Nourished Magazine :: Wisdom to thrive by

There’s hardly a point of discussion that brings up more angst than this one. How do we ensure our children are well Nourished when it seems the whole world is out to corrupt them? What do we do when they don’t want to eat what we think is best for them? How much control is too much control? Can we trust their choices will grow a taste for good healthy foods? What do we do when our friends and family, schools and entertainment are offering them food choices that we consider not Nourishing or even damaging?

nour·ish (nûrsh, nr-)
1. To provide with food or other substances necessary for life and growth; feed.
2. To foster the development of; promote: “Athens was an imperial city, nourished by the tribute of subjects” (V. Gordon Childe).
3. To keep alive; maintain: nourish a hope.
Originating from Latin Nutrire which means to feed or suckle

Beginning with the central reason we take food into our bodies: to Nourish ourselves: “to provide with food or other substances necessary for life and growth”. The needs of a 50 year old meditation teacher are very different from the needs of a swiftly growing 6 year old or a rapidly changing, physically active 16 year old.

Our attitude to the reason we eat is reflected by our actions and inevitably influences our children. If we focus on the real reason we eat, no doubt they will too. If we use food to control our emotions, treat food as drug, overeat or undereat to temporarily change our awareness, they will too. If we are clear that food is for Nourishment, they will be too.

What Are We Nourishing?

What do we intend to “foster the development of; promote”? And what will the choices we make in this moment create in a future moment?

Connecting with Nature

My favourite game as a child was one we called Witch’s Brew. My sister and I would procure as many different ingredients as we could find in our garden and solemnly mix them with water in a pot we kept behind the water tank. As we added each ingredient we talked about it’s magical qualities and what it would help us create. We made up poems and whispered childish spells over our cauldron which gave us a mysterious power over of our imaginary world. It may have been imaginary but this game certainly Nourished (developed) my love of nature and connection with her bounty. When we pretended to drink the concoction we were re-enacting the alchemy our mother performed in the kitchen every day.

Children love to play. Children love to create. When food is being prepared and served, we can share the fun: we can focus on the beautiful, strong body we are creating; we can talk about how this food was grown; and the love that we put into it as we prepare it and how it will help us make our bodies. We can imagine the connections between us and our Great Mother Earth through the food she gives us. Our children may guide us in choosing the best way to describe and play act this alchemy. Some may like to talk about the powers the food will give them, others might like to imagine gifts that spirits and fairies have left for them in the ingredients we’re using. It helps to grow some foods so children can be part of every stage of this magical process.

Being Together

The world over, eating together is how we commune. There is no denying the feeling of abundance and connection that a group of people sharing a spread of delicious food brings. When children eat alone, they miss out on this feeling. Feeding children before the adults or relegating them to the children’s table and feeding them different foods to adults denies them one of the gifts of Nourishment - togetherness. If each person shares in the same meal, they each take on the energy of that meal, connecting them with each other and with nature through the food.

Taking a moment before eating to acknowledge connection with each other and to thank the food for its life is one way to Nourish togetherness. Asking that each person at least try everything on their plate is another. That way everyone present has honoured each ingredient used for the meal which now is part of their body as it is everyone else’s. If a child doesn’t like everything on their plate, that’s fine, they can have more of what they do like and later some equally Nourishing dessert. Home made ice-cream, custard or smoothie made from raw dairy, free range pastured eggs and rapadura are tasty and Nourishing options.

As children grow, they will begin to eat communally with other children. This is a difficult issue: we are called to balance connection with protection and teach our children how to do so. It is a balance we must attend to case by case. Leading by example, we can avoid commenting on other’s foods negatively and focus on sharing our own food and ideas with compassion. It is a risk that comparison and superiority - the ego’s favourite game - will rear its ugly head. Perhaps just naming the game is enough when we, our children or their friends head down the track of divisiveness.

Growing Diversity

Chinese traditional medicine practitioners know about the importance of taste. Each taste Nourishes each element or type of energy in the body. Sour Nourishes the Liver energy, Sweet the Spleen, Bitter the Heart, Salty the Kidney, Pungent the Lung energy. Too much or too little of each taste will weaken each energy and disturb the balance they have with each other. Talking about taste with our kids helps them to bring awareness to the complex conversation we all have with the foods we eat.

Children love the Sweet taste: they are designed to suckle sweet breast milk as babies. The sweet taste Nourishes the Spleen or digestive energy so it’s understandable that children favour this taste. Building a strong digestion is their body’s primary job in early years. Chinese medicine connects the digestion with the nervous system, learning and thinking. A lack of this flavour will leave wanting the development of the brain and gut, and hence their ability to ‘digest life’. However, excess sweet taste causes weakness. Many people believe sweet food is children’s food. Kids eat lollies and that’s that. It is true that children love the sweet taste and can consume much more than adults before they become satiated of the desire. Giving them nutrient dense sweet foods will help them reach satiation naturally. Refined sugar will only cause addiction.

