered that our thoughts have a direct impact on what we eat - we gain weight when we have "fat thoughts".

In recent times, "light" became a keyword for food shoppers. We are convinced that in order to be healthy we need to eat "light" food - no fat, no calories, no sugar, no salt, etc. Well, our body reacts badly to it. The more we try to be healthy, the harder it is to lose weight.

Why is that?

In a research done in Yale with the really cool name Mind over milkshakes: Mindsets, not just nutrients, determine Ghrelin response, participants were given milkshakes with 380 calories. Each participant was given the same 380-calorie milkshake on two different occasions - once, they were told that it was "The 140-calorie Sensible Shake" and the other time, they were told it was "The 620-calorie Indulgent Shake".

Their blood was sampled three times, 20 minutes before drinking the milkshake - this was the baseline - and twice more at the 60-minute and 90-minute marks. Each time, the blood test measured the gut peptide Ghrelin, which creates the feeling of hunger. The more Ghrelin you have, the hungrier you are.

The participants were also asked to rate their satisfaction and their answers were consistent with what they thought they were drinking. They rated the "Sensible" shake as 7 times healthier, but enjoyed the "Indulgent" shake much more and found it far more satisfying.

Surprisingly, those who believed their milkshake was the "Sensible" low-calorie shake also showed an increase in their Ghrelin levels, meaning they were hungrier after having the shake than those who thought they were drinking a 620-calorie milkshake. Their body agreed with their mind.

This research had some conclusions I think everyone should be aware of:

1. What we think about our food has a strong impact on our feeling of hunger and satisfaction.
2. What we think about our food has a stronger impact on our body than the nutritional value of the food does.
3. Over time, the thought that healthy food contains fewer calories makes people believe their food is not satisfying and they feel hungrier after they eat it.

How to raise kids with "light" thoughts

(you can use them on yourself too)

1. Stop counting calories. Make sure your kids do not see you paying attention to calories. Counting calories may be a good technique for people to manage their diet, but if they believe their food is not satisfying, they want to eat more.
2. Do not talk to your kids about dieting. Even if you are avoiding things or changing your eating habits, do not call this "a diet". The mind associates dieting with avoidance and with prevention of joy and satisfaction, which will backfire. Dieting only links bad feelings with food, which is a pleasurable and necessary part of life.
3. Advertising low-calorie food as healthy can trick us into buying it, but it cannot trick our body into thinking it is good for us.
4. Tell your kids their body is wise and will make them eat as much as they need. Teach them to listen to their body and pay attention to the signs of "fullness", "hunger" and "thirst". When we listen to our body, we notice when we eat too much.
5. Teach your kids that every person is different and what is good for one may not be good for others, so they need to find what is good for them.
6. Teach your kids the concepts of "balance" and "moderation". It is OK to eat junk food from time to time. It is OK to drink fizzy, colorful and sweet drinks from time to time. It is OK to bring take-away food home from time to time. However, moderation is the name of the game and most of their food should be nutritious.
7. Continual dieting is a form of eating disorder. It is better to have kids who are a bit overweight than to create an eating disorder, which is much harder to fix later on. If your kids have to lose some weight, do not call it a diet. Present it as a new way of eating for the whole family. Dieting should never be seen as punishment (for eating too much or not eating "right"), so if you are not 100% sure a change of eating habits will do the trick, do not start.
8. Teach your kids to enjoy food and not to be afraid of food. Food is not an enemy. Joy goes together with satisfaction. Sugar and fat cravings increase with stress, so when you are satisfied and relaxed, you do not eat too much.

Be happy. That is the lightest thought ever!
Ronit

You may want to read

• How to Raise Food-Smart Kids
• Don’t eat and run
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Food

My doctor was great. He did not just give me supplements but was very determined to find the source of the deficiency. I went through a series of checks that ended up discovering I do not have the enzyme required to digest lactose, the sugar in cow's milk. It was sad to learn that (I love milk, yoghurt and cheese), but at the same time relieved, because it could have been worse.

During that period, I met a friend who had discovered she had Lupus (an autoimmune disease) and had almost died from organ failure. For the two previous years, she had taken chemotherapy medication, looked half-dead and we had all been very worried about her. When we met, she was still on the same medication, but she looked amazingly better than ever.

When I asked her how she had recovered so well, she said she had discovered she was gluten intolerant and had decided to stop eating gluten. I asked her if she had Celiac (my doctor had sent me to check that too and, thank God, I do not have it) and she said, "No, I don't, but I figured I could try not eating gluten for a while and if I felt better, I'd know it was a good choice".

That was 6 months ago.

Our daughter Noff has a good friend who lives across the street. From time to time, the girls cook or bake in our house and take some of their creations to share with the other family. One day, when we brought over something made of flour, the neighbor said to me her husband was gluten intolerant.

That was 3 months ago.

At Eden's work, each of the team members brings food to share with everyone once a week. One of the women is on a gluten free diet and Eden was very upset that the others did not bring gluten free dishes to accommodate her. Whenever it was Eden's turn, she always looked for gluten free dishes.

Last month, I organized another get-together with my lady friends. One of them had battled weight, smoking and low energy for over 15 years until she had found a doctor who had decided, just as my doctor had, to find the source. On top of sending her to millions of checkups and tests, he had suggested she try taking gluten out of her diet.

