🖨️ Print post
How important is it to feed your family organic food? Is baby-led weaning a good idea? Should you give in to your picky eaters’ preferences? And how do you equip your teens to make better nutritional choices when they’re away from home?
Recorded LIVE at the Wise Traditions Conference in Orlando, a team of experts addresses all of the above. They share insights on fertility, conception, and the power of nutrient-dense traditional diets in promoting health across generations.
They share stories about the importance of organic food for avoiding glyphosate, including organ meats for overcoming infertility, and how to nourish your family deeply, even on a budget. Whether you have a family, or hope to have one someday, this panel provides insights for nourishing deeply.
Connect with our guests:
Zen Honeycutt – Moms Across America
Pam Schoenfeld – Women and Family Nutrition
Sandrine Perez – Nourishing Our Children and Nourishing Our Children Facebook Groups
Christine Muldoon – Nourish the Littles
Sally Fallon Morell – Nourishing Traditions
Subscribe to Wise Traditions on Apple Podcasts
Check out our sponsors Optimal Carnivore and Lumiran
Key Takeaways:
- Family Food Values
- Importance of Feeding Families Organic Food
- Managing Picky Eaters and Benefits of Baby-Led Weaning
- Nourishing Children, Enhancing Fertility, Preparing for Conception
- Nutrient-Dense Foods for Preconception
Watch the full episode here:
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
00:28 – Baby-Led Weaning Benefits Explored by Experts
06:31 – Importance of Nutrient-Dense Foods for Fertility and Pregnancy
13:20 – Debunking Misconceptions: The Nutritional Value of Eggs
17:34 – Organic Foods: Reducing Harmful Chemical Exposure
24:59 – Strategies for Nourishing Picky Eaters
29:13 – Nutritional Testing and Role Modeling Healthy Eating
36:41 – Optimal Carnivore and Chromalux: Nature-Inspired Solutions
40:01 – Supporting Development Through Early Introduction of Solids
48:33 – Dietary Adjustments Enhancing Baby Growth
53:00 – Sensory Food Experiences for Healthy Baby Development
57:38 – Dissecting Baby-Led Weaning Strategies and Caregiver Bonding
59:57 – Vital Nutrients: Vitamin A from Liver, Eggs, and Cod Oil
01:06:05 – Choosing Empowerment, Courage, and Creativity
01:14:04 – Outro
Quote of the Episode:
“Regular picky eating is a natural phase in a child’s development that all kids experience.They will outgrow it with time.”— Christine Muldoon
“Optimal Carnivore plants a tree for every product sold, contributing positively to the environment.” — Zen Honeycutt
“During the break between pregnancies, it’s essential for a woman to rebuild her nutritional stores and avoid breastfeeding while pregnant.”—Sandrine Perez
“Just do the work, and even if the children don’t eat it all the time, remember that you’re doing what’s best for them.”—Pam Schoenfeld
Transcript:
Episode Title: Motherhood: From Toddlers to Teens: How to Nourish Your Kids from pre-conception, through picky stages, peer pressure, and everything in between
Episode Description:
In this episode live from the Wise Traditions Conference in Orlando, host Hilda Labrada Gore explores nourishing children from preconception with a panel of experts. Joined by esteemed guests, they discuss feeding families organic foods, managing picky eaters, and the advantages of baby-led weaning.
Discover essential insights on fertility, conception, and the power of nutrient-dense traditional diets in promoting health across generations. Learn about the benefits of organic foods, overcoming infertility, and practical strategies to make healthy eating affordable and appealing for children. Whether planning a family or enhancing your child’s health, this episode provides valuable knowledge to support your journey back to nourishing traditions.
Connect with our guests:
Zen Honeycutt
Website: momsacrossamerica.com
Email: zenhoneycutt@gmail.com
Instagram: @zenhoneycutt, @momsacrossamerica
Pam Schoenfeld
Website: womenandfamilynutrition.com
Email: p_schoenfeld@yahoo.com
Sandrine Perez
Website: nourishingourchildren.org, https://nourishingourchildren.org/groups/
Email: sandrine@sandrineperez.com
Instagram: @nourishingourchildren @sandrinehahnperez
Christine Muldoon
Website: nourishthelittles.com
Email: christine@nourishthelittles.com
Instagram: @nourishthelittles
Sally Fallon Morell
Website: nourishingtraditions.com
Email:safallon@aol.com
Instagram: @sallyfallonmorell
Subscribe to Wise Traditions on Apple Podcasts
Check out our sponsors Optimal Carnivore and Lumiram
Key Takeaways:
- Family Food Values
- Importance of Feeding Families Organic Food
- Managing Picky Eaters and Benefits of Baby-Led Weaning
- Nourishing Children, Enhancing Fertility, Preparing for Conception
- Nutrient-Dense Foods for Preconception
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
00:28 – Baby-Led Weaning Benefits Explored by Experts
06:31 – Importance of Nutrient-Dense Foods for Fertility and Pregnancy
13:20 – Debunking Misconceptions: The Nutritional Value of Eggs
17:34 – Organic Foods: Reducing Harmful Chemical Exposure
24:59 – Strategies for Nourishing Picky Eaters
29:13 – Nutritional Testing and Role Modeling Healthy Eating
36:41 – Optimal Carnivore and Chromalux: Nature-Inspired Solutions
40:01 – Supporting Development Through Early Introduction of Solids
48:33 – Dietary Adjustments Enhancing Baby Growth
53:00 – Sensory Food Experiences for Healthy Baby Development
57:38 – Dissecting Baby-Led Weaning Strategies and Caregiver Bonding
59:57 – Vital Nutrients: Vitamin A from Liver, Eggs, and Cod Oil
01:06:05 – Choosing Empowerment, Courage, and Creativity
01:14:04 – Outro
Quote of the Episode:
“Regular picky eating is a natural phase in a child’s development that all kids experience.They will outgrow it with time.”— Christine Muldoon
“Optimal Carnivore plants a tree for every product sold, contributing positively to the environment.” — Zen Honeycutt
“During the break between pregnancies, it’s essential for a woman to rebuild her nutritional stores and avoid breastfeeding while pregnant.”—Sandrine Perez
“Just do the work, and even if the children don’t eat it all the time, remember that you’re doing what’s best for them.”—Pam Schoenfeld
Transcript:
Hilda:
From the Weston A Price Foundation, welcome to the Wise Traditions podcast for wise traditions in food, farming and the healing arts. We are your source for scientific knowledge and traditional wisdom to help you achieve optimal health. And now here is our host and producer, Hilda Labrada Gore.
