I've always hoped to marry someone that wasn't into sugar and to raise my kids without sugar. Sure a treat here and there, but not loads of junk food in the house like a lot of people. I think your taste buds get accustomed to what you were raised with. I was raised on beans and steak and well I love it, my friends who were not cannot seem to stomach beans in the later years. Who knows.

Yay!
 

Karen responded to a thread of mine. I'm so excited! I read your ENTIRE journal Karen. You are one awesome lady!

I am so happy to see the responses I have to this thread. Gives me hope.

I am taking some inspiration from Karen and becoming my families cook. I'm having fun trying new low-carb recipes. Had an amazing dinner tonight: Skillet Chicken Florentine w/ four cheese ravioli from Trader Joe's. The sauce on this is so yummy! The cream seems to take a little of the bitterness out of the spinach. I wish I hadn't gotten full so quick, I could have eaten the whole plate full.

Hubby and I started having protein shakes in the morning. I couldn't eat until dinner!!

I've recently bought several low-carb cookbooks, and expanded my spice collection. The dinner tonight I would have been proud to serve to any guest in my home.

DebPenny - good for you! I feel the exact same way. My uncomfortableness with throwing food away is not as strong as my feelings about giving sugary crap food to my friends or family or the food drives. I don't think anyone should have to eat that food. (What I tossed this week was stuff like syrup, cookie mixes, instant oatmeal with tons of added sugar, cake mixes & frosting.)

Karen - I did used to use treats as incentives for my daughter, but I've since grown up. :) And, luckily she's still young enough to be 'retrained' from some of those bad food lessons I was teaching her. I am so glad I got my act together in time!

Karla - do you offer whole grain products or fruits to your friends or family?

I am so glad that I posted this thread. It's gotten some great responses!!

Thanks!!

Melissa,

Thanks for starting this thread. I am really struggling with this and my 4 yr old. He's a very picky eater and I so much want to get him off sugar.

DH and I are low carbing mostly to lose weight.

I've been offering DS all kinds of good things but not all of them are accepted. So I guess persistance will eventually pay off.

For about a year I was mindfull of WHY I was eating but the weight only came off when I started lc. Now I am mindful of why I give DS food and it is so enlightening. Food should not be a reward and with holding it shouldn't be a punishment.

I guess I have made progress. DS drinks water, doesn't have candy bars but I am pulling my hair out trying to think of something healthy he'll eat.

Cheese?
 

My daughter just loves cheese. And bacon, cream cheese and crackers (less than 3 grams of sugar per serving as per Sugarbusters.)

I buy the mini Baby Bonbel cheeses that are wrapped in wax. She loves to get them from the fridge and peel them herself. When it's something like that I let her eat her fill. I think today she ate 4. She also goes for string cheese. She can eat 1/4 pound of bacon on her own. Crackers and cream cheese have been a favorite for a while. With the right crackers and the full fat cream cheese it's nutritious. Well, more so than Spaghettio's.

I also give her Cheerios - the plain ones - and she has whole milk with it because the low-fat stuff makes her hyper. I add a little Splenda if she wants that and it makes a nice sweet, sugar-free meal.

She does love noodles, but like me it's the sauce that she really loves. I buy healthy noodles, and sauces that have less than 3 grams of sugar per serving. Preferably none. LOL.

Fruit - my daughter once ate a whole pound of strawberries in one day. Some at each meal. I couldn't prep them fast enough. :) (Sugarbusters is based on the glycemic index - which I have a file of over 700 foods on that index if anyone would like it - so I feel ok about giving her berries and other low-glycemic index foods.)

Pizza. She can either eat a whole piece, or a bite and be done with it. (I prefer buying dough, or flatbreads from Trader Joe's and making homemade pizza. It tastes so much more alive.)

And I let her go with it. I give her a little of what's on our plates, and if she eats fine, if not fine. They won't starve. Sometimes kids eat more, sometimes less. When my daughter suddenly gets a hollow leg, I know we are in for another growth spurt.

She used to eat a lot of chips and cheetoes and sugary snack. Now she gets sugar free treats and if she gets chips it's the kind with no added sugar or transfats in them. We just tell her that they aren't good for her body. That this kind doesn't have the yucky stuff in it. I never say no without having an alternative she can eat, or better yet - two good and healthy items she can choose from. She loves to choose.