On the same evening, as we sat next to one of the friends' house pool, watching possums climbing up and down the trees, another woman said, "Oh, I wanted to tell you I've been gluten free for 3 months now and I feel awesome. I feel I can think clearly. It's like having new prescription glasses that make everything look clear and crisp".

At that point, I said to myself, "This must be a sign".

I knew what she meant, because about 20 years ago, Gal and I changed our eating habits and this was exactly the feeling we had - thinking clearly, like changing prescription glasses. I have also changed several prescription glasses over the last 25 years…

As I came home, I realized that although the topic of the evening was not gluten free diets, this was the only thing I remembered. So I decided to try. "What do I have to lose?" I asked myself.

I can probably write a whole blog just about my gluten free adventure, but I think I will share with you just what has happened so far.

1. One month passed and everyone who hears about it freaks out and immediately says, "I couldn't do it". People! Wake up! You can do everything. It is no different from giving up sugar, reducing fat or avoiding coffee. If you ask me, it is better than being lactose intolerant, because I like dairy food more than I like bread (it is not like I could choose anyway).
2. Rice is my friend. Having rice noodles is a perfect replacement. I love rice paper rolls and I love sushi.
3. Since we changed our diet 20 years ago, I have been reading the labels on all food products, but this made me read them again and look for other things.
4. The supermarket is full of gluten free replacements that are not as good as the "real" thing. We set a goal to find perfect replacements and have found a mud cake mix that is super perfect. I can eat it and the kids love it.
5. Since gluten intolerant buyers have less of a choice and the market is smaller, most gluten free replacements are way more expensive than the products they replace.
6. The kids actually like some of the gluten free things I buy, which proves again that kids will eat anything you put in front of them if you present it right.
7. The limited selection forces me to eat more homemade and fresh food. This way, I know what goes into what I eat and it is generally good for my health.
8. After 3-4 days, I felt less hungry. Another bonus.
9. The real challenge for me is thinking about what I eat. I hate that! I often say I would rather skip a meal than have to prepare it. This is where Gal comes in real handy…
10. It is a bit harder when the family meal contains lots of gluten and I need (or Eden, because she is so supportive and helpful) to make a separate meal for me and for the family. I do not like it that we do not all eat the same thing.
11. Luckily, I do not have Celiac and I can cheat from time to time.
12. Last night, I had another ladies' night and it was easy to choose what to eat from the variety of food on the table. You do not even have to say that you are gluten free most of the time.
13. I lost 4kg (9lbs).

We'll see how well this continues.

Be happy and healthy,
Ronit

You may want to read

• How to Raise Food-Smart Kids
• The "Light Thinking" Diet
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Food

I added the connection between food and health to my bible after a huge pain of trying very hard to get rid of Eden's pneumonia when she was just an 18-month-old baby. By the time she was 2 years old, Eden had been sick with pneumonia 3 times already and had been constantly on antibiotics and inhalers. Before those scary 6 months, I had never thought about what I ate and had just gone to the supermarket and bought the same things my parents and Gal's parents had.

One of my friends, who was trying to help me, told me Eden should eat certain things and avoid eating others to improve her health. I thought she was not normal (which was true, but in a good sense) and that food had nothing to do with germs and health problems. It was only later, when we discovered Eden was sensitive to dairy food, that I realized just how tight the relationship between food and health was.

Food, and only food, was the difference between having a very sick girl (with pneumonia that 6 months of antibiotics could not fix) and having a healthy girl that went to see the doctor only once in the following 20 years. Food, and only food, was the difference between being anemic and having a healthy iron level. During my second, third, fourth and fifth pregnancies, while every other woman had to take iron tablets, my iron level was strong and stable, even the doctor was shocked. Food, and only food, was the difference between Gal having sinus surgery to unblock his nose and not needing that surgery until today.

I figured that since my goal was to have healthy kids, what goes and does not go into their precious bodies was going to be in my parenting bible.