Zen Honeycutt:
Hey. Hilda here. How important is it to feed your family organic food? What if you can’t afford it? And what do you do about picky eaters in your family? Is there anything you can do about
Sandrine Perez:
it? And what do you
Zen Honeycutt:
think of baby led weaning? Are there benefits to it? This is episode 501, and we talk about everything on this episode from how to manage toddlers to teens. This is a special episode that was recorded in front of a live audience at the WISE Traditions Conference in Orlando, Florida. Our team of experts address everything from top to bottom how to nurture our children from preconception onward. The guests include Zen Honeycutt, the founder of Moms Across America, Sally Fallon Morel, the president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Christine Muldoon of Nourish the Littles, Sandrine Perez, the head of Nourishing Our Children, and Pam Schoenfeld, a registered dietitian with a practice in North Carolina. Together, they answer all of the questions that we discussed at the top of this episode and more. This episode is a little longer than usual, but it is worth it because it is jam packed with wisdom on how to nourish your family deeply, how to enhance fertility, and to feed your children in a way that they’ll love it. Before we get into the conversation, I wanna invite you to join the Weston A.
Zen Honeycutt:
Price Foundation’s email list. We send out important action alerts pertinent to where you live in the world along with letting you know about upcoming events and so forth. So join us. I’ll put a link in the show description to make it easy for you to sign up today. This is Huddle of Bradegar and you’re listening to Wise Traditions. Welcome to Wise Traditions. This is a very special podcast because we’re recording it at the Wise Traditions Conference 2024 in Orlando, Florida. Did you know that the Weston A.
Zen Honeycutt:
Price Foundation was established in 1999? So this is year 25. Let’s hear it. And, we are so thankful to the president and founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Sally Fallon Morell:. As you know, she is the author of Nourishing Traditions, Nourishing Fats, Nourishing Broth, Nourishing Diets. She is just a nourishing woman. We’re so thankful. She is on our panel today along with Zen Honeycutt from moms across America, advocate for children’s food and all of our health.
Zen Honeycutt:
Sandrine Perez, a dear, dear supporter of the Weston A. Price Foundation. She is also the head of nourishing our children. Christine Muldoon is on the board of the Weston a Price Foundation, and she’s also from Nourish the Littles. And Pam Schoenfeld, a registered dietitian who has previously been on the board and is from women and family nutrition. Let’s give her a hand. This is one of the most critical topics that the Weston A. Price Foundation focuses on, the next generation.
Zen Honeycutt:
Because traditional peoples did the same. They weren’t just shoring up their own health, they wanted to guarantee the health of their children and their grandchildren and so on. So this is why we are doing this panel on nourishing our children from preconception onward. And I’m gonna pose some questions to just a couple of panelists and some to all of them. My first question goes to Sally and Sandrine. How can you actually nourish from preconception onward? What does that mean, Sally?
Sally Fallon Morell:
Well, it means, preparing for pregnancy. So you eat very nutrient dense foods for at least 6 months before conception. And if you’ve been a vegetarian or eating a lot of processed food, you wanna make that 1 or 2 years to prepare your body for conception. You need all of these nutrients ready and available because as soon as you conceive, that embryo and that fetus starts growing and needs those nutrients. The nutrient dense foods are foods very rich in minerals and the fat soluble vitamins, a, d, and k. Liver is one of those foods, so you need to find a way to like liver. Butter from grass fed animals, that’s not hard. Raw milk, raw whole milk, fermented foods, broth, cod liver oil, Sandrine will she has a longer list.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Eggs. Eggs are a very important nutrient dense food.
Sandrine Perez:
I was gonna add, how can you prepare yourself, in advance of pregnancy is to space your pregnancies. Traditionally, they were spaced 3 years. Meaning if you had your first born, it would be, you know, age 0, then 3, then 6, then 9. And I wanted to add that because in between pregnancies, a woman needs to recover her nutritional stores and also during that time, we recommend that a woman stop breastfeeding so that she’s not breastfeeding while she’s pregnant. That’s also another way to prepare for pregnancy, preconception.
Zen Honeycutt:
So, Pam, I know that you also work a lot with people who are trying to conceive. What are tips for preparing for conception as we’re discussing?
Pam Schoenfeld:
I’m sorry. Could you repeat that? What what did you say? Yeah.
Zen Honeycutt:
Well, I just know that you give advice to families who are trying to conceive. What are some tips for preparation? And by the way, I still don’t quite get it. Like, why do we have to prepare? I see young 17 year olds getting pregnant when they’re not exactly prepared for it and not trying to get pregnant.
Pam Schoenfeld:
Well, that is a bit of a mystery, isn’t it? There are, genetic differences in the way we need to consume nutrients for sure. I don’t think that would be something that we should even pay any attention to because most of us don’t know our genes and this would be especially in vitamin a, but we know the traditional peoples use the organ meats especially prior to conception and during pregnancy and they are the most nutrient dense foods. And the other thing I’d like to say in regards to what Sandrine was saying, I have a lot of women that come to me with what’s called secondary infertility. They had no problem getting pregnant the first time around, but by the second time, whatever number of times they’re now that they’re trying and sometimes they’ve had a couple miscarriages. They’re like, what’s going on? I said, well, tell me a little bit about your pregnancy and, you know, what kind of diet you had and things like that. And so they tell me and then how long did you breastfeed? And a lot of, you know, women are trying to do the best for their family. So they breastfeed for a while a year or more. And I said, well, that’s why you can’t get pregnant because now your nutrient depleted.
Pam Schoenfeld:
So what worked the first time doesn’t necessarily work the second time or the third time to your point. So this is really what I see in practice. It’s not that uncommon to see women who are quite successful early on and I can’t explain why someone with a less nourishing diet actually does except for there are genetic differences, but the body does get very depleted through that process of of pregnancy and lactation, so it has to be supported.
Zen Honeycutt:
I also wonder if age has something to do with it.
Pam Schoenfeld:
Yeah. Sometimes I think it does, but in most cases, unless a woman’s in her late thirties, I don’t see it as an issue generally.
Zen Honeycutt:
Sandrine, do you have anything to add?