Considering the wisdom of Chinese Medicine, excess sweet food will cause weakness and lassitude in the body and mind.

Weak Spleen energy causes:

• Easy bruising - lack of strong but supple boundaries in the capillaries,
• Prolapse of organs - the Spleen’s holding energy is compromised,
• Allergies - weepy, snotty over-reactivity of the immune system due to weak boundaries

People with weak Spleen energy lack strong emotional boundaries, suffer from weakened will, laziness and cowardice. They lack the very attributes they need to resist the temptation of many modern non-foods, not to mention drug and emotional addiction, moral ambiguity and spiritual apathy. In fact, it is this very weakness in the body which causes desire for more and more Spleen weakening foods. Focusing on strengthening the spleen in childhood will immunise our children from many modern ills. Fortunately, animal foods such as quality pasture raised eggs and chicken, pork and raw dairy foods taste sweet and strengthen the Spleen more than other sweet foods. So you can have your cake and eat it - as long as it’s not always cake.

Guiding them gently to build other tastes is a long process. The order in which children develop tastes differs for each child but generally they develop in this order: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent. Very young children don’t tend to want pungent food but ask any Thai mother and they’ll tell you they get used to it.

As an infant begins to be interested in food, they may reach for your plate. Encouraging them to try all different tastes at an early age will help with taste diversity later. If you’re eating foods that an infant can easily digest, this will only Nourish them. When a child’s teeth reflect their readiness to eat grains (they have molars) they can eat bread. Before this time, it may help to avoid it as a main food.

Using play will help encourage children to become used to different tastes. Talking about what the taste’s colour is will engage a 4 year old. Taking imaginative journeys into the body with the taste as they eat it will help older children. Using the Chinese guide and explaining the special powers each taste energy have will begin many wonderful conversations with any child over 8. Make it up. Who knows your intuition will probably be right: Brussel Sprouts just may make your blood shine with a glow that we can see on the outside.

Teenagers will agree that balancing all the tastes will, like a mixed farm or biologically diverse eco-system, ensure a stronger, more sustainable body.

The Tangled Web

We don’t exist in a vacuum. There are many influences our children will assimilate into their vision of the world. How do we deal with what we may see as destructive influences without causing harm ourselves? How do we protect and not suppress? And how do we remain a part of our community without diluting our choices?

Gifting

Often children are given food as ‘treats’ from well meaning friends and family. It is a very strange custom to offer as a ‘treat’ a refined sweetened food that is little more than poison. How do we acknowledge the gift without offending but at the same time, protect our children from the damage such non-foods can do?

When children are very young, friends and family need to be approached gently and away from the situation. Sharing our preferences and requesting their support is tough but failing to do so will inevitably cause disharmony which will more likely be placed upon the shoulders of the children. Suggesting other gifts and treats that are made with unrefined sweeteners will go a long way to helping those who support us to align with our wishes.

As they grow, children will be exposed to non-foods more and more. We can take each opportunity to teach the importance of choosing life affirming foods. Using stories and pictures to explain the damage refined sugar or vegetable oil do to the body for example, will help. My children know I’m a Super Hero. My pseudonym is The Nourisher - whose arch enemy - The Junk Food Giant - is set to take over the world. We have an agreement that when the Junk Food Giant comes to them (they are offered junk) they will thank the person offering for the gift but decline the food. They then come home and tell The Nourisher what they did. A big victory celebration ensues, culminating in The Nourisher concocting some healthy home made sweet treat and rewarding them for their bravery. This game is a lot of fun. By the way, you’re welcome to borrow the name. It’s only imaginary anyway: The Nourisher’s greatest victory will be when each family on the planet has a Super Hero wielding their powers of Nourishment to support the other Super Heroes in their family and field of influence.

Older children can be encouraged to make their own sweet treats to share with their friends and family. Gifting is a two-sided game, and treats made by hand will mean so much more than rubbish bought at a shop.

Culture is something we create together. As parents, we can create the culture we wish our children to be Nourished by. We can choose those aspects of our common culture we wish to expose our children to and we have to right to protect them from those aspects we don’t. At the very least we can educate them of the consequences of their choices, tempering our cautions with positive messages about life affirming decisions. Relying on children to choose from the common culture what is best for them is not appropriate. It is neglectful to leave our children to decide what choices are best for themselves. Not the least of which reasons for this is the fact that our bodies are not sophisticated enough to discern between real food and chemically concocted corporate trickery. We need to ask ourselves, where does our responsibility stop?

Power

Whew! Big issue here. How many times has The Nourisher been accused of over-controlling food choices, causing emotional damage to children by denying friends and family the ‘right’ to poison them? Countless, my friends, countless. How many times have my children adamantly refused to eat what is on their plate? Quite a few.