1. Expose your kids to eating a variety of food and they will not be fussy eaters. Fussy eating is an eating disorder that will make their life hard. Make sure you are not a fussy eater yourself if you want to raise adventurous eaters. I was a fussy eater and Gal is totally the opposite. When Eden was about 4½ years old, we moved to Texas and started eating out a lot. As long as we ate at home, everything was easy - I made the food and we ate it - but when I had to choose what to eat at a restaurant (good food, not junk), I realized how fussy I was, so I made a choice to try something new every time I ate out and taste from everyone else's plates. It is OK not to like the taste of something, but it is not OK not to try. This has been in my bible for 17 years, I have 3 kids who are very adventures with food and I am proud to say I am now adventurous too.
2. Do not prepare special food for each member of your family - a home is not a restaurant. This sends a message that fussiness is acceptable. Food disorders should never be a way for kids to get attention. When I had an early childhood center, I asked the mothers to take turns bringing food for all of the kids. One mom did not want to participate and said her daughter was so fussy she would never eat anything the other moms made and would stay hungry. She had 4 kids and in-laws living with her and when she prepared food for them, she would make 7 different meals. Her family members were so fussy that she did not work outside the home and all she did was care for the kids and make food. I convinced her to let her daughter participate in our food exchange program and 3 days later, she said it was unbelievable that her 2½-year-old daughter ate cucumbers, tomatoes and cheese at home. I realized that her parenting bible contained the rule that being a good mother meant making everyone whatever they wanted to eat and I said to myself, "This is NOT going into my bible. Everyone eats what's on the table".
3. Never give food rewards - most of the world's obesity and the emotional struggles of people to lose weight are caused by their association of food with reward and comfort. Save your kids from this lifelong heartache. Verbal affirmations and hugs are the best rewards and if you need something tangible, stickers and balloons will make your kids plenty happy (and healthy).
4. Do not serve desert in home meals - there is no need to eat something sweet at the end of every meal. If kids (and grownups) get used to finishing a meal with a sweet, it will be hard for them to stop it. If you really have to, serve fruit as the best sweet to finish your dinner.
5. Water is the essence of life - drink plenty of water. Most health problems are associated with dehydration. Make sure you drink 1 liter of water for every 22kg (48lbs) of weight. I learned this rule from my Reiki Master when I lived in Singapore and for many years, I have confirmed it over and over again. My youngest daughter becomes asthmatic when she is dehydrated. If I tell her she must stand next to me and drink water before she is allowed to do anything else, within couple of hours, she is perfect. Drink plenty of water!
6. Stay away from food colors - I learned this rule during my special education studies. During childhood, I loved everything that had colors. The more colorful it was, the testier it was for me. During my studies, I discovered so many learning difficulties and health problems related to food colors that I added not having them to my parenting bible. Food colors are poison! I know that not all of them are, but I believe it is safest to try and avoid them all.
7. Have junk events - go out for some junk food or bringing junk food home from time to time to stop your kids' craving for it and take the sting out of eating it. I learned this on myself. In my family, we hardly ever had any ice cream. It was expensive and my parents bought it only on special occasions. Loving it and not having it turned it into a need, rather than a want. When Gal and I moved in together, I went to the supermarket and bought every flavor of ice cream in the freezer (our fridge had about 6-7 kinds at all times) and ate it for months. It was not wise and certainly not healthy, so I stopped after a while. Save your kids such struggles. Junk is OK as long as it is eaten in proportion.
8. Make the most of your meals at home - you never know what others add to the food, but you can guarantee that what your kids eat at home is healthy. I learned that from my mom who was a chef and told us what was added to the food to make it last longer and look better at restaurants and food factories.
9. Find a fresh food market and buy your family's food there - if the refrigerator is full of fruits and vegetables, the whole family will eat more fruits and vegetables. Take your kids shopping with you, teach them how to choose good food, let them pick their favorites and get them to wash and store the produce so they feel part of the process.
10. If you do not buy it, your kids will not eat it - if you do not want your kids to eat something, do not buy it. By the time they have enough money to do their own shopping, they will have healthy eating habits that will stop them buying junk even if they can afford it.

Come back next week for Ronit's Parenting Bible rules on babies.

Happy parenting!
Ronit

You may want to read

• How to Raise Food-Smart Kids
• The "Light Thinking" Diet
• Don’t eat and run

Nowadays, when we want to feel better, we need to make a lot of decisions ourselves. Ronit and I have been asked by doctors if we wanted antibiotics or which medication we preferred. With free samples from pharmaceutical companies, medical insurance companies presenting the cheapest providers as "Members' Choice" and other underhanded dealings going on, we can no longer trust anyone else to keep us fit and healthy. It is up to us.

If this is not enough, the links between different parts of our body and between our mind and body, recognized by so many ancient cultures, seem to be largely ignored by modern medicine. Instead of keeping us healthy and focusing on preventing disease, most doctors and hospitals treat our symptoms and often destroy other parts of us in the process. If we want to stay in good shape, we need to avoid having symptoms.

You may object to this line of thought and say, "But what do I know about medicine? What do I know about drugs and chemicals? How can I ever treat myself?"

Well, do you drink coffee or tea? When you wake up in the morning, do you have a cup "to wake up"? That is chemistry and those are self-prescribed drugs you are taking. They may be mild, but if you did not feel their effect, you would stop using them.

Do you smoke? Can you feel the hit of nicotine? It is the same thing - giving your body a chemical boost to feel more energetic. With cigarettes, you can feel the benefits and you can feel the damage, but you still do it.

Something as innocent as chocolate is used by billions of people around the world as an antidepressant. They believe it works well for them, despite the side effects of gaining weight and possibly developing diabetes.

I would even go as far as saying that sugar is used as the drug of choice by children all around the world and many adults. It makes them more energetic for a little while, so they "just eat something sweet when I need a boost", but the overuse ruins many other bodily functions and, again, directly increases the chance of diabetes.

Alcohol, anyone? It will help you relax. It will also damage your liver, but you still drink it.

When we lived in Thailand, I worked with a Baha'i man. He did not drink coffee, tea or alcohol and he did not smoke. He most definitely did not take any drugs. He fasted for a day every 19 days. He told me the Baha'i philosophy is to use nothing that affects the mind and to clean the body regularly from toxins in order to stay fit, healthy and in control of mental faculties always.

And my friend was one of the healthiest, most relaxed, friendliest and happiest people I have ever met because of his physical habits, as well as his faith and spiritual practice.