Sandrine Perez:
Yes. I was gonna say to your question, why prepare? And I am not a mother. I lead nourishing our children. I have for almost 20 years now. And the reason I’m motivated is because my mom did abandon her traditional Moroccan diet, and she didn’t focus on a preconception diet or nourishing herself during pregnancy. And while all of her 11 siblings had all 32 teeth and perfect eyesight, I have only 24 teeth in my mouth because adult teeth were pulled to make enough room, for the rest of the teeth. So we if we don’t prepare for pregnancy, if we’re not well nourished, we can really create, you know, another life that is handicapped in some way, who who, you know, doesn’t have the palate that they need for all the 32 teeth that we’re designed to have, who has a narrow pelvis, who might have difficulty, you know, giving birth. So I think why prepare so that we can really give that next generation, our child, the most optimal health and physical structure? It really does make a difference.
Sandrine Perez:
I have lots of testimonials and mental health. Yes. So if you just haphazardly get pregnant, they could be missing vital nutrients where they have a very narrow palate and a very narrow pelvis that will impact them the rest of their lives.
Zen Honeycutt:
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And Zen, I know that you know that a lot of people these days are struggling with infertility. What do you recommend or what do you see as an impediment to conception?
Moms Across America Advocate:
Well, the short answer is chemicals. Endocrine disrupting chemicals. I recently read the book Countdown by doctor Shawna Swan, hopefully so you don’t have to. It’s horrible that, you know, with the projection of fertility in the future. The endocrine disrupting chemicals allowed in the United States is around 1200. In Europe, they allow 3. So we need to drastically reduce our exposure to these endocrine disrupting chemicals, which are primarily in pesticides in the food supply. And so we will talk, I’m sure, more about the importance of eating organic.
Moms Across America Advocate:
But I wanna go above that even more. A bigger reason is convenience. I call it the disease of ease. We want things fast and cheap and easy and tasty. And in America, we are so obsessed with, you know, information and TV and social media that tells us we need to have stuff. And when we need to have stuff, when we need to have designer clothes and the newest phone and all of these things, we end up curbing our, our time that we allow for cooking and for food and for home. So I really I love what Weston A Price Foundation does because the word nourishing makes us think about what we need for our body and that usually is to get connected with nature. So I truly believe if we cut out a lot of the media and a lot of the exposure to material things and we get reconnected with nature, we will naturally cook more food at home.
Moms Across America Advocate:
We will naturally eat organic, and we will naturally be more fertile.
Zen Honeycutt:
And Pam, I know that you see a lot of women hoping to have kids. What other, ideas do you have to help enhance conception or enhance fertility?
Pam Schoenfeld:
Well, there’s so many things, but one of the main things that I see is women aren’t getting enough sleep. It’s a really pervasive problem and there’s a lot of reason for that, especially if they already have it, one child or more. And I’m always saying, look, you know, we get the nutrition right, but they’re just not they’re too stressed, they’re too they’re not sleeping. And I said, look, I think that’s really one of your most important problems. And when that can be addressed oftentimes with the nourishing diet, the fertility can be reversed. I wanted to mention something about the endocrine disrupting chemicals. And I think, of course, it’s what you mentioned was very, very smart and we should really avoid them. But a well nourished person is more able to detoxify those.
Pam Schoenfeld:
And I’ve know that actually vitamin a is very important in that process. And you you most of you might know that I’m, you know, all about vitamin a. But it I mean, it’s not the only vitamin, but that’s not the one I’ve obviously looked into. And I think that’s part of the whole picture that, you know, we don’t just think about what we can avoid, but we think about how we can protect ourself because it’s everywhere and there’s no way you can a 100% protect yourself from chemicals. Isn’t that so get getting well nourished is is key.
Zen Honeycutt:
Well, and that leads into our next question. So there are sacred foods, foods that traditional cultures revered for, ever since existence began, because they knew that they were good not only for people wanting to conceive, mothers wanting to conceive, but for those that were already expecting and even for the children. I wanna ask each of you to highlight a particular sacred food, and let’s start with you, Pam.
Pam Schoenfeld:
Well, I’m gonna skip the obvious one, and I’m gonna mention eggs. I I say this because I have a lot of patients that are unlike you all, they’re just, you know, average people that haven’t really looked into things to the depth that you all investigated and I’m always saying, look, just eat a lot of eggs. You know, if you think about what an egg is, you know, it’s a unfertilized well, could be fertilized and, you know, living thing and it contains so many nutrients that our own eggs, our own reproductive system needs. So if someone’s unwilling to eat the the the the best food, which I’m gonna let somebody else say, I recommend that they eat as many eggs and the pastured organic, you know, if they can get them from a farmer as possible. And unfortunately, this is not being done because the government has basically scared people from eating too many eggs, but it’s it’s really interesting how well that often works in conjunction with other changes.
Zen Honeycutt:
That’s great. Christine?
Christine Muldoon:
I’m gonna say bone marrow and seafood. That’s my answer.
Sandrine Perez:
Okay. Let’s see what hasn’t been mentioned. Liver. They’re they’re whispering to me liver. I was gonna leave that one for Sally. So, you know, she mentioned you need to find a way to like liver and it can be hidden in in in meatloaf, where you don’t taste it at all or meatballs. It can also be taken as capsules, desiccated liver capsules. We have numerous providers, that provide a grass fed and grass finished, liver capsule.
Sandrine Perez:
And also women in our community will freeze the liver and, create a capsule of their own, which is less expensive than have it having it encapsulated. It doesn’t have to be something you don’t enjoy. You you know, Janine Farzin, who’s in our audience, is very expert in preparing organ meats, and I encourage people to look her up awfully, awfully good cooking, o f f a l l y. Not awful, awfully. And, there that is definitely the most nutrient dense food, to consume.
Zen Honeycutt:
Excellent. Zen?
Moms Across America Advocate:
I’m gonna go from the Asian perspective and say seaweed and, the minerals that are in that, I don’t actually know if that’s a Western AP House Price Foundation recommendation, but, okay. From in Japan, they eat seaweed at almost every meal, so and that would include fermented foods,
Zen Honeycutt:
so Beautiful. Thank you.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Sally? Yeah. So Pam and I share a very similar personal history in that we recovered our health or boosted our health when we discovered liver as adults. I had never eaten liver in my life, and then I discovered pate and couldn’t eat enough of it, and I’m sure that’s why my daughter was so beautiful and healthy even though I wasn’t doing Weston Price at the time. Liver is our most nutrient dense food. It is the it was a sacred food in all cultures. People ate liver to, prepare for pregnancy. Not only our best source of vitamin a, but b 12, b 6, phosphorus, even vitamin c is in liver. Choline, biotin, I mean, all of these, critical b vitamins, and it’s just a complete package.