Anyway. I guess the point of this ramble is that you will find a way. Make it taste great, make a low-carb version of something your child used to really like and keeps asking for.

I've got a great recipe for macaroni and cheese made with egg crepes (Somersizing) - I plan to try it this week. I will let you know how my daughter takes to it.

Do you have a deep fat fryer? Does your kid like things like cheese sticks? Chicken nuggets? You can use another low-carb recipe I've found for a 'breading' and deep fry your own. My daughter will actually eat these, and yet she won't touch fast food chicken nuggets if you begged. Which I for sure don't do. :)

Let me know if I can pass on recipes, or tips.

Melissa

You have all inspired me. Here I haave been telling kids that sugar treats are BAD. Guess what they want? I am going to immediately change my "recorded message" about food choices. Thanks you guys!

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Bravo! I'm glad you brought up this topic. I don't have any children yet, but when I do, there will be only whole, natural food in my house.....hopefully, I will refrain from any sort of nagging. My mother didn't give me sugar until I was well into elementary school, and I was a great eater. She says I loved fruit, broccoli, cauliflower etc -- all fresh from our garden. I have never had much of a sweet tooth (starch is what does me in...) and I think it was my childhood that has influenced that preference. I don't have any memories of being "deprived" either. I think that whole concept of "depriving" your kids of daily junk is such a cop out. It's like saying you're depriving your teenagers of a social life if you don't let them stay out all night and drink. You should give your kids some amount of freedom (ie with food, let them eat sugary stuff on holidays and don't be a nazi about what they eat when they are at friends' houses) but having rules and limitations while still giving them some room to make their own choices is what teaches kids right and wrong.

I've been lowcarbing for a year and half and the concept is pretty much ingrained at this point. My fiance doesn't eat exactly like I do, but I love him enough to raise my eyebrows at daily pizza, and when we buy groceries, it's mostly good stuff. I make him big hearty salads to take to work etc. He has internalized my eating habits to a large degree, at least compared to most 24 year old guys, and eats Kashi high fiber cereal, whole wheat bread, nuts, splenda rather than sugar. When he buys sweets he usually opts for the most natural kind, like oatmeal cookies from the "hippie" store made with honey. He's actually the one that started getting all paranoid about hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup long before I started low carbing. In general, though, he's an adult and my partner rather than my child, so there really is not much more you can do in such relationships besides simply informing them about the facts, and letting them make up their mind. Thankfully, Glen is a smart guy, and usually makes better choices. He's just lazy about cooking, and it's worth it for me to cook so he eats better.

My god, that was long!!! Well, anyway, I applaud you guys, especially AmyRose--it's such a great approach. Hopefully, I will have a good strategy like that when I have kids.

Melissa,

I usually don't serve any grains at all, although I will occasionally make muffins with oat flour and almond flour, which have 5 carbs each. But that is very rare, because DH and I just don't miss bread type things at all. If people want bread, it's just too bad; they can eat it at home! :lol:

I do serve fruit, mostly the "legal" berries and canteloupe. One of our favorite desserts, with or without company, is canteloupe with homemade LC vanilla ice cream. Another is strawberries and whipped cream on LC meringue disks - my LC version of strawberry shortcake.

And if I'm serving something with a sauce, I make cauliflower versions of rice or mashed potatoes, which people scarf up like mad with no complaints. With a barbecue I make the cauliflower version of potato salad, which I call "Better than Potato Salad." If we have overnight company, I often make the hash browns with turnip or radish to serve with eggs and bacon.

The point (at last!) is that I just don't want to serve anyone food I consider junk and won't eat myself. :nono:

thanks, gracie-poo!

What I do
 

My kids are teens and I only limit the food in the house, what they eat out of the house is their business, I do let them know that I got to be as big as I am by eating white bread, potatoes, and sugar. My daughter is doing better, her carbs come in the form of Smartfood popcorn. My son however still drools when he sees a poptart commercial with its "balanced breakfast" of toast, milk, and orange juice next to its product. :rolleyes:

I talk to my grandson about 'eating healthy'. He doesn't really care much for potatoes, I steer him toward veggies and fruits for snacks. We don't buy processed, refined foods. He usually eats eggs for breakfast. I buy whole grain bread for both him and DH. We have whole wheat pasta sometimes and brown rice. He's encouraged to drink water when he's thirsty.