But even my Baha'i friend ate food that contained spices. Any Chinese or Indian healer will tell you about the power of garlic, ginger, ground pepper, turmeric and various other spices. Once, when I was really sick, my meditation teacher gave me 4 tea bags with spices in them (cardamom, ginger, licorice, cinnamon and rose petals) and I recovered within hours!

To supplement or not to supplement, that is the question

1. We must take responsibility for our own health, because nobody else will do it
2. We must take responsibility for our children's health, because it is part of the "job description" and they are important to us
3. We understand that being healthy is a prerequisite to doing well at school and at work, to staying alive longer and to enjoying life
4. We live a lifestyle that is faster than ever and far more stressful, which is bad for our health
5. We eat food made to taste good, not to be nutritious, which means that most of us do not get what we need out of it
6. We need to prevent physical and mental issues and keep ourselves balanced, rather than treat symptoms
7. We already use chemicals to overcome our challenges and we are typically aware of their effects (good and bad) on our body and mind

So why not use food supplements?

Ronit and I have stumbled across various food supplements and found some of them beneficial. We are not experts yet and we are still searching for a way to balance what we eat, how we live and what we get out of supplements, particularly without breaking the bank (just in case, please see our disclaimer).

So far, we have found Vitamin C to help relieve colds and B Complex to be relaxing. Magnesium helps relax muscles and Zinc helps hair grow. They can all be taken in excess, there are differences in the quality of the supplements and there are problems we still have not completely eliminated.

We have struggled with the term "natural" for supplements that come in a plastic capsule or packed in a pill that looks like it is made from chalk. We have started and stopped taking supplements and tested the effects on our energy level, our digestion and our mood. We have compared brands and prices and looked into switching to organic food vs. the cost and accessibility of supplements.

We have found a list of superfoods (more superfoods), like apples, blueberries, turmeric and cinnamon and started putting more of them in our food (much to our children's delight, because they love blueberries). We also tried Kephir. Some of these were cheap and easy to get, but some were rare and/or very expensive.

Most importantly, we have felt horrible about the idea of taking pills and swallowing huge capsules, because we grew up linking that with being sick and taking medication. What is the point of taking something to feel better physically and worse emotionally?

So I wanted to start a discussion today. I wanted to get all the parents who read this blog to work together on this and share our thoughts, knowledge and experiences with supplements for the benefit of everyone else, especially for our kids.

Are you with me?

So post your take on food supplements in the comment box:

1. Do you think we should use supplements?
2. Should we give them to our kids on a regular basis to keep them healthy?
3. What do you currently do and how is it working for you?
4. Are natural supplements better than artificial ones?
5. Can you trust supplements to be truly natural?
6. Do you or your kids have any health challenges you believe could be solved with supplements, but you do not know which?

Happy, healthy life,
Gal

You may want to read

• The "Light Thinking" Diet
• The Wonders of Ritalin
• Topsy Turvy World (2)

I had this conversation with a friend of mine who is a health fanatic. You may ask yourself what a "health fanatic" is and my answer is that it is someone who is very conscious about health, but so conscious it is not healthy…

I became health conscious when my daughter Eden was 18 months old and a very sick girl and only a change in our eating habits brought her breathing back to normal and made her a healthy girl again. Since then, she has hardly ever gotten sick (and she is 21 years old now).

Do not get me wrong, I think that eating healthy is beneficial. However, as a life coach, I totally reject the idea of creating fear in kids' mind about the dangers of junk food because "we are what we eat". Instead, I believe that "we are what we think" (about eating, among other things). I think it is more damaging to think that our food is an enemy than to eat junk food and be happy. I am not a junk-eater myself, but I think that junk food can provide something good for the soul that no healthy food can (freedom of choice, good taste, instant satisfaction, etc).

Anyway, I had this discussion with my friend and she brought up the topic to convince her three kids to eat healthy food. I think she thought that because we were a fruits-and-vegetables kind of family and I preferred healthy food I would back her up and support her argument, so she asked for my opinion. It was very hard for me to do it, but I could not tell a lie (especially not in front of my own kids) so that question backfired on her.

I am telling you this because I think that if you are not careful, you will have that conversation with your kids one day and it is better to be prepared.

She said to me, "Look around you. There are more sick people than there ever were. The food we are eating is not nutritious enough. There is too much antibiotics in meat, too much processed food and too much cancer. People are dying because of extra use of chemicals in their life. What's your opinion?"

I had to make a decision on the spot. I knew she wanted me to support her for her kids to recognize it as something "all mothers think", not just her being fanatic. The problem was that it was just her being fanatic.

I said, "Really?! I am looking around and I'll tell you what I see. My dad is 77 years old and he is a pretty healthy person. My mom is 71 years old and loves doctors and medication. 6 years ago, she came to visit us and we travelled around the North Island of New Zealand for 12 days. We spent most of the day on our feet and even trekked (with then 3-year-old Noff) for about 6 hours. My mom did very well and she was 65 then. My dad did even better than she did and he was 72 years old. I am looking around and what I see is that those sick people who eat junk, food that is not nutritious enough, consume too much antibiotics with their meat and gobble up cancer-inducing processed food, those people live longer".

Ouch!

