Adam Maya - Food love family: a practical guide to child nutrition

BY MAYA ADAM

Copyright 2016 by Maya Adam.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information retrieval system without the written permission of Cognella, Inc.

First published in the United States of America in 2015 by Cognella, Inc.

Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

This book is designed to provide educational information and motivation to our readers. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged to render any type of psychological, legal, diet, health, exercise or any other kind of professional advice. The content of each chapter or reading is the sole expression and opinion of its author, and not necessarily that of the publisher. No warranties or guarantees are expressed or implied by the publishers choice to include any of the content in this volume. Neither the publisher nor the individual author(s) shall be liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages, including, but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential or other damages. Our views and rights are the same: You are responsible for your own choices, actions, and results and for seeking relevant topical advice from trained professionals.

Cover photo taken by William Bottini.

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 978-1-5165-0295-0 (ebook) / 978-1-63189-370-4 (pbk)

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my parents

HERIBERT ADAM AND KOGILA MOODLEY

who inspired in me a love of cooking and a passion for teaching.

All author royalties will be donated to registered nonprofit organizations, including Just Cook for Kids, that support health and nutrition education for all.

by Jamie Oliver

Child Nutrition and Society

Welcome to the Milky Way: Infant Feeding

The Adventure of a Lifetime: Introducing Solids to Babies Around the World

How Food Helps Children Grow: Teaching Kids to Love the Foods that Love them Back

Taste Training: How French Kids Learn to Get to Yum

by Karen Le Billon

The Case for Family Dinner

by Jenny Rosenstrach

Food Marketing to Children

by Jessica Almy

Food Allergies, Intolerances and Celiac Disease

Childhood Obesity

by Laura ODonohue

Introduction to Sustainable Food

by Hannah Kohrman

Prenatal Nutrition

A Call to Action: Just Cook

RECIPES

This book would not have been published without the help of some extraordinary people. I would like to thank Hannah Kohrman, program manager at Just Cook for Kids and MD candidate 2019, for her wonderful contribution on sustainable eating and her support in making this book come alive.Thank you also to our contributing authors, Karen LeBillon, Jenny Rosenstrach, Jessica Almy, and Laura ODonohue for their expertise and their generous contributions to this work.To Jamie Oliver and his team, we are honored to have your support. Karen Della Corte spent many hours during the summer of 2014 researching food allergies in children and prenatal nutrition for me as she prepared to welcome her own baby into the world. My editor, Michelle Piehl, and her team at Cognella have been a pleasure to work with. Here at the Stanford School of Medicine, my perspectives on nutrition have been shaped by conversations with Christopher Gardner and the writings of Berkeleys incomparably sensible Michael Pollan. All the while, Tim Dang, who has been both a student and a collaborator, has fearlessly attempted to sharpen my knife skills!

On the other side of the balance, I would like to thank my wonderful family. Lawrence, my husband and best friend, has patiently taken part in almost daily conversations about nutrition, health, and education even though his professional passions lie elsewhere. My sister Kanya has been a constant reminder of the fact that healthy family meals can be thrown together by busy parents with celebratory ease and impressive flair. Mama, thank you for teaching me how to cook and for the many hours you spent cooking for us after you, yourself, returned home from a full-time teaching job at the university. Papa, thank you for teaching me to find joy in persevering until the job is done. Finally, I want to thank three people who are the inspiration for this book: Kiran, Misha and Milan, my beautiful boys, I have loved every minute weve spent together inside the kitchen and out of it! You continue to amaze me with your kindness, your joyfulness, and your beautiful personalities. Each and every day, you remind me to celebrate life.

Many thanks to you all

Maya

Encouraging everyone to cook from scratch and share and enjoy that food with their loved ones has always been at the heart of what I do. This book provides parents and caregivers around the world with knowledge and practical advice that will enable them to feed their children using good sense and a do-it-yourself mindset. From babys first meal to the flavour adventures of older childhood, as parents we have the power to shape our chil drens food preferences. By teaching them to enjoy real food, made simply with love, we can set them up for a lifetime of good health and happiness.

Jamie Oliver

To read more about Jamie Olivers ongoing efforts to educate children about food and inspire families to cook, visit the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation at

http://www.jamieoliverfoodfoundation.org

The food our children eat has an enormous impact on their health and development. From the moment theyre born, children are involved in an extreme sport called growth. Infants will spend as much as 38% of the energy they take in just to sustain their growth. 1 The ability to fight off disease, heal from injuries, and achieve developmental milestones like walking, talking, and learning at school are all dependent on a steady input of the right fuel: good nutrition.

Figure 1.1 Infants use up to 38% of their energy intake to fuel growth.

Besides fueling growth and development, food plays many other important roles in our childrens lives. Meals are a way for families to connect and a safe forum in which children can learn the skills of communication, share their concerns, and gain valuable social skills. Through food, traditions are passed from one generation to the next and children learn about where they come from, who they are and, in some ways, who they want to be.

Of course, not all kinds of food support our childrens healthy growth and development equally. While children certainly need energy in the form of calories, where those calories come from is important too. Growing bodies need the right balance of specialized building blocks as well as the energy to build. When building a house, the quality of the raw materials matters. The same can be said for the raw materials (food) that contribute to the growth and development of a child. To take that analogy a few steps further, when a contractor is building a house, she knows that the foundations have to be solid, or the house will be unstable and less likely to withstand stresses. The house needs to be held together by small but critical components like good-quality screws and strong nails. We can think of these as the vitamins and minerals that are critically important for our childrens health, even though theyre only needed in relatively small amounts. Finally, in order to make a house a home, it needs to be filled with love. Our childrens food should be made with love too. When we outsource the job of feeding our children, by choosing too many highly processed foods, for example, we sacrifice the quality of the raw materials that are available to support their health. In general, processed food manufacturers have a major, vested interest in generating profits and comparatively little interest in protecting the long-term health of the people who consume their food. The opposite is true when a parent or loving caregiver cooks a family meal using mostly whole food ingredients.