It turns out that Nonna knows best!

It’s not surprising that grandmas have recognized all along that honey is an effective treatment for coughs. A study done at Pennsylvania State University confirms this. They found that honey offers parents an effective and safe alternative to over-the-counter children’s cough medicines.

The study found a small dose of honey (about a teaspoon) given before bedtime provided better relief of nighttime cough and sleep difficulty in children. The honey was found to be more effective than no treatment or even treatment with DM. DM is a cough suppressant found in many over-the-counter cold medications.

Honey did a better job reducing the severity and frequency of a nighttime cough than DM. Honey also showed a positive effect on the sleep quality of both the coughing child and the parents, who were not awaken during the night.

The study also found DM wasn’t any better at alleviating symptoms than not treating the cough, at all. The results are especially interesting since an FDA advisory board recommended over-the-counter cough and cold medicines not be given to children less than 6-years-old, because, of their lack of effectiveness and potential side effects.
                                                                                                                    Ally is a-buzz about honey!

Raw honey has been used for centuries to treat upper respiratory infection symptoms, like coughs, and is considered to be safe for children over 12- months-old.

Babies under a year shouldn’t consume honey. 

When bees collect nectar from flowers, they also pick up botulism spores which get mixed into their honey. Adults and children, more than a-year-old, have fully developed immune systems with intestinal bacteria which destroy the spores. Therefore, eating honey is not a problem for them.

But babies under a year have underdeveloped immune systems. A baby’s immature immune system provides a perfect environment for the spores to activate and unleash their toxin. So babies under 12 months should NOT consume honey.

For children over 12-months, raw honey has well-established antioxidant effects. Raw honey has not been pasteurized or filtered. Many of the phytonutrients, enzymes, and bee pollen found in honey are destroyed or lost with heat (pasteurization) and straining. Honey soothes on contact, which may help explain its effect on children with coughs.

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Sugar is produced from sugar cane or sugar beets. In the refining process all the vitamins, minerals, proteins, enzymes, and other beneficial nutrients have been stripped away. Simple sugars cause a drop in the ability of white blood cells to engulf bacteria, resulting in the suppression of the immune system.

People develop a craving for sweet tasting foods, especially little picky eaters. Skinny picky eaters may grow up to be overweight, as their favorite foods often have added sugars.

Several studies have shown an increase in the number of children diagnosed with type two diabetes. Until recently, only 1 to 2 percent to of children with diabetes had type two. Reports indicate up to 45 percent of children with newly diagnosed diabetes do NOT have type one. Type two diabetes is directly connected to the processed sugary foods people eat and is avoidable.

The average American consumes approximately 2½ pounds of sugar a week!
Kids eat more sugar then their parents.

Sugar is seductive as it may take years before sugar makes you overweight, ruins your pancreas, your adrenal glands, and throws your endocrine system out of whack. Sugar is included in most processed foods. It’s in everything from soup, to cereals, to ketchup, to lunch-meat.

In my book, Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater,” there are practical solutions on how to avoid sugar. First, you must become familiar with all it’s aliases. Buy the Book at the Baby Bites Store Now! Click Here

Sugar is listed on the nutrition label under 40 different names!

Various Names For Sugar Commonly Found in Processed Foods:

• Amaske (brown rice)
• Barley malt (grain)
• Beet sugar (root)
• Brown rice syrup (grain)
• Brown sugar
• Cane juice
• Confectioners’ sugar
• Corn sweetener (grain)
• Corn syrup (grain)
• Date sugar (fruit)
• Dextrose
• Fructooliosaccharides (fruit)
• Fructose (fruit)
• Fruit juice concentrate (fruit)
• Galactose
• Glucose
• Granulated sugar
• High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) — If you were to avoid only one sugar, HFCS would be the one! According to physicians Mehmet Oz and Michael Roisen, high-fructose corn syrup is the worst sweetener added to our food supply. In their book, “You: The Owner’s Manual…,” they state: “One of the biggest evil influences on our diet is the presence of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a sugar substitute that itself is a sugar found in soft drinks and many other sweet, processed foods. The problem is that HCFS inhibits leptin secretion, so you never get the message that you’re full. And it never shuts off gherin, so, even though you have food in your stomach, you constantly get the message that you’re hungry.”
• Honey (natural)
• Juice concentrate
• Lactose
• Licorice Root
• Maltodextrin (corn syrup solids)
• Malted barley (grain)
• Maltose
• Maple sugar (natural sweetener)
• Molasses (natural sweetener)
• Powdered sugar
• Rice Syrup & Yinni Syrup
• Raisin juice (fruit)
• Raisin syrup (fruit)
• Raw sugar
• Sorghum syrup
• Stevia—Stevia is really a healthy sweetener. It’s a herbal sweetener that’s two to three hundred times sweeter than sugar and no calories. It’s presently sold in the U.S. as a dietary supplement, although it has been used as a sweetener for hundreds of years in Latin America, Japan, and Asia and now in Europe.
• Sucanat
• Sucrose
• Sugar cane
• Turbinado sugar
• White sugar

Update on Sugar Alcohols and Polyols

Polyols include: Hydrogenated Starch Hydrolysates (HSH), Isomalt, Lactitol, Maltitol, Mannitol, Sorbitol, and Xylitol.

Polyols are slightly better than artificial sweeteners, but in light of the following information, I would strongly caution parents in purchasing foods for your children with Polyols listed in the ingredients.

Polyols are made from sugar. Polyols average 50 percent fewer calories than sugar. Although, they can have adverse side effects: dehydration, equilibrium loss, vitamin and mineral depletion, and malnutrition. Polyols can adversely effect the digestive system with bloating, gastrointestinal distress, diarrhea, and anal leakage at 1 1/2 teaspoons a day. Although in some individuals (possibly more so in children) these side effects may occur at a lower level.

Children have immature digestive systems it’s best to avoid Polyols as well as artificial sweeteners. I would NOT recommend Polyols for children, even though you’ll find them in candy, chewing gum, chocolate, baked goods, cough drops, cold medicines, mouthwashes, and ice cream.

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, Click Here.

For a synopsis of Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater, Click Here.