Before you think I am crazy, here are the facts:

• In Australia
  • Life expectancy in 1965 was 69.70
  • Life expectancy in 1985 was 75.63
  • Life expectancy in 1995 was 77.08
  • Life expectancy in 2005 was 80.63
  • Life expectancy in 2010 was 81.50
• · In the USA
  • Life expectancy in 1965 was 70.21
  • Life expectancy in 1895 was 74.56
  • Life expectancy in 1995 was 75.62
  • Life expectancy in 2005 was 77.71
  • Life expectancy in 2010 was 78.30

(Source: NationMaster)

I hope you see how increasing this is.

My question to my friend was, "How come when we had little or no technology, we did not pollute the air and the water, we did not 'abuse' the soil and take all the nutrients out of it, we lived less?"

In the past, people lived very short lives. Mothers died often while giving birth. In 1900, men lived to 48.3 years of age on average and women to 46.3. They died from a simple flu because someone sneezed next to them (penicillin was only invented/discovered in 1928) and by the age of 30, most of them had no teeth!

In 1950, only 50 years later, people could see their grandkids already, because males lived to 71.1 and women lived to 65.6. Babies still died at birth without their mothers drinking processed milk and eating at MacDonald's and every tumor was a death sentence.

(Source: Life expectancy in the USA)

If you want a great visual representation of the changes in life expectancy (and other things) through the years, check out this interactive map (switch the X axis to "Time", select your country and click "Play").

This is the life expectancy around the world in 1800 (only 210 years ago):

People all around the world died between 25 and 40 years old on average.

This is the life expectancy in 1960 (only 50 years ago):

People in some countries (USA, Europe) did much better than others (Asia, Africa).

This is the life expectancy in 2009 (last year):

200 years ago, there were countries with less than 40 years life expectancy and now there is no country with less than 40. In fact, other than African countries and Afghanistan (mainly due to wars), the life expectancy in the world is higher than 60 year! The Chinese (the big red circle) climbed from 32 to 73 years (2.28 times the lifespan) in the past 50 years, while being exposed to junk food, fast life and Western technology.

I suggest you do not try my friend's trick on your kids. They are computer savvy and they will you out in a flash.

I believe it is the food we eat that makes our kids strong and healthy and allows them to live long enough to go to university, learn science and technology and innovate to make food more useful to the body, so their kids will grow to be strong and healthy and smart and start studying at universities even later (maybe only when they are 40 years old) and have some life experience before they innovate and find ways to increase life expectancy even more…

I do not know about you, but I think I will go for some junk food tonight…

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The "Light Thinking" Diet
• Supplement Your Life
• In Excess

"Scissors?" she asked me, really surprised, "You keep scissors in the kitchen?"

Since many bags and packages have a little drawing of scissors on them, I assumed the best tool to use was scissors. I thought everyone had a pair in the kitchen too, but I guess not.

"What do you do when you need to open a sealed bag or cut the corner of a milk carton?" I asked her.

"I use a knife", she said to me with that "Isn't that obvious?" look, "And sometimes with my teeth…"

The first time I saw scissors in the kitchen as an essential tool was at Gal's mum's kitchen. She was a very practical woman and I admired her and decided to do the same. In our house, there are always scissors in the cutlery drawer. Everything I need to open, I cut with scissors. It is easily available and for a long time, I thought scissors were for opening things.

During the past month, my kids decided to experiment with the scissors. This is wonderful with kids - they see you using something one way for a long time and still experiment and find different uses for it. At least my kids are not afraid to try different things. When I worked for 4 years in the Creative Thinking project, we showed the kids various things and asked them to find as many ways to use them as they could. Anyway, at home, I did not ask the kids to look for different things to do with scissors, it just happened and I think they liked the idea so much they became creative with the use of scissors in the kitchen.

It started when Eden fried some meat for a salad. When it came out of the pan, she took the scissors and cut the meat to tiny pieces. The pieces came out equal in size and everyone was impressed.

Two days later, I asked Noff to bring me some spring onion from the garden and wanted to put it in the salad. She went to the drawer, took out the scissors, picked the onions, washed them and chopped them with scissors into the salad. I think she had so much fun she put more spring onion than she would have if she had cut it with a knife (spring onion is not one of her favorite foods).

One day, Noff's friend came over and they made a cheese twisties (puff pastry filled with cheese and spices, twisted and baked to perfection). They were having lots of fun preparing the sheets of pastry and then Tsoof brought some scissors and they cut the sheets with scissors. Did you know that cutting puff pastry with scissors is very easy? It is. Any kid can do it.

Using scissors in the kitchen is a great tool for young children that need to develop their fine motor skills. You see, instead of always cutting paper, they can cut other things and it is especially fun to cut food.

You can use scissors for:

1. Cutting dough to equal portions
2. Opening food packages
3. Cutting toasted bread as croutons for a salad
4. Cutting small cubes of cheese for a salad or for the kids' lunch
5. Slicing pizza
6. Cutting lettuce for a salad
7. Cutting dough to fit your pan
8. Chopping spring onions
9. Cutting celery for a Waldorf Salad - comes out even and beautiful
10. Clipping the edges off beans - safer and much more fun than using a knife
11. Slicing meat to small pieces - no need to clean a cutting board later
12. Making interesting puff pastry or cookie dough shapes
13. Trimming the fat off meat
14. Chopping sundried tomatoes or pickles to small chunks for a salad
15. Cutting fresh lemon grass for tea

I know there are some special scissors for the kitchen, but I use simple scissors - no brand name, the same ones I use to cut paper. They work great and if when they get dirty, I put them in the dishwasher.

