Our food supply has become so polluted that it’s difficult to discern what’s a whole food and what’s not. I’ve divided my ‘Top 10 Worst Foods of the Decade’ in half. Today’s blog contains the second half: 5 through 1. Click Here to see Part One. I’ve listed them in descending order. The most obvious foods, which we regularly eat, are mentioned in my previous blog. The not-so-obvious unhealthy foods we often believe are healthy are covered in today’s blog, ending with the one food parents really believe is a health food, but it’s full of sugar.

#5 — Fried Chicken (A popular kids’ menu item.)
Fried chicken comes in many forms for kids: chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, chicken sandwiches, etc. Parents often think this is a better choice than a hamburger. There’s six to ten grams of trans fat in each order of onion rings or chicken fingers.  KFC Original Recipe Chicken Dinner has seven grams of trans fat, mostly from the chicken and biscuit.

#4 — Microwave Popcorn
A report from the FDA indicates that a chemical coating used in microwave popcorn bags breaks down when heated into a substance called perfluorooctanoic (PFOA). The Environmental Protection Agency has identified PFOA as a “likely carcinogen.” Another study has found an acid that can be extracted from the chemical causes cancer in animals and is “likely to cause cancer in humans.”

Why is cereal on ‘Nonna’s Top 10 Worst Foods’ list? Madison’s not sure.

A second potential danger in microwave popcorn is diacetyl, an FDA-approved chemical found in the fake butter flavoring. There’s even a debilitating respiratory disease called “popcorn workers lung,” (the medical name of the condition is bronchiolitis obliterans) suffered by microwave popcorn factory workers caused by extended inhalation of the chemical’s fumes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, (NIOSH) concluded that diacetyl needs further study so that workers in the flavorings and snack industry are no longer at risk. Do your family a favor and purchase a hot-air popper! It’s just as fast as the microwave variety and when you use organic popcorn and real butter, it’s a healthy snack.

#3 — Processed Lunch Meats
Hot dogs are considered “kid food.” You’ll find them on many children’s menus and are considered a summer staple. Most cured meats, expecially breakfast and other sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and hot dogs, contain nitrites and nitrates. They’re added to processed meats to prevent botulism and enhance the taste and color of the meat. Without nitrates processed meats would be brown, just like cooked hamburger. Once inside the body, they can form nitrosamines, a cancer-causing chemical. These carcinogenic compounds have been associated with cancer. They have also been linked with leukemia and ADD/ADHD in children.

#2 — Boxed Cereal (including instant oatmeal)
More than 2.7 billion packages of cereal are sold in grocery stores each year. It’s the third most popular supermarket product (behind soda pop and bread). This translates to an average of 10 pounds, or 160 bowls, of cereal per American each year.

Extruded grains are industrially processed foods, including “healthy” breakfast cereals, which really aren’t so healthy. For all boxed breakfast cereals, grains are extruded — forced out of a hole at high temperature with pressure in order to make them into the various shapes typically found in breakfast cereals. The extrusion process destroys most of the nutrients in the grains, including fatty acids. Boxed cereals end up being empty calories. Cereals marketed to children are even worse as they are loaded with added sugars. Even the organic oatmeal pictured has 3 teaspoons of sugar per serving. Make your own hot oatmeal, it’ll cost less, taste better, and have less sugars.

#1 — Fruited Yogurt
The number one food parents believe is a healthy food and it’s NOT…is fruited yogurt. Yogurt is full of probiotics. Probiotics live in the tube that runs right through the middle of us. It includes our nose, sinuses, mouth, upper airways, lungs, esophagus, stomach, small and large intestines, rectum and anus. We no longer eat a healthy diet with natural foods containing good bacteria, so the bad bacteria proliferate. We think we’re eating healthy foods with probiotics, such as fruited yogurts. But fruited yogurts have up to 7 teaspoons of sugar in a serving. The sugar feeds the bad bacteria, so we’re not better off than when we started. The solution is to eat PLAIN yogurt with active ingredients and add fruit-only jams for flavor. (Vanilla flavored yogurt is not the answer, either. There’s more added sugar in the vanilla yogurt!)