Sally Fallon Morell:
So I really do recommend if you’re gonna have healthy children to learn to like liver in some way. This is much easier in Europe because they have liver sausage and pate. You can get chicken liver pate in any pub in in England. So, learn to make pate, and if you really can’t do it, then do the desiccated liver capsules.
Zen Honeycutt:
Excellent. Excellent advice. So now I wanna pivot and ask about the importance of organic. You mentioned that earlier, Zen. Why is it important to get organic food as opposed to just the regular conventional stuff?
Moms Across America Advocate:
Well, I have reviewed thousands of food tests from Canada, the United States, from multiple organizations and across the board, organic food has dramatically less chemicals, specifically glyphosate, which is, has been proven and shown to destroy the beneficial gut bacteria and allow for the proliferation of pathogenic gut bacteria, affect the hormone system, the nervous system, cause cancer, all kinds of, fertility issues can be connected to it as well. Miscarriages and, the androgenization of baby girls, meaning lengthening their anal genital distance. So when the mother was exposed to glyphosate, the baby girls were masculinized and also damaging sperm. So, organic has far less, if they, it’s not allowed, first of all, glyphosate is not allowed in organic and toxic chemicals are not allowed. There could be some contamination but from what I have seen for instance, maybe organic wine had 54 parts per 1,000,000,000 in it and I’m sorry, the conventional wine had 54 parts per 1,000,000,000 of glyphosate in it and if there was any contamination in the organic wine or biodynamic wine, when it had point 3. So far, far lower. Okay? Across the board. And, but I do wanna point out it doesn’t have to be USDA organic.
Moms Across America Advocate:
If you know your farmer and you trust your farmer, for me that trust and that level of connection is much more important. So organic is definitely across the board gonna have less pesticides and endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Zen Honeycutt:
Christine, what do you think about that?
Christine Muldoon:
I’m gonna offer an anecdotal personal story to that. When I was a young child, my mother started buying organic before it was even a thing. I’m from Texas and Whole Foods, you know, started in Texas, And I’ll never forget this then. We she had she had a garden, she had parsley, and 1 year there were caterpillars that ate it up. And in an effort to save the caterpillars, she went to the grocery store, she bought some conventional, you know, just regular parsley, put the caterpillars in a box, and fed the caterpillars. Well, they all died, and she couldn’t figure out why. And my mother’s a microbiologist, so she was a little bit curious. And the following year, the same thing happened, the caterpillars came to her plants, you know, wanted to eat it up.
Christine Muldoon:
So the 2nd year, she bought organic parsley, and this was before organic was even a thing. It was not, you know, there weren’t a lot of people buying organic back then, and they all survived. And so ever since then, she was convinced it was the chemicals they were spraying on the parsley, and she started buying organic from then on.
Moms Across America Advocate:
Can I just add one more thing to that?
Sandrine Perez:
Yeah. Sure.
Moms Across America Advocate:
To another story. I love the story thing, not just the data. But I interviewed a woman in Australia. She was from Africa and she said that her father, called her and said that the GMO crops that they were planting in Africa were killing their village, that the people were getting diabetes because of chemicals. Right? And, and they were actually starving because the soil wasn’t able to grow the cowpeas and the other foods that they normally would grow to feed their village. So the GMOs were making them starve. And I asked if she had a personal experience with it because she wasn’t in Africa. She was in Australia at the time and she said, oh, yeah.
Moms Across America Advocate:
She had 9 miscarriages until she switched to organic, which included organic, raw milk by the way. She switched that and, ate organic food and then after that she had 3 healthy babies in her late thirties. Wow. Yeah.
Zen Honeycutt:
These are dramatic stories. So thank you for sharing. Sally, I know you and I often talk about, the struggling single mom, trying to make ends meet. What if she’s just like, organic is out of reach, I can’t afford it. What would you say to her?
Sally Fallon Morell:
Yes. You know, it’s it’s really neat to be a homesteader or have a little farm, but live the simple life, so to speak, but very few people can afford that. And I I don’t want the Weston a Price Foundation to be associated with simply, that kind of lifestyle because we need to get to the single mom living in an apartment in Brooklyn. How can we help her? So if you can’t always afford organic, I certainly would make sure that your grains are organic because they’re sprayed with glyphosate 2 days before harvest and you’re just getting the full brunt of them. And I believe this is why so many people have so called gluten intolerance. Excuse me. It’s the glyphosate sprayed on the grains, and and glyphosate does break down a little over time, but there’s no time for it to break down. So you’re getting the full brunt of this.
Sally Fallon Morell:
The other thing I would, urge the mom to do is eat liver and people I I I know I can point to many people who grew up in a background that we would say poor, and they ate liver because it was cheap. And you can get calves liver in any supermarket, And in America, calves are, out in the open range. I wouldn’t get the beef liver because that’s from the confinement. But calves in America are still outside and grass fed. So I get calves’ liver, it’s not expensive. And then the other thing I would, the 2 other things I would say is eat butter no matter what it costs. It’s worth it. And to, get raw milk.
Sally Fallon Morell:
And through our chapters, we are trying to make raw milk available everywhere.
Zen Honeycutt:
Christine, I know you also work with families. What do you say about affordability and people trying to stay within budget eating this way?
Christine Muldoon:
Yeah. I know that’s a really challenging topic right now, especially with how expensive groceries are lately. So one of my recommendations would be the EWG, and they put out the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen. So if it’s not possible to buy organic for all of your produce and all of your foods, then stick to the dirty dozen, buy an organic for that and conventional for clean 15?
Zen Honeycutt:
Yeah. That’s EWG, the environmental working group. And I think they also have an app where you can see exactly what is in the food that you’re thinking about buying. I if I’m not mistaken, you can, like, plug it into their app and they’ll tell you, oh, there are these ingredients or these chemicals that one’s particularly one to avoid. Do you have anything to add, Pam?
Pam Schoenfeld:
Yes. About the liver, I at Whole Foods, and I don’t know if this everywhere across the United States, but they do have organic chicken livers for $6 a pound and that could be 2 or 3 servings.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Yeah.
Pam Schoenfeld:
So that’s quite affordable and, great ways to make a very palatable, tasty, mild liver dish and it’s it’s quite nutrient dense, actually.
Zen Honeycutt:
Yeah. And as a lot of moms know, you can, like, chop that baby up I mean, the baby. Sorry. I didn’t mean to so awkward to say that in this particular panel, but anyway, you can chop the liver up and make, you know, dirty rice, as they say.
Sandrine Perez:
You know, mix it into things.
