Nutrition/Healthy food – today's buzzwords. After all what is a healthy diet? There is the US government food pyramid, there are all these diets on the market – after all which one is the right one? From my experience, I believe that there is no one diet fits all. Yes, there is a base healthy diet. I believe there is a reason that all those different foods have been created for a reason(so says the ancient ayurvedic medicine too); after all the human tongue is also designed to have the different taste buds – including bitter. Include all of the foods in your diet but keep them to a proportional level. What is proportional will depend on the person.
I became passionate about nutrition after seeing the results on V. I had grown up in a vegetarian household; my lunch to school would comprise rotis and the vegetable of the day – no arguments over that. No matter what the vegetable, I had to eat it. I used to hate almost vegetable – I only loved potatoes and sweet potatoes. So what would I do? I would gulp, swallow with water, do whatever to get those down my throat because I knew my dad and grandma would be horribly upset if I didn't eat it. Well, obviously, it paid off on my health. When I left home for the first time to live in a dorm – I started eating and loving and appreciating every kind of food made at home. My grandmother would be so happy – she would love to make anything and everything for me during my vacation. So I obviously learned from the lesson.
I still remained vegetarian until my first trip overseas which was guess where – to the country known best for its exquisite beef – Argentina I had decided to try every kind of food so I tried fish, chicken, even beef. I didn't like it and continued to stay vegetarian. However, my children were growing up in the United States, and in the Bay Area had friends from every possible ethnic background. I decided to let them eat meat and make their choices as they went along. R loved and still loves chicken. V seemed to like only vegetarian food. This was going to pose a challenge further down.
I had talked about how unknowingly we had started down the nutrition path with V. We had started with a daily banana; when we found out about the iron, I started making him a boiled spinach pulp to eat everyday. For the magnesium I had talked about the daikon. I would grate the daikon in the spinach. Incidentally, daikon is also high in fiber which was helping his constipation problem that had started with the meds. That the flax had caused an increase in the seizures; so the omega-3 foods had been cut; that soy caused his sleep disturbance; so no soy products in his diet – the elimination of foods as well as inclusion of certain foods had slowly and steadily started.
This was going on while dealing with the meds and figuring out day to day what was working and what wasn't. That there was no cure we knew and that the meds would cure him seemed very unlikely. That we didn't want to do a ketogenic just yet; that the VNS meant inserting something inside his body – not at age 4 or 5. So, lets play with nutrition.
We started looking up information on the Atkins diet. The information about the ketogenic and the other information I had been reading on the newsgroups seemed to point to a low-carbohydrate diet. Now, we had carbs everyday for every meal – the rice, the roti; V had pasta every day. We also read that if carbs were consumed, it had to be compensated with fat. So if he ate a waffle put tons of butter on it. The diet was also a high protein one. V couldn't have soy and he had decided that he was vegetarian. What should we do? Lentils are full of carbs. Since R and my husband ate meat, the task became easier. The meat would give him extra protein as well. My husband managed to convince him to eat chicken. Gradually, we introduced different kinds of chicken. Initially, I used to buy it. I then changed my mindset – if my kids were going to eat it everyday and it is good for them, it is better to buy the better variety and know what exactly is going inside. We are lucky that we live literally down the road from a really good natural food store – where I can get healthy, fresh produce. Slowly and surely V was converted to liking his meat. He still goes through phases where he will not touch his chicken – I will let him go a day or two and then get on his case about it being good for him and he knows that.
One more food item that my husband managed to introduced and it has become one of the favorite foods for both my kids – salad. V asks for it every single day – I am thrilled because I can eat any kind of veggie salad any given time. My favorite – cabbage is something both kids eat almost everyday!
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