But, we can't control what he eats at his friend's homes. Most of his friends eat junk -- sugary cereals, no vegetables, etc. It's so much easier before they start school. My two girls did not know that chips, pop tarts, and sugary cereals existed until they started school and saw what the other kids brought in their lunches. I remember when he was three, a caregiver asked him if he wanted a pop tart, and he did not answer. I finally had to tell her that he didn't know what a pop tart was. All I can do is try to educate him about making healthy choices and hope it will influence his decisions.

Poptarts. Yuck.
 

I pray there will come a day when caregivers don't offer this crap to kids.

Reading your responses I was sitting here and all these memories kept bombarding me.

My Mom telling me that she used to grow my baby food and it wasn't until I had a popsicle at a neighbor's house that I was lost to her forever.

I used to be in childcare, and I had this one kid who was a handful, and I was trying to think back to foods that I offered him from his parents cupboards. I'm remembering carrot sticks with low-fat ranch dressing, crackers with bananas on them, sprinkled with either sugar or Equal. He also got a lot of juice, and low-fat milk.

When I was a babysitter, I remember the parent's almost always said "help yourself to whatever is in the fridge" - maybe that's why I babysat! I swear - I paid more attention to what was in the kitchen, than the kid. I'd go back for one more, one more, one more.

I've been caught in a closet with a bag of marshmallows. I've been caught pilfering the chocolate and butterscotch chips from the pantry. I used to eat that nestle quik stuff by the spoonful, then swallow some milk. Try to explain why you are coughing out brown powder sometime. LOL. At least it didn't come out my nose. That would have been a sight.

I want better memories than this for my daughter. I know that I can't control what she gets at other people's houses or school, but I can control what I have on my shelves.

Thanks for sharing in this discussion.

Melissa

Oh, forgot
 

I've also stolen money ($90 from my step mom's purse) to buy candy. Not a very proud moment in my life. I was so ashamed by my behavior, and I got caught, that I stopped stealing and shoplifting candy. (I was sexually molested when I was 10, and instead of telling anyone I acted out by shoplifting - mostly candy backpack's full at a time, and I would have to 'eat the evidence'.)

I developed a severe addiction to sugar and it's effects on my emotions. Started with that first attempt at swallowing the pain and rage and guilt of what had happened to me.

It's taken 18 LONG years, but I am finally free of that need.

Melissa

PegM- I wish my ex-inlaws were more like you. They find it thier duty to spoil my son, which wouldn't be bad, if they wouldn't do it with sweet treats and junk food. Every time I go up there he's got a new food. He was asking for Koolaid jammers the otherday and lucky charms. Both got a no. I also stopped getting his gogurt he loves and am trying to find some with alot less sugar added.

I have 13yo dd and ds (twins), a 4yo dd, and a 12mo. baby. None of our kids are overweight, though my amazon-like, 13yo dd is 5'8", 160 pounds, and 27% bodyfat. Poor thing is going to end up with my size 12 feet.

I think older children must be allowed to make their own choices concerning their lives, within reason. My ds loves junk food. I don't buy junk food, but when he has access to money, he heads straight for the corner store. I could forbid him to spend his money on junk, but what would that teach him in a long-term way? I handle the situation by providing him with a choice of healthy, tasty foods at home and providing him with information about the health dangers of junk food. We also homeschool, so he doesn't have as many opportunities to eat junk outside our home as his schooled counterparts.

Our 4yo dd has always been a carnivore. I breastfed her exclusively for a long time, and when she went to table food, she would pick the meat out of the mixed dishes I served, ignore the noodles or rice, and then ask for more meat!! However, with candy being handed out everywhere from the bank to grandpa's house, she has developed a sweet tooth. Since I'm a SAHM, I can control how much she indulges in sweet treats.

The baby loves breastfeeding even more now that I'm low-carbing! Her eczema has cleared up, so I know she's happier about that. :) We plan to raise her sugar-free.

If you're going to allow the older siblings to have sugar, then I wish you luck with that. It could cause a lot of resentment if you allow the older kids to have sugar but tell the youngest that they can not (been there, done that, had a lot of resentment towards older brother and mom).