Zen Honeycutt:
Not that you’re trying to hide it, but you’re trying to make it so your kid will eat it, and then they’ll still be craving it. I’ve seen my friends with little kids, and their kids are just like gulping down the pate because just like when Sally first found it, like, they can’t get enough of it because their little bodies know exactly what they need. Okay. So this next question is gonna go to the whole panel, I believe. What do you do? I just talked about a kid who’s, like, eager to eat it all, but some people have very picky children. Sometimes it has to do with the fact that the texture is funny to them or I think Zen, you even told me that there was this mom whose kid was autistic, and all this kid would eat was like nuggets, ice cream, and pizza. And the mom’s like, I know it’s not good, but what can I do? So this is a question for each of the panelists. We’ll start with you, Zen.
Zen Honeycutt:
What would you tell her?
Moms Across America Advocate:
Well, first of all, it’s mindset. Okay? You are the gatekeeper to your child’s health and they will not die. They will not die if they do not have those foods. Right? And we need to understand that it’s not them that wants those foods, it’s their gut bacteria that has been, you know, imbalanced by the exposure to all these different chemicals. And so having this mindset that you are the one that’s going to open up the gateway and give them this pathway to new health is is very very important indeed. And I had another thought about that, but I might have to come back to it. So so, first of all, it’s having the food in your house that they want to have. I mean, sorry, that you want to give them and then giving them a choice.
Moms Across America Advocate:
So don’t have the food in the house that you don’t want them to have. Just don’t buy it. You’re in charge. Okay? And you can have organic chicken nuggets if you really want to. You can make organic chicken nuggets with them and, and just give them a choice, just make sure everything that you’re giving them as a choice are things that you are are happy with them having.
Zen Honeycutt:
Wonderful. Let’s go down the line. Let’s go back to Sally.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Yes. I see this a lot. I think it’s moms who perhaps don’t have a lot of self confidence and they wanna be popular with your kids with their kids. And it you know, being a mom is not a popularity contest. And they’ll still love you if you say no and if you control things. And probably in the end, they will love you more because you cared for them in this way. So, yes, I see a lot of moms that just give in and buy the cookies and buy the sweets when all I have to do is say, no, I’m not gonna do this.
Zen Honeycutt:
I love it. Sandrine? Sorry. I forgot. I remember the sentence. Okay. Zen.
Moms Across America Advocate:
So the one sentence is yeah. Is being a good parent means giving your children what they need, not what they
Sandrine Perez:
want. Oh.
Zen Honeycutt:
Yes. Giving them what they need, not what they want. Good words. Sandrine?
Sandrine Perez:
So, nourishing our children has a private Facebook group and lots of parents ask this question. And we continually tell the parents to, as Zen and Sally have, encouraged, really offer only the foods you want them to eat. And if there’s something they really enjoy, such as a chicken nugget, you can make it in a nutrient dense way. You don’t have to buy a convenience food. And I wanna highlight a resource in our audience, Cori Dunn, who’s very specialized in these kinds of swaps. She presented last year. She’s on, Instagram and she has a blog, and she creates all sorts of, you know, macaroni and cheese and the kind of typical, processed foods that children are drawn to in nutrient dense ways. So that’s an option.
Sandrine Perez:
I do think that it’s helpful to be with other parents who are facing this and have that communal support of other moms and dads who are saying no. So, you know, kinda coach each other to that finish line. We have seen time and again that kids do come around. They are hungry and they will eat what you’re serving in time. There might be a painful period of tears and upset, they will not starve to death.
Zen Honeycutt:
Encouraging words. Christine?
Christine Muldoon:
This is one of my favorite subjects to talk about, so I’ll try and keep it brief. So if we’re talking about severe picky eating, I for those parents, I want to say that it’s very likely that nutritional testing, specifically HTMA, looking at heavy metals, looking at nutrient deficiencies like zinc. Zinc is known as the sensory, mineral. And so oftentimes kids that struggle with texture issues or, are rejecting meat and things like that, they are deficient in zinc. So that’s if we’re talking about severe picky eating. If we’re talking about just regular picky eating, it’s actually developmentally appropriate and it is a stage that all kids go through. And eventually, like Sandrine said, they move past it. And so words of encouragement would be keep serving nutrient dense foods day in, day out, keep your food family values, your boundaries firm, model for your kids, model.
Christine Muldoon:
And when they see you eating nutrient dense foods, they’re going to want to eat nutrient dense foods. And then also the division of responsibility, which was created by a woman named Ellen Sater. And this basically espouses that the parents are in charge of what your kids eat, when they eat, and and, yeah, what and when. And the children are in charge of if they eat and how much. So because we do the grocery shopping and we do the meal planning, we serve the food. And then we release control and it’s up to the kids after that. So those are some And
Zen Honeycutt:
didn’t you tell me one time that one of your kids was like, I don’t like that. I don’t like that. I don’t like that. I’ve never liked it. And then one time you served it and he’s like, I love it. I want more of it.
Christine Muldoon:
Yeah. Totally. It’s all about exposure because there’s this disconnect between parents and kids where a parent will serve a food maybe like 2 times or 3 times and then like, oh, my kid doesn’t like it. They’re never gonna eat this. When in reality, they need to be exposed to it anywhere between 15 20 times before they accept it. And exposure could look like seeing it at the grocery store, seeing it at the farmers market, seeing it on their plate of food cooked one way, seeing it on their plate of food cooked a different way. It’s just constant exposure and sometimes it takes years. She’s talking about my son who didn’t eat mushrooms and that took 7 years.
Zen Honeycutt:
I want you all to raise your hand if there was ever a food you didn’t like that you now like today. Okay. Okay. Case closed. Mic dropped, but I don’t wanna hurt this mic. Alright. Pam, you go.
Pam Schoenfeld:
Yeah. So many good tips. One of the things that I’ve done with my granddaughter to help her increase interest in foods and she’s only 2 and a half now is to actually get her preparing foods together and, they love that especially when they’re young. So once they’ve made something themselves, they’re most more likely to try it. It’s something I did with my son because he rejected eggs when oh, I don’t know what age he began doing that. You know, kept encouraging, kept serving them, kept making them eat them before I gave him anything else. But when it was really difficult, when he was more insistent, I actually started putting egg yolks into everything I made. And it’s pretty easy to sneak egg yolks into like a taco meat or a spaghetti sauce.
Pam Schoenfeld:
You know, you’d probably heard of the Jessica Seinfeld putting vegetables. Well, mine was hiding egg yolks and everything. So don’t don’t put the whites in necessarily. They change. They’re a little bit too much, you know, rubbery texture, but you can get egg yolks in a lot of different foods. I even made, oh, I can’t even think what the dessert is called. It’s a baglione. It does have sugar in it, but it’s made with 6 egg yolks and I gave that to him to dip his fruit in.