Click Here for The Decades Top 10 Worst Foods…items 10 through 6.

CLICK HERE for ordering information for Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater and The Forest Feast: Baby Bites Mealtime Adventures. For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, CLICK HERE.

After a long night of sleep, your child’s engine is on empty. A healthy breakfast, containing protein and fiber, will get his engine going. Protein and fiber will satisfy your child’s hunger and keep him feeling full until lunchtime. In fact, studies show children who eat breakfast do better in school.

Mornings are when even picky eaters are hungry. Don’t miss this opportunity to fill your child’s tank with whole foods instead of processed foods. Unfortunately, the most important meal of the day, usually consists of highly processed foods, stripped of their nutritional value.

Most kids begin the day with sugared cereals, toaster tarts, instant oatmeal, or liquid breakfast drinks. Whole grain boxed breakfast cereals have been heated to the point most of the nutrients have been destroyed. Pancakes and waffles are usually made with white flour and topped with some form of sugar. Even ”health” bars often contain lots of sugar.

“Top of the mornin’,” quips Flynn.

For those mornings when sausage or bacon is on the menu, you can add nitrates to the list of unhealthy ingredients consumed. All cured meats, including breakfast sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and hot dogs, contain nitrites and nitrates. Once inside the body, they can form nitrosamines, a cancer-causing chemical. These carcinogenic compounds have been associated with cancer. They have also been linked with leukemia and ADD/ADHD in children.

Children, who have small tummies, and the picky eater, who is consuming limited foods, shouldn’t eat meats containing nitrates. Always look for nitrate-free meats. In addition, these products usually are high in fat, and the fat is where contaminates are stored.

So What Can You Make For Breakfast?
A healthful breakfast doesn’t have to take a lot of time. In fact, most breakfasts take only five minutes to prepare. Make rolled oats, not the instant kind. My favorite is with apples and walnuts, but add any dried fruit or mash a soft fruit like a banana into your oatmeal. Prepare enough for two mornings and refrigerate half for later in the week. All you have to do is add a little more liquid, heat, and stir. Hard-boiled eggs are another breakfast item that can be made in advance of your busy morning. Toast is great, when it’s whole grain. Spread a little butter or fruit-only jelly and you have some sticking power. Left-over brown rice from last night’s dinner can be warmed with milk or chicken broth for a nutritious start to the day.  Add a piece of fruit or yogurt. Fruit smoothies come together in a flash right in your blender. And it takes only a minute to scramble a few eggs. French toast made with whole wheat bread and top with applesauce. Don’t forget blueberries, a super way to start your morning.

Grab and Go
Don’t have time to cook? Then grab and go: Hard-boiled egg or cheese with piece of fruit. Who says that you have to have “breakfast” food? Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread. How about an egg salad sandwich or a piece of chicken from last night’s dinner? A handful of nuts, sliced fruit, and a oatmeal cookie (only if you made the cookie yourself with whole grains and honey) will be more nutritious than boxed kids’ cereal.

Click Here for the blog, “What’s Breakfast without Bacon?”

For a synopsis of the Baby Bites book, Click Here.

CLICK HERE for ordering information for Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater and The Forest Feast: Baby Bites Mealtime Adventures.

For info about the free Baby Bites Ezine, CLICK HERE.

Having a child with ADD/ADHD, who is a picky eater, initially takes more work. You may have a child self-limiting the kinds of whole foods eaten, but the child with ADD/ADHD most likely prefers the very foods causing their problem. Because each child is unique, the chemicals and additives triggering symptoms can vary.

For kids who can’t tolerate food colorings, the tinest smidgen could produce ADD/ADHD symptoms for several days. A small drop of something they cannot tolerate may prompt symptoms of hyperactivity, sleeplessness (sometimes nightmares), and irritability.

Joshy shows us that his tongue is colored red, after eating a piece of birthday cake.

