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Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family
Dec. 14th, 2009 11:40 amI am back, with a large a healthy Baby Godzilla to show for my time away. Now trying to review a book that I read all the way back in September… but here goes.
Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter This is a companion book to Child of Mine, reviewed earlier. This time, though, the focus is on the whole family, starting with adults. Satter defines a family as anyone old enough to be feeding themselves, and begins with what she considers healthy eating habits for adults. She’s starting from the assumption that many adults don’t take time to feed themselves properly and includes a progression towards a positive relationship with food. Current society has a food culture often focused on the negative, and Satter believes that eating should be one of life’s greatest joys. So, start with set mealtimes and concentrating on enjoying your food – no eating while driving or watching TV or even (gulp!) reading. If you’re living with a family, make sure you’re eating together, even if it’s microwave dinners or chips and soda. Once you’re really noticing your food, you might get bored with junk food, so she includes a large recipe section including three-week menu plans. The recipes start with tuna noodle casserole mostly out of cans and progress towards beef stew – nothing really time-consuming to cook, but designed to ease people into cooking. Every week’s menu includes both two-night dishes that use differently food made earlier in the week as well as some vegetarian meals and a variety of meats. For everyone, kids and adults, put out good food and eat until you’re done, whether that’s more or less than you think you “should” be eating. She wants you to focus on your enjoyment and what your body tells you it needs, even if you then end up with a figure slightly larger than the current highly restrictive guidelines suggest.
Detailed appendices go over the research supporting her conclusions, once again highlighting the very tenuous studies upon which the most highly publicized nutritional advice is based – there is very little evidence to support low-fat diets, or to link cholesterol consumption conclusively heart disease. She’s a moderate, she says and the country has been taken over by radicals. She is certainly much more moderate than Sally Fallon of Nourishing Traditions. Where Fallon wants every family to have a stay-at-home parent spending hours in the kitchen cooking only fresh organic food in slow, traditional ways, Satter says that if canned vegetables are all you can afford or have time for, they’re much better than none and you should eat them without guilt. Similarly, both Fallon and Satter point out the dangers of phytates (a form of fiber), which interferes with mineral absorption. Fallon believes that we should all be making our own long-soaked sourdough starter wholegrain bread to deal with this. Satter suggests eating about half whole grain and half white, to provide a balance of fiber and easy nutrient digestion. This is practical and approachable advice, good for anyone who wants a positive relationship with food for themselves or their children.
Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter This is a companion book to Child of Mine, reviewed earlier. This time, though, the focus is on the whole family, starting with adults. Satter defines a family as anyone old enough to be feeding themselves, and begins with what she considers healthy eating habits for adults. She’s starting from the assumption that many adults don’t take time to feed themselves properly and includes a progression towards a positive relationship with food. Current society has a food culture often focused on the negative, and Satter believes that eating should be one of life’s greatest joys. So, start with set mealtimes and concentrating on enjoying your food – no eating while driving or watching TV or even (gulp!) reading. If you’re living with a family, make sure you’re eating together, even if it’s microwave dinners or chips and soda. Once you’re really noticing your food, you might get bored with junk food, so she includes a large recipe section including three-week menu plans. The recipes start with tuna noodle casserole mostly out of cans and progress towards beef stew – nothing really time-consuming to cook, but designed to ease people into cooking. Every week’s menu includes both two-night dishes that use differently food made earlier in the week as well as some vegetarian meals and a variety of meats. For everyone, kids and adults, put out good food and eat until you’re done, whether that’s more or less than you think you “should” be eating. She wants you to focus on your enjoyment and what your body tells you it needs, even if you then end up with a figure slightly larger than the current highly restrictive guidelines suggest. Detailed appendices go over the research supporting her conclusions, once again highlighting the very tenuous studies upon which the most highly publicized nutritional advice is based – there is very little evidence to support low-fat diets, or to link cholesterol consumption conclusively heart disease. She’s a moderate, she says and the country has been taken over by radicals. She is certainly much more moderate than Sally Fallon of Nourishing Traditions. Where Fallon wants every family to have a stay-at-home parent spending hours in the kitchen cooking only fresh organic food in slow, traditional ways, Satter says that if canned vegetables are all you can afford or have time for, they’re much better than none and you should eat them without guilt. Similarly, both Fallon and Satter point out the dangers of phytates (a form of fiber), which interferes with mineral absorption. Fallon believes that we should all be making our own long-soaked sourdough starter wholegrain bread to deal with this. Satter suggests eating about half whole grain and half white, to provide a balance of fiber and easy nutrient digestion. This is practical and approachable advice, good for anyone who wants a positive relationship with food for themselves or their children.
Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter This fabulous book covers feeding children from infancy through preschool. Satter has been counseling families with food issues for nearly 30 years now, and the book is full of references to other studies, so this is an authoritative book. If you’ve found yourself engaging in any of the following behaviors with your child, then this book or its sequel, Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, would be excellent choices: Making separate meals for your child; bribing your child to eat; avoiding eating out of the house; battling with your child to finish rejected food or to eat less. She sets goals for preschoolers such as being able to try new foods, rejecting foods politely, stopping when they are full, and being able to eat out of the house. Feeding and mealtimes should focus on enjoyment for parents and children and on children learning to eat the food of their family and culture. 
Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Wechsler (note: teen book available, too) This is the classic and recently revised guide to monitoring your own fertility. Most people won’t need anything else. Looking on her web site, I note that she’s also got a book for teen girls, with probably less on getting pregnant and more on understanding your body. 
Getting Pregnant the Natural Way by D.S. Feingold and Deborah Gordon, M.D. I found this book by the very scientific method of pulling all likely-looking books off the library shelf, and then skimming and reading bits to see which one looked best. Plus, of course, already carefully selected by our medical librarian. This book, as well as covering the basics fairly briefly, gives nice coverage of nutrition, herbal therapy, movement, massage and stress reduction for conception. This was my favorite for the even coverage of all kinds of therapies, including when they can be integrated with conventional drug therapy and when it is or isn’t safe to self-medicate. There have a lot of solutions to a lot of specific problems, as well. 
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan After Michael Pollan wrote 
Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine Lapine starts the book with a rather lengthy argument for hiding veggies rather than forcing kids to eat them undisguised. She then gets down to business, explaining the theory of hiding unpopular nutrition inside favorite foods, matching color and texture and adding whole grains without being obvious about it. Next come recipes for several purees – white, orange, green, purple, bean, as well as several juices. Most of these use multiple veggies for added nutritional punch. If you're handy in the kitchen, you can stop right there – just read the theory, and start adding her purees to your food. Or, go on to the recipes. These look quite solid. Yes, she uses veggies purees and whole grains, but they are mostly real food. She will mix butter and olive oil for a buttery taste without all the cholesterol, but not call for trans-fat free margarine, or separate the eggs to cut down on the fat. I'm still of the opinion that kids need cholesterol and natural saturated fats, but her approach is both easy to substitute full-fat items back in, and moderate as far as the low-fat crowd goes. The recipes that we've tried have gone over very well – macaroni and cheese was actually creamier after the addition of white puree, and went down like a charm. Mr. Froggie Pants is also excited about trying breakfast ice cream and cookies, and any of the desserts. I'd use the theories for adults as well as kids, because couldn't we all use a little extra veggie power in our meals? And don't we want it to taste yummy, too?