Pam Schoenfeld:
So, you know, try to find creative ways. And in fact, nowadays, my son loves eggs and, you know, he’s very much into all these types of foods, but it does take persistence, really is persistence and and just know that it’s not easy. And the other thing I would say is don’t even let your kids. If you go to a restaurant, forget the kids menu. Don’t even think it is an occasional treat. Once they start tasting these foods, it’s you don’t need to give them to them. My my granddaughter goes out with my husband and I and we only order off the, adult menu and and people always notice and they go, wow, she’s such a good eater. So just the kids menus are the worst.
Pam Schoenfeld:
It’s a it’s a it’s a terrible thing in this country that we think kids should eat these foods as as, their sustenance anyway.
Zen Honeycutt:
Yeah. So let’s go back to
Sally Fallon Morell:
oh, Sally wants to add something. Sure. Just wanna say one thing about pickiness. I didn’t allow pickiness. You ate what I served you and, of course, you need to make that food taste good, But I did allow pickiness on eggs because I’m picky on eggs. I can’t eat a runny white and I don’t I don’t like to see the whites. So I have to cook those really with those, scrambled eggs. And I I understand this.
Sally Fallon Morell:
I’m still picky about eggs, so I allowed my kids I always ask them, how do you want your eggs? And I tried to make them so that they would eat them.
Zen Honeycutt:
Okay. So raise your hand if you’re still picky about some foods. Oh, my gosh. Of course. So sometimes it’s not about the food, it’s about control or other issues or associations. Right? So let’s have grace with our kids. Coming up, our panelists discuss what baby’s first foods should be. Hint, not rice cereal.
Zen Honeycutt:
And they talk about the timing on introducing solid foods to baby and what signals you can look for that your baby will give you to indicate to you that it really is time.
Hilda:
You’re listening to the Wise Traditions podcast from the Weston A. Price Foundation. We pause now to recognize our sponsors.
Zen Honeycutt:
Optimal carnivore. Organ meats are some of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. You know it probably as well as I do. The thing is, they’re not always easy to source or prepare or to make tasty for the family. And the guys over at Optimal Carnivore are aware of this, so they wanted to take the hassle and the guesswork out of doing so. What they’ve done is they’ve sourced 100 percent grass fed and grass finished organ meats from New Zealand. They chose New Zealand because it is one of the most pristine environments on earth with lush greenery and, the animals can graze freely. So they’ve gotten the organ meats from these animals.
Zen Honeycutt:
They have
Sandrine Perez:
freeze dried them and put them in
Zen Honeycutt:
bovine gelatin capsules to make them easy to access for you. And they are free from pesticides and GMOs. And they are free from pesticides and GMOs. And again, they are 100% grass fed organ meats and grass finished, gently freeze dried to preserve the enzymes and all of the benefits therein. And the guys at Optimal Carnivore, they know that our ancestors would have eaten nose to tail. So they’ve developed a grass fed organ complex, which is a unique blend of 9 different organs. It’s a powerful combination including beef liver, brain, thymus, heart, kidney, spleen, pancreas, lung, and gallbladder. It’s a real nose to tail solution, whether you’re just trying to acquire a taste for organ meats or you’re often on the go like me.
Zen Honeycutt:
And by the way, optimal carnivore plants one tree for every product sold, which helps the environment. So go to Amazon.com/optimalcarnivore to place your order today, either for their grass fed organ complex, their grass fed bone marrow, or any of their other wonderful products. Again, it’s Amazon.com/optimalcarnivore, and Lumiram. You may already be purifying your water or your air, but what about your light? Not only do most light bulbs today emit harsh flicker and EMF and unnatural isolated peaks in blue light, they’re also not great at doing what a light is intended for, helping you see. Most full spectrum lights on the market also lack a critical piece of the light spectrum, infrared energy. They’re nothing at all like sunlight in Constitution and your body knows it, enhancing people’s lives and the spaces they live in since it was first created in Finland over 60 years ago. Chromalux is the original neodymium glass full spectrum light bulb. It’s a unique non LED light source that closely simulates sunlight by purifying the visible light spectrum.
Zen Honeycutt:
Unlike ordinary, harsh, and frankly uninspiring light bulbs, the Chromaluxe full spectrum lamp creates a soothing yet vibrant interior space that you’ll love to live, work, and play in. The light of Chromaluxe is equal parts healthy and beautiful and as nourishing and colorfully pure as sunlight. These beautiful bulbs have have little blue light and are naturally low in flicker. And the real magic lies in their special neodymium glass composition, which purifies light and creates better contrast and definition between colors, tones, and textures. You’re basically giving your body real analog light while also, at the same time, enhancing your environment and uplifting your spirit. So you’ll see better, experience improved clarity and sharpness. You’ll feel better. You’ll feel more uplifted and creative by reintroducing color into your life.
Zen Honeycutt:
And things will kind of pop with their vibrant colors. They’ll transform your home with richer hues and more vivid colors and enhanced contrast. Chromaluxe Light truly embodies that essence of seeing life in full color. So see better, feel better. And simple difference that a light bulb can make in your life, give Chromaluxe Light a try. Use the code wise for 10% off your first order. Go to healthlighting.com. Again, it’s the code wise for 10% off your first order at healthlighting.com.
Zen Honeycutt:
This is Hilda Labradagore and you’re listening to Wise Traditions. Alright. Now let’s go back to infancy. I wanna ask Sandrine and Christine about baby’s first food. What should it be and what should the timing be on that?
Christine Muldoon:
Okay. So generally speaking, introduction of solids should be between 4 6 months of age depending on the baby and their maturity, And there are several indicators that a baby is ready for solids. And so starting solids is incredibly important for developmental and brain, brain growth. And one of the one of the reasons why babies need to start solid foods is because beginning at around 6 months, their iron needs increase and they need more iron than mother’s breast milk alone can provide. And also when you’re starting solids, there is a special window, called the texture window and the flavor window. And this is when the baby’s brain is primed to receive texture information and flavor information. And so basically, within that 1st year, we want to be introducing our baby to as many different textured textures of food, as many different flavors of food as possible because their their brain is receptive to that. And there have been studies out there that show that the earlier, the more solid foods that are introduced in that window, they will help prevent picky eating in the future.