Do you have scissors in the kitchen?

Ronit

You may want to read

• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Food
• Quality Time: How to Have Fun with Your Kids
• Quality Time: The Gift of Your Presence

Making dinner is one particular task that takes lots of energy. I have heard many parents saying they come home at the end of a working day and start making dinner. As you know, if you do not buy fresh meat just before you cook it, you may need to take it out of the freezer and wait for it to thaw or spend valuable time to defrost it in the microwave or in tons of running water.

One tip I have found very useful was to take the frozen meat (or chicken) out of the freezer just before I go to bed. Usually, putting it in the refrigerator is enough to thaw it for the following day.

The idea of thinking the night before worked very well for me, but it was still not perfect. One of "the girls" reminded me that although the meat is thawed by dinnertime, many recipes require the meat (or chicken) to be marinated for at least half an hour before cooking or frying and longer is better. She remarked on it extending the length of making dinner by the marinating time.

So I said, "Well, before you put it in the freezer, you can marinate it so that when you need to fry it, roast it or cook it, you do not need to wait for it to marinate for half an hour".

The next day, I decided to use my own tip and it worked like magic. I bought meat and chicken for 4 or 5 meals, marinated them, split them into meal portions, stored them in clean plastic bags, wrote on each bag what was in it with a permanent marker and the date and put everything in the freezer.

When the time came, I took each bag out of the freezer, let it thaw and cooked it when it was time to make dinner without having to wait, because it was already very well marinated. Not only did that save me time but the taste was great!

Yesterday, at 5pm, I woke up from my work (I was focused on finishing an article) and said, "Oh, I forgot dinner!" When I got into the kitchen, I found a plastic bag with thawed, marinated chicken in it. It took me 5 minutes to put it in a tray and shove it in the oven. An hour late, the kids set the table for dinner, I made some salad and it took us a total of 10-15 minutes to prepare dinner (while the chicken was in the oven, I went back to finish my article).

We have been marinating our meat for over a year now and to my (initial) surprise, because the meat was marinated for a long time while freezing and thawing, it came out both delicious and tender.

Marinate your meat before you freeze it.

It takes less time to marinade 5 meals at once than each of them separately. You even save time washing the dishes you use.

Easy!

Good time management involves this kind of time saving trick. Marinating the meat as soon as we buy it is an easy and simple way to reduce meal preparation time, when everyone around is hungry and agitated, and have dinner ready in 15 minutes flat.

I hope you find this tip useful.

If you have household tips that other parents can use, use the comment box below to share with other parents and subscribe via RSS or email to get the next tips in this series.

Easy parenting,
Ronit

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This morning, I had a revelation!

You see, in our family, she is the odd one out. If you ask the older kids what is the best sandwich in the world, they will say, "A multigrain roll with tomatoes, lettuce, mayonnaise, avocado and alfalfa". If you ask Noff, she will say, "Nutella (chocolate spread), Jam or Fairy Floss (Cotton Candy)".

It is scary for me as a mother to watch her eat.

"Why would you put this poison in your body?" I ask her.

"Because it tastes great", she says with gleaming eyes.

This week, we discussed food and Noff said, "I think junk is very tasty, especially if it's sweet and colorful". She is very smart and summed up her desire in one sentence - junk + sweet + colorful = great food. Everything that is sweet is good and if it has color, it is even better.

Unfortunately, she is allergic to food colors. I said to her it is unfortunate that a girl who loves colors so much (on her face, clothes, linen and even in her food) is sensitive to food colors, but her health is very important and since she wheezes after eating something with food colors, we must monitor what she eats.

This morning, Noff opened the freezer, took out frozen blueberries and ate them in the car on the way to school. Then, I had a revelation.

She ate the blueberries and was very happy and excited about their color.

"Look, Mom, when they are fresh, they are blue, but when they are frozen, they are almost purple", she said and played with a blueberry with her fingers. She was also happy to take a bite from one blueberry and discover it was white inside.

When I dropped her off at school, Noff asked me to take the empty blueberry bowl back home. "Look Mom, the whole bowl is colored purple-blue now", she said just seconds before she got out of the car, "I love blueberries".

She was very happy and I realized we did not always have blueberries in the freezer, because they are a bit on the expensive side. I usually buy them during special sales when I can find them cheaper. In our house, we eat lots of fruits and vegetables and I buy most of them at the market for a fifth of the price, so you can understand why blueberries have been rare for us.

On the way home, I stopped at the supermarket for my shopping. At our local supermarket, to make it easy for us to calculate the cost of things, they have started adding the price per 100gr at the bottom of each price tag. Blueberries cost $1.30 per 100gr, but as I passed next to the colorful candy section, where Noff would love to spend her days if I let her, I checked the prices and was shocked to discover that 100g of sweets cost $3.20 - junk for 2½ times the healthy stuff.

And I thought blueberries were expensive.

Raspberries are red,
Blueberries are blue,
Mangoes are yellow,
And I'll buy them for you

They may cost a lot,
But they're not as precious as you,
So I'll buy costly fruits
For the good that they do

I think this should be the Healthy Mother's Hymn. Don't you?