A parent needs to be vigilant, especially in the beginning. You’ll find, as I did, “accidental double-blind studies” will pop up. You’ll become a master sleuth, ferreting out unwanted food additives.

Cleaning out the pantry is vital. With over 3,000 additives in our food supply it can seem like a gargantuan task. You’ll be glad to know that it’s not impossible, but it will take some determination on your part.  I wouldn’t even want to try to put a child on a different diet than the rest of the family. When you’re talking about whole foods, why not improve the entire family’s diet? Take time to read the labels of the foods you usually purchase. See where you can change to a more healthy brand. Reading labels is vital. You might be surprised at what you find.

When my daughter, Jenny, was a child, she could not tolerate most of the additives in our food supply. Nitrates would always trigger ADHD symptoms. They’re in all packaged lunch-meats, and most pork products like ham, bacon and sausage. She’s grown and married now, but, today, nitrates still give her headaches. Red and yellow food colorings were the worst additives for Jenny and would immediately trigger symptoms of hyperactivity. MSG is another additive that can cause problems. It often produces headaches (MSG actually kills brain cells), not just in people with ADD/ADHD, either. MSG can be hard to identify on products, as it hides in a multitude of names. ( CLICK HERE for more MSG info.) MSG can be found in almost ALL fast food.

Sugar, especially High Fructose Corn Syrup, is in just about all processed foods. All these years later, sugar still makes Jenny irritable. Still, once you get in the habit of avoiding sugar, it’s not too hard to eliminate. For sure, you’ll want to avoid High Fructose Corn Sugar which is found in most bakery goods, soda pop, and in packaged foods!

It’s not as difficult as you might think to eat whole foods. Of course many foods available in the grocery store are processed, but you’ll want to purchase products with the least amount of additives and chemicals. I still don’t purchase products with artificial colorings, flavorings, nitrates, or MSG.

I’m not a nutritionist or a dietitian, but I’ve found a few dietary supplements are extremely helpful for kids with ADD/ADHD, even Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism. In fact, many times with dietary changes and the addition of these supplements, positive changes are often seen in a couple of weeks:
1) The first is cod liver oil. I purchase Carlson Norwegian Cod Liver Oil and I take it myself. The lemon flavored one is tasty. Cod liver oil is high in vitamins A and D.
2) The other is a good kids’ probiotic, purchased in the refrigerator section of a whole foods store. Without fail, kids with ADD and ADHD need to have their gut function improved. The gut feeds the brain. When a child has good gut function, their brain functions better as well.
3) The third is that almost ALL people in the U.S. are vitamin D deficient, even kids. A simple test that your pediatrician can do will tell you what your child’s vitamin D level is. In fact, everyone should have their vitamin D level checked. My husband, Dick, and I found we had low levels ourselves. The optimum levels are around 50, but most people are way under that. (Cod liver oil is high in vitamin D, but if your child is extremely low you may want to add this supplement. If you can’t convince your child to take the lemon-flavored cod liver oil, then vitamin D3 supplement is an alternative.)

You, will of course, need to take allergies into account. If your child is allergic to wheat, dairy, or nuts, these foods will need to be eliminated as well. Today, I won’t go into GMO foods (genetically modified organism). This is another issue. My eldest daughter, Julie-ann, thought she was allergic to corn. Then found out it was GMO corn that she couldn’t tolerate. If a product says it’s certified organic, then it’s by default, GMO free.

You can save on organics at big box stores like Sam’s Club and Costco. Since there’s not a Sam’s Club near me, I have a Costco membership. “Costco Organic Products” is a list I just put together for my son-in-law. He has a Costco membership, but lives a distance from a store. Because he will be the one driving to the store and shopping, he wanted to know what organic food products I found at Costco (Sam’s has similar products) and purchase from the store. I’ve put an unofficial list together for him. I’m sure there’s more, but at least it’s a start. CLICK HERE to see it.

If you liked this article, then you’ll want to read: “A S.A.D. Diet”: CLICK HERE

When you sign up for the Baby Bites Ezine on the right side of the Ezine information page, I’ll send you two helpful reports: “Be Frugal Save Grocery Dollars” and “7 Tips for Healthful Grocery Shopping.”