Christine Muldoon:
And then also when it comes to solid foods, there’s the oral motor the oral motor development aspect of it, which is incredibly important for babies to develop their strength, to practice having food in their mouth, to practice lateralizing their tongue and seeing how what does it feel like if I have too much food in my mouth? What does it feel like if there there’s not enough? Eating is a full sensorial experience, so we want them to touch it. We want them to smear it all over their face. We want them to smell it. All of these things are necessary for starting solids, for baby.
Zen Honeycutt:
And what should those Sandrine, you take this part of the question. What should those foods be? What would you suggest introducing the the baby to?
Sandrine Perez:
Okay. I just wanna say quickly before I answer that that, within the nourishing our children community, this has been a really controversial topic. There’s this notion that food before 1 is just for fun, and I wanna dispel that. It is not just for fun. It’s really critical, and some babies are really ready as early as 4 months, and that’s been very controversial as well. So I just wanna, you know, highlight, don’t buy into that trendy slogan. The first foods we recommend is not rice cereal. It’s not the perfect food.
Sandrine Perez:
We recommend a slightly cooked egg yolk, not the white, just egg yolk with a little grated liver, it can be raw liver, and a pinch of salt. There’s another myth that babies should not have salt, and we disagree with that. Sally is very expert on the topic of salt. Let me just suffice it to say that, you know, it doesn’t have to be the egg yolk, liver, and, salt, but that is one of the first foods we recommend. And if you’re interested in all the different foods we would recommend, nourishing our children on our website, nourishing our children.org has a whole resource list for baby’s first solid foods with lots of, guides around that. But, you know, anything that will really nourish your child, some children don’t do well with the egg yolk. They vomit it. So we encourage them to try something else, you know, bone marrow.
Sandrine Perez:
Yeah. Bone marrow is bone marrow is is definitely a a popular first food. Avocado, Sally’s big into purees and not doing the baby led weaning, trend. She can are you is she speaking on this one or no?
Zen Honeycutt:
Well, what I was gonna say, maybe this whole, like, well, actually baby food, like canned baby food on the grocery store shelf, it’s a little bit like the kids menu. Like, it’s like something we came up with, but traditional cultures didn’t have baby food in little jars with a cute little baby picture on it. You know what I mean? And they also didn’t have they just had the food that they were eating that they shared with the child at the right time. So I think part of this may be intuitive and returning to nutrient dense foods as Sandrine is alluding. What I did wanna ask you, Sally, about now is raw milk. So this is another controversial. We’re not afraid of controversy here at the Wesley Price Foundation. It’s a controversial topic.
Zen Honeycutt:
Is raw milk safe? I mean, I know it is, but is it safe for pregnant women and even babies and children?
Sally Fallon Morell:
Yeah. Well, if you’re against raw milk, you’re against breastfeeding. Right? Yeah. Breast milk is raw milk. Raw milk is very safe. We like raw milk to come from very clean dairies, but even raw milk from dairies that aren’t as clean as we’d like has nourished, populations all over the world. The 2 foods that we consider dangerous, 1, are soft cheeses, whether raw or pasteurized because they are the most they and luncheon meats are the most common source of listeria and listeria is the bad actor among these microorganisms and can cause miscarriage. But raw milk is a wonderful food for pregnant women and growing children.
Sally Fallon Morell:
After you wean the child, they should go on to raw milk. I do wanna say something about our weaning foods. What do traditional people do? Some of them wean as early as 1 month, but none of them go past 6 months. And you’re gonna end up with a baby who’s anemic if you think you should be breastfeeding exclusively breastfeeding for a year. Why do we recommend egg yolks and liver as baby’s first foods? Well, these are extremely nutrient dense foods and also they are our best sources of cholesterol. Babies cannot make cholesterol. Adults make their own cholesterol, but babies can’t make this. They need cholesterol for everything, for they make hormones out of cholesterol and babies make hormones.
Sally Fallon Morell:
They you need the cholesterol for their brains, for their gut formation, basically for everything. So, one of our big concerns is oh, and mother’s milk is very high in cholesterol and contains special enzymes to ensure a 100% assimilation of that cholesterol. One of our big concerns about baby formula is that it contains no cholesterol. If you buy milk replacer for calves, the third ingredient is animal fat, number 3. Because they know that these, animals will not grow properly if and they’ll die if they don’t have animal fat, which is our source of cholesterol. But what’s in human formula? It’s skim milk and vegetable oils. There’s no animal fat in formula. And if I were president, if I were king, I would, make that a requirement.
Sally Fallon Morell:
It’s just like you have a requirement for ice cream. If it says ice cream on the label, it has to contain 10% butterfat. So if it says baby formula for human babies, it should be made with it should be made with whole milk, and that should be an absolute requirement of the form of formula makers, and we have a precedent to do it. Do you know why they don’t do it?
Zen Honeycutt:
Profit.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Because they’ve figured out that if they put that butterfat in ice cream, they can make 5 to 10 times more for it than if they leave it in the milk for growing children.
Zen Honeycutt:
Have you noticed this as a theme that profit is chosen over the people’s health time and time again?
Sally Fallon Morell:
So we, so basically, our nutrition policy for our children is not based on science. It’s determined by accountants. Yeah. And we should be on our knees in sackcloth and ashes that we have allowed this to happen to our culture.
Zen Honeycutt:
I think yours is absolutely right. Pam, you wanted to add something?
Pam Schoenfeld:
Little anecdotal story from one of my patients recently. She an Indian mom and you know, an Asian Indian mom and her husband and they lived with I’m sorry. Recently, I was working with an a an Indian an Asian Indian woman and she was has a 6 month old baby. And she wanted to, well, first of all, she had come to me because she had intrauterine growth restriction with him and we had worked it out and he wasn’t growing well initially with the, with the breast milk she was providing. Then we changed some of the things in her diet, notably, adding eggs in and some more more full fat dairy, which by the way, Indian, she was a vegetarian, so she wasn’t going to eat any of those other foods, but I did have her get take Kyla broil. She was able to do that, but her, her baby started growing much better. He was starting to get, change the trajectory of his growth curve, but now he’s 6 months old and she’s telling me she wants to get pregnant again. But anyway, she’s telling me what they’re starting to feed him.
Pam Schoenfeld:
She was, well, I’ve been, you know, fruits and vegetables. I said, yeah. And I really think it’s important that you make sure you get him some egg yolks. And then I said, honest fruits and vegetables. I want you to put some ghee in that, you know, and she’s going, oh, that’s really interesting. She goes in India. There’s one thing they tell you about feeding a baby. And I said, well, what’s that? She goes, plenty of ghee.