Before we say goodbye, please help build a healthy parenting community that raises healthy kids.

The 2009 Weblog Awards voting is now open. Please vote for Family Matters as the Best Parenting Blog by clicking the banner below and then clicking the next to my nomination comment to give me your vote. Every vote counts, so please vote and ask all your friends too!

Here's to raising healthy kids!
Ronit

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Here is how the story "Bojé’s magic powder" was born (I have changed the names to keep people's privacy).

Mary was one of my first coaching clients. One of her goals was to get into one of the education organizations and as an action step, she volunteered at the Eating Disorders Association as a secretary. Naturally, we started talking about diets. I hate talking about diets, but Mary told me about the holy work thee association did with anorexic girls and I learned that anorexia was an epidemic. Mary showed me that one out of 3 girls fast during their high school years in order to lose weight.

One out of three girls? That seemed too many. What about my daughters? I would not want them to be part of this statistic. I love them so much.

"Girls today fast to look like celebrities or cover magazine girls, even though the pictures they see are all touched up", Mary said.

"What a shame", I said, "Maybe if they knew the devastating outcome, they would act differently, but hey, people know the outcome of eating junk food and they still eat it. Maybe that is not enough. Well, I cannot blame them. I would want to look like a magazine cover girl and I do not even buy magazines. I only glance at them at the supermarket checkout and I hardly watch TV. Mary, can you explain this?"

"It was planted repeatedly in us since we were babies. Girls are destined to suffer bad body image. From the age of 3, when they go to buy toys, girls' toys are all about beauty and looking good", Mary said.

She was right! I had even bought my 4-year-old daughter her own makeup set so she would not use mine.

"I wish we could weigh our ideal weight without having to diet", I said.

Mary started talking about the concept of "ideal weight", but my mind was already looking for a solution. "Maybe a pill that gets rid of the fat and we can take it as long as we need? I hate pills. They make me feel sick. How about a powder that makes us skinnier the more we eat it. Yes, I like it! I would make it tasty, so people would love the powder".

"20 years ago, the ideal weight was higher than today", Mary said, "Did you know that Marilyn Monroe had the perfect ideal weight at 75kg? The ideal weight today is only about 55kg".

"Well, that means that in 20 years, when my magic powder will be invented, the average person will be even skinnier", I thought, "What will happen in 100 years? Wow, people will be so skinny! Is it good? Karen Carpenter was anorexic. She died so young from anorexia… What a shame! She was such a talented singer and though she overcame anorexia, her heart failed".

"So many girls die from anorexia today", Mary continued and I imagined a world where everyone was skinny and sick.

"Interesting, what if it happened the other way around - a skinny world trying to gain weight? Well, if we continue like this, people will wake up one day and realize that losing weight is not that appealing and then the cycle will change and people will start trying to gain weight. This could continue forever - 100 years of fat people dying from heart attacks and 100 years of skinny people dying from heart attacks… I like this idea! On the cover magazine, full figured women would be so attractive. I'm sure people would die of jealousy, but then I wouldn't have to diet and my daughters would be safe… Actually, would they be safe? How can I keep them safe from becoming too skinny? … That's it! I will keep them away from the powder, like I keep them now away from MSG. When I go to the Chinese shop, they sell Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) in bags. Not small containers. Big bags! Only those who are health conscious or have allergies or sickness avoid them. This is how I'd keep them safe! The powder would make them feel bad, just like the MSG makes my daughter have Asthma attacks".

"There is a whole industry of diets which brain washes people to think something is wrong with them", Mary kept going.

"Of course she's right. Maybe diets were created for health reasons, but people lost track along the way. I'm sure the creators of diets had good intentions… Well, I'm not so sure. Why would anyone come up with that horrible powder? Maybe to save his obese wife or sister… But then, maybe the powder killed another family member, like Nobel with his dynamite invention… He had good intentions that turned bad…"

"Kids today don't even know what their food is made of", Mary said.

"Funny, I know a 5-year-old who was asked what bread was made of as part of an IQ test. I'm sure some 5-year-olds today, although they have so much more knowledge, don't know what bread is made of… There are so many reports saying kids do not eat fruits and vegetables… In 100 years, they won't even know what fruits and vegetables are… I wonder how life would be, raising kids on food without knowing its ingredients… Well, we do not have to wait 100 years, even now people look for processed food that looks good, heated fast and they do not even bother to look at the ingredient… what if we did live in a world where people order food that looks good and they do not know what it is made of… oh, yes, it will be full of this magic powder that is killing them slowly… poor guy, I do not envy the guy who invented it… interesting idea… what an experience it would be for people in the future to try the original ingredients, fruits, vegetables, grains… after 100 years of eating this powder, it probably changed their taste buds… it is not that far away from now, My mom used to cook with Tamarind in Iran a lot and I tasted Tamarind first time in my life when I was 30 and it happened only because I lived in Thailand… if I tasted a dish with Tamarind I would have never guessed it as one of the ingredients… well, maybe we lose track of the original flavors… what if everything was synthetic?... we sure go there very fast… no, it won't even take 100 of years…"

"Think about it. You walk down the street and almost every woman you see is preoccupied with her body image", Mary says.