CLICK HERE for the Baby Bites book.

All cured meats, including breakfast sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and hot dogs, contain nitrites and nitrates. They’re added to processed meats to prevent botulism and enhance the taste and color of the meat. Without nitrates processed meats would be brown, just like cooked hamburger.

Once inside the body, they can form nitrosamines, a cancer-causing chemical. These carcinogenic compounds have been associated with cancer. They have also been linked with leukemia and ADD/ADHD in children.

Between 1980 and 1987, a study conducted in Los Angeles found a relationship between the consumption of certain foods and the risk of leukemia with children under the age of 10. Results indicated that children, who ate an excess of 12 hot dogs per month, had nine times the normal risk of developing childhood leukemia.

Pictured: Zach thinks nitrates are hair-raising scary!

In 2007, researchers in Denver found that children, whose mothers consumed one or more hot dogs per week during pregnancy, had double the risk of developing brain tumors, and children, who consumed one or more hot dogs per week were also at higher risk of brain cancer.

Nitrites are found naturally in many green vegetables, especially spinach, celery, and green lettuce. However, the consumption of vegetables is effective in reducing the risk of cancer. Nitrites found in whole foods are managed differently in the body. It’s the synergy of various compounds, which makes the difference between harmful and healthful. Nitrite containing vegetables also have vitamins C and D, which inhibit the formation of carcinogenic compounds. Therefore, vegetables are quite safe and healthy, and actually reduce your cancer risk.

For health avoid eating meat products with nitrates. Children, who have small tummies, and the picky eater, who is consuming limited foods, shouldn’t eat meats containing nitrates. Always look for nitrate-free meats. In addition, these products usually are high in fat, and the fat is where contaminates are stored.

Food additives are problematic for everyone, but for the child or adult with ADD/ADHD, avoidance of food additives is imperative. There’s sound evidence that food plays an important part in controlling the symptoms of ADD/ADHD. Food additives such as artificial colorings, preservatives, MSG, and nitrates. Of course, avoidance of junk foods, trans fat, and sugar, especially High Fructose Corn Syrup, is also very important.

My daughter, Jenny, was extremely sensitive to food additives, including nitrates. Thirty years ago, her pediatrician thought I was crazy, when I mentioned that food additives made her ADD symptoms worse. Today, parents, who suspect artificial ingredients in food are affecting their childrens’ behavior, can now point to proof. New research, by Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at England’s University of Southampton, reported in a British medical journal, that a variety of common food dyes and sodium benzoate, an ingredient in many soft drinks, fruit juices, and salad dressings, causes some children to become more hyperactive than usual. The younger the children, the more they found they negatively responded to the additives.

Be on the lookout for nitrates: All prepackaged lunch meats contain nitrates. If lunch meet is pink it has nitrates. Ask the deli counter clerk to check the nutrition label for nitrates. Some deli meats may be nitrate-free. Frozen turkey breakfast and turkey Italian sausage packaged in a tube usually don’t contain nitrates.

Most pork products (all cured meats, hot dogs, bacon, sausage, pepperoni, salami, etc.) use nitrates to preserve color and freshness. Look for alternatives. Incorporate easy-to-make egg, tuna, and chicken salad sandwiches in your lunches. Of course, the standby peanut butter and jelly sandwich is easy and always nitrate-free.

When you have a craving for a hot dog, be sure to buy a brand that doesn’t contain nitrates. These are usually found in whole food stores. Or when a delivery pizza is the answer to dinner, order a veggie or hamburger pizza, leaving off pepperoni, ham, and other processed meats with nitrates.

Take the time to teach your children to enjoy whole foods. If you set good eating habits from the beginning with your kids, you’ll avoid ever having a picky eater. Learning to eat a healthy diet starting early in childhood will decrease the likelihood of your child becoming obese and getting diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. I discuss this more in detail in Baby Bites: Transforming a Picky Eater into a Healthy Eater.

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

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