The important thing to remember is that a well Nourished person needs not control. When a person is playing power games, they are not getting what they need. Rather than engage in battle, we can find out what a child really needs when they are making a grab for power. Many children, especially those between 4 and 10 years old, want to assert more control over their food. They may refuse to try new foods or cry every time they sit down to dinner. Adding to their already distressed state by punishing or controlling them will not Nourish their needs. We can find out what their needs are and work with them to get them met. Younger children may respond to play, older children may enjoy leading the rest of the family in food choices. But all children will enjoy being involved in making the food, taking on more and more responsibility as they grow. If they know what they’re eating, they’re more likely to enjoy eating it.

The same goes with family and friends. Often they need to share with your children and food is a great way to do this. While neither we parents, nor our children should be responsible for others’ needs and feelings of rejection when they’re not met, we have needs too. Acknowledging their needs and stating our own will go a long way to bringing peace but giving in to others’ insistence will only cause resentment.

Self Nourishment

As children grow into adults, they are able to make more of their own decisions around food. There comes a time when they are exposed to many different types of food and food-like substances. Now comes the real test: if they have learned that food affects their body; if they’ve spent time inside their body, feeling the effect of different foods; if they understand the needs of their physical form and have respect for it; surely they will be guided to the best choices. They’ll watch their friends treat food as a hole filler or a drug. They’ll witness wicked marketing techniques designed to control their bodies and its desires. There will come a time when we will withdraw from responsibility for food choices and our children will confidently stride into the world, trusting their ability to create strength, abundance and peace through the alchemy of eating.

Animal Food

It is fashionable, at the moment, to eat a more vegetable based diet. While this may be apropriate for a full grown human with a more sedentary lifestyle such as our 50 year old meditator, it is not for growing children and fertile adults.

Every isolated, pre-industrial culture studied by Weston A Price early last century, from every region on the Earth, had particular sacred foods for children and fertility. All these foods were animal foods, high in animal fat and dense in fat soluble vitamins, cholesterol and minerals. Weston Price found groups of the same racial stock who had been exposed to modern foods (sugar, flour, vegetable oil and tea), suffered disease and growth retardation identical to those he observed in his ‘civilised’ countrymen.

By eating nutrient dense animal foods, our children will grow up with strong bones, cavity-free teeth, good immune systems, and balanced nervous systems and hormones. They won’t be prone to allergies, addiction or chronic disease all of which were unknown to our more Nourished ancestors. Examples of these nutrient dense foods are butter and raw milk from grass-fed cows, eggs from pasture-fed chickens, bone broths, seafoods and meat with its full contingent of fat. In short, our children need these foods to create their bodies in the way that their genetic blueprint dictates. Luckily, they love these foods very much.

Confusion comes when they come across children and adults who choose to not eat animals.

There is a risk that opposing attitudes may grow between animal eating families and vegetarian families (remember that children’s TV show, ‘Dinotopia’: the goodly, law abiding citizens within the city walls were vegetarian and the crass, base, ill-mannered outlaws ate meat).

Explaining to children the function of less dense, vegetable based diets as a natural expression of a more spiritually focussed life - or as a way to more easily affect one, as their religious inventors intended - will help them develop understanding and compassion for this choice.

As animal-eating people, we choose to create the physical form first, which is how we respect Nature and the ‘natural way of things’, as our ancestors did. We may later, naturally, as we enter the end of our life and no longer need to create or re-create the physical form, wish to diminish the denseness of our connection with matter and Nourish the spiritual. However, never will changing our diet make us closer to God, nor will abstinence from any natural desires. On the contrary, forcing nature to bend to our will only cause corruption. The history of our churches demonising sexuality and forcing abstinence and the consequence of this is a point in fact.

Making conscious choices as to how the animals we eat live and die and expressing gratitude for their part in the circle of life, helps to celebrate our choice to honour the physical AND the spiritual.

Praying with gratitude to the animal as we eat it, exposing children to traditional hunting and farming cultures and taking them to farms we get our animal foods from will lessen the ’separation between life and death’ which our culture imbibes in them.

Some children may not like the taste of some animal foods. Again, training tastes by asking that they at least try it and then giving them another nutrient dense option will make sure they’re Nourished.

What you Nourish Grows

“How do they become one flesh? As if she were gold receiving purest gold, the woman receives the man’s seed with rich pleasure, and within her it is nourished, cherished, and refined. It is mingled with her own substance and she then returns it as a child!” - St. John Chrysostom.

But the Nourishment doesn’t stop there. Think of the kitchen as the womb of the family. Children are continuously Nourished, cherished and refined until they are truly able to take full responsibility for their own Nourishment. We have given them the gift of consciously performing this incredible alchemical gift of recreation that is preparing and eating food, consciously becoming one flesh with all that is, over and over. This way, we all live a life of abundant meaning, where spirit and matter are one. Blessed Be.

About the Author...

Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).