"Almost every woman? That's scary!" I looked around. We were sitting in the balcony, having dips and olive with a great Turkish bread. "Women are preoccupied with their body even when they do not walk on the streets… I need to enjoy my food if I want to be healthy… My God! I'm not sure what's worse, trying to lose weight or to gain weight… From what Mary says, it seems harder to gain weight, yet it goes together with gaining the joy of life…"

"I like this story I've just thought about. I think it delivers an important massage… Who will play each part best? Who will be my characters?"

"Shelly, the woman who introduced me to healthy eating, should be the mother. With her short hair and vast knowledge, she would be the perfect woman for that part… Sean, my wonderful student, will be her son. I like him so much. He is so perfect for the part, so sensitive and loving. I won't write anything about his hair style so no one will recognize him… Maybe I'll mention his hair style in another story… He will be a good friend to his sister… Who can play his sister's part? Rebecca, my high school friend. She has so many siblings and always talked about them with so much love and affection… And the cover girl? Who will be my cover girl?"

I think I will keep the cover girl a secret!

Here is a sneak peek into "Bojé’s Magic powder".

Happy reading,
Ronit

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I know it seems farfetched to think about allergies and emotions in the same sentence, but human beings are mind-body (psychosomatic) creatures, in which a chemical (like caffeine) can cause anxiety and stress can wear out the immune system and open the gates for disease.

Let's take stomach acid as an example. Stomach acid is easily associated with a busy schedule, having lots of concurrent tasks and being mostly late for something. Sure, it does not help when your eating habits are irregular or that you overdose on coffee, but the pressure itself will also manifest in your heartburn and your ulcer.

Using the spinal massage and pressure points treatment with coffee or acid will only cure you half way. To get rid of the rest of your acidity, you must also unlink it from emotional triggers like stress.

A few weeks back, our family talked around the dinner table about the changes in our life since the allergy treatment and realized it had been great, but we still had some issues. The biggest was that Noff reacted to the water in pools and in our spa. We had treated one another at home with great results, but decided it was time to visit our therapist again.

So there we were, Ronit, Noff and I. Michael detected and cured Noff of her allergy to chlorine and other water chemicals in 15 minutes flat and he hopped off the table. It was my turn.

"Michael, last time, you treated me for acid and related allergens, but I still feel 'acidic'. Do you mind checking again?" I asked.

"OK", he said, "But let's check if there's an emotional component this time".

"What?!" I nearly fell off the treatment table.

"Yeah, just hold your left hand on your forehead while I test you", said Michael, "This will take the emotions out of the equation - short circuit them, if you will - and show me if you are still sensitive only to the chemicals being tested".

Lo and behold, my right arm stayed locked firm while my left hand was on my forehead, but as soon as I dropped my left hand, I could not lock my right arm in place anymore.

"It's something emotional", Michael explained, "Emotions can trigger allergic reactions, you know. I've seen it lots of time. It's funny, but I've even seen couples who fought a lot and tested as being sensitive to each other's touch".

Ronit and I had a little chuckle at the last bit, but found the idea of emotional allergies (or allergy-like symptoms) interesting - weird and useful at the same time.

My treatment was similar to the testing. I simply held my left hand to my forehead while holding a vial of acid to my stomach in my right hand and Michael did his spinal massage and pressure points stimulation. It was as simple as before and apparently as effective.

I could not hold myself back any longer. "Michael", I asked, "Given the success of your treatment on our family and the good number of friends we've referred to you, I'm surprised this is still such a big secret. How come curing allergies isn't on the front page of magazines?"

"Well", he said, "I first saw this treatment on TV, actually. One of the daily consumer shows did a piece on a new clinic in the city, which was offering allergy-curing treatments. They were out to debunk them and sent a reporter to investigate.

When the reporter showed up, the people from the clinic were very excited and open and showed in detail how they were treating people. During the making of the TV report, a good number of people were treated and said they felt better.

A month later and again after 6 months, the reporter interviewed those people again and found that they were 80-90% cured and very happy with the results. The TV people were very surprised and the clinic got some free publicity, which is how I found out about it.

So I contacted an older naturopath and he told me he'd been doing it for years. I went and learned it from him right away and started offering it to my own clients.

After some time, I was so excited about the results I was getting myself, I started talking to anyone who'd listen about this wonderful allergy-curing technique I'd learned, but they all had the same reaction - complete denial - even at serious naturopathic conferences, where people came to learn new things. They just said, 'Allergies can't be treated and I already have a good way to help people deal with their allergies anyway' and wouldn't hear anymore.

Talking to my mentor again, he said this is why he had given up talking about it. He said that he only told people about it if they asked."

If you look at the first comment I got on Curing Allergies, you will see exactly how this works. A person who called himself "Rod" used very harsh words towards me for misleading people, although I was sharing personal experience. Without knowing anything about me or what had happened to me, he was confident enough to call me a liar.

You see, the mind is a powerful thing. It can cause allergies and it can cause people to deny reality, even when it is good for them to accept it.

So open your mind to the possibility that this treatment may actually work for you and your kids. Imagine the big difference in the life of your kids between growing up with allergies and restrictions and growing up breathing freely, having smooth skin and feeling great.

What have you got to lose?

Healthy parenting,
Gal

Michael had several books in his library about curing allergies. I have provided links to these books for your benefit, should you choose to do it yourself. If you live in the Brisbane area and you want Michael's contact details, please let us know

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