• Visit the Food!  page for snacks, meals and juices (updated 8/7/07)

We teach our children good eating habits and limit refined products. Some things we avoid are white sugar, fake sugars, MSG, food colorings, and trans fats.

Not everyone in our family eats meat. But when buying meat we raise our own or buy free range, antibiotic, and hormone free meats.

We use farm fresh eggs and raise beef at my husbands parents farm. We raise it "organic" for meat. This spring we are raising our own hog for meat as well. In most areas there are farms that you can buy cows or hogs that are ready to butcher. You will need a freezer to store your meat in. Check in your area and ask around. Buying your own cow or hog is a good way to get healthy meat. You'll want to ask what vaccines, medicines and hormones, if any, your animal has received. You'll also want to find out how the animal is treated and tour the farm.

We emphasize the importance of all fruits, veggies and grains in our diets. I try and teach my family that meat does not need to be the center of the meal.

We never ever buy or offer soda drinks for the children. I do not drink soda at all and Ricky limits his soda intake. A couple times a year or so I may have a root beer, although I prefer real beer and drink that more often :)

We received an amazing juicer as a wedding gift and use it often. It will juice anything as well as grasses (wheatgrass) and makes nut butters.
We juice wheatgrass, beet, carrots and apples for immune heath. So far it has been working wonders and makes us feel great.

Vitamins and Supplements

I try to avoid taking anything synthetic, so we tend to buy whole food multi vitamins found at heath food stores. Same with prenatal or post natal vitamins. Whole food vitamins also tend to not cause pregnant women sickness when taking them.

We use New Chapter and Super Nutrition brands of vitamins. Natural Factor Vitamin C is a brand we like and trust. We love and live on Emergen- C packets. My favorite prenatal vitamin is Super Nutrition's brand.

I give our children Herbs For Kids tinctures. We use Water Oz minerals. A company that I've used for 8+ years. We also include flax oil, probiotics, spirulina and wheatgrass in our diets. My favorite probiotics is Udo's brand. Most everything we buy we buy from www.vitacost.com I notice a real savings from them compared to other places.

GARLIC:

We eat fresh garlic (even the kids!) for it's health benefits. It is a natural antibiotic properties. It can lower cholesterol, prevent blood clots, reduce blood pressure, prevent cancer, and protect against bacterial and fungal infections. It can kick colds, ear infections and almost any problem you have in the butt! The body does not appear to build up resistance to the garlic, so its positive health benefits continue over time. There are even stories of garlic being used to ward off the plague. It's not known how effective this was, however there is some evidence that anthrax is sensitive to garlic.

Garlic has been used medicinally for at least 3,000 years. According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Nov. 28, 1990;264:2614), the therapeutic roles of garlic have been described in more than 1,000 scientific studies.

Kids will be more likely to eat garlic or take supplements if they see you doing it first. Garlic is "hot" so have juice, applesauce or and orange slice to cool off little mouths (and yours!). I tell my kids it's hot because it burns away bad germs and sickness. My kids chew small pieces of a clove up and chase it with juice. We  also often chop it up very fine and put it in applesauce or a little honey.

Don't over do it. Garlic is strong and a really potent clove can burn even when it hits the stomach. Garlic in excess is probably even more harsh on little tummies. I give the kids garlic once a week if they are well. If they are sick I give it to them once a day or more. I try to take it a little more often.

 You could take it in capsule form but children may have a hard time. It's benefits are best if chewed and swallowed fresh. Anything fresh is going to be more potent.