Pam Schoenfeld:
And I’m like, wow. I thought that was real. And ghee is really high in cholesterol and many other fat soluble vitamins too.
Sally Fallon Morell:
And also I think that Zen can address the baby food that’s out there. It is so bad. It’s fruits. It’s which is naked sugar and it’s in either aluminum or plastic.
Pam Schoenfeld:
Yeah. And it doesn’t provide enough calories for the babies. I mean, it’s like they give them fruits and vegetables. And I said, well, what were, what were you told to eat if you wanted to lose weight, fruits and vegetables, that’s not what we want for babies in that, that the amounts that they’re being recommended now, certainly you want to introduce them, but you want those fats and and the healthy protein foods that we were talking about that include all the organ meats, the the the eggs, etcetera.
Zen Honeycutt:
Sandy, you wanna speak to this too?
Moms Across America Advocate:
Yeah. Sure. I’d like to address the baby food. Very good point about them just being, you know, pretty on the shelf. Again, convenience. Right? For moms, we want convenience. We’re like, look in the shelf. Oh, that’s great for babies.
Moms Across America Advocate:
We’re not thinking about feeding babies what we’re eating, which makes more sense. Like in India, they give the babies ghee or curry. Right? Most Americans wouldn’t think to be giving our babies curry because we don’t eat curry as much, but in, you know, in other places or other countries they do. So they feed the babies what they eat. But the baby food has been tested by healthy baby’s bright future and they found levels of heavy metals in those baby, you know, the packaged, baby food containers, especially the ones in aluminum, to be high in heavy metals. And unfortunately, the organic baby foods had some of the highest levels of, heavy metals. And this is because this is the packaged. Right? Heavy baby foods.
Moms Across America Advocate:
This is because organic farmers cannot use chemical pesticides. I’m sorry. Chemical fertilizers. They have to use manure and it often comes from confined animal feeding operations where the animals are eating, GMO grains sprayed with glyphosate and pesticides which have heavy metals in them. So oftentimes, the organic especially the sweet potatoes which are in the ground absorbing heavy metals had the highest levels of heavy metals. The also the rice, baby rice foods. Yeah. Why where where do we get this idea that we have to give kids babies rice food? So that’s high in arsenic.
Moms Across America Advocate:
And then any of the canned baby foods that had cinnamon in them, any apple sauce, any type of other, you know, turkey dinner that would contain some a little bit of cinnamon in it, The cinnamon had very high levels of heavy metals. So I personally would avoid anything with rice, with any root vegetables or any, cinnamon if you were purchasing baby food. Much prefer you, you know, obviously make your own and, and just mash it up and boil, mash it, whatever it is, and put it in ice cube trays. It’s what I I know that’s plastic, but it’s you’re doing it for a very short period of time and then you carry around those little cubes.
Christine Muldoon:
Can I say one more thing about baby food?
Zen Honeycutt:
Sure. Yes, please.
Christine Muldoon:
I I just wanna add that when we’re feeding babies, food out of pouches or jars, that’s a really sterile experience for them. And going back to the importance of the sensorial experience of them being able to see the food, smell the food. I mean, our digestion begins in our brain and it’s the same for babies. So they need to be able to see the food, they need to be able to touch it, and when we’re feeding it from a pouch, they have no idea what it is that they’re eating. And also, we were feeding them pouches and baby food, and then all of a sudden we introduce solids. I mean, you know, like food in bigger pieces. How does that make any sense? We should just be feeding them regular food from the beginning, not baby food from jars and pouches.
Zen Honeycutt:
And Sally, do you wanna add something?
Sally Fallon Morell:
Yeah. I I wanna say something about this book, Baby Led Weaning. It’s a book that should be burned. It is about the most horrible book I have ever read. It’s giving moms the, excuse to be lazy and saying, you don’t have to make purees and babies don’t have teeth, they can’t chew, you know, and yet you’re giving them pieces of lettuce or great big hunks of meat. I I can’t eat a big hunk of meat. So I I really this is just a horrible book and that’s where they came up with the, phrase, foods before 1 or just for fun. Foods before 1 are the most important foods that you’re gonna give your baby for life.
Sally Fallon Morell:
So, I did write, some scathing blogs on this called Bringing Up Baby and also the, we put that article, those blogs in the journal. But on my website, I have a really cute, video of a baby being fed pureed liver. And one of the things you do when you’re feeding this baby and the baby’s laughing and he’s clowning around, he just loves his liver. But when you just put the food on the tray for him, not only can he not chew it, but he’s alone. He’s all alone with that food. And when you’re feeding the puree you’ve made for your baby, you’re engaging with him. You’re smiling. You’re laughing.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Oh, isn’t this funny? It’s a wonderful happy time for the baby.
Zen Honeycutt:
Okay. We’re gonna go we are we’re gonna go down the line, so let’s have Zen go next. And so this is gonna replace one of the other questions I had planned, and then we’re gonna do a lightning round. Okay? So please, Zen, add your 2¢.
Moms Across America Advocate:
Okay. One more thing about baby formula. A lot of women supplement with baby formula because they think they’re not giving their babies enough. And if you look at the size of a baby’s stomach, it’s actually very very small. So I think we’re being brainwashed to think that we need to give our babies baby formula and we don’t. It’s like, you know, the size of a cherry cherry when they’re a newborn and an egg when they’re a month old. So please don’t think that your baby’s not getting enough food and you need to give formula because if you do give formula and you look at the formula testing that’s on moms across America.orgorggmoscience.org, you will see that, a 100% of the the 40 baby formulas that we tested had contained aluminum and lead. 80% of them contained lead that was higher than what the FDA allows in drinking water.
Moms Across America Advocate:
There were some that contained all 5 of the heavy metals that we tested for and a goat’s milk baby formula contained 41,000 parts per billion of aluminum. And so, there are some very, very concerning levels of heavy metals in baby formula and if you can at all avoid baby formula, I would highly recommend that.
Sandrine Perez:
And I just wanted to say that we put an emphasis on animal foods rather than plant foods. It’s okay if your children don’t enjoy vegetables. And
Zen Honeycutt:
I really wanna make that
Sandrine Perez:
point because because plant foods are not as nutrient dense as as, animal foods, period. It’s just a matter of fact, and you wanna really focus on nutrient density as they’re developing. So if they don’t want the broccoli, just don’t serve it to them. It’s no problem. Favor doctor Cowan will say, let the cow eat the plants and and let and then give the cow the products from the cow. The meat, the milk, the yogurt, the butter. So don’t have any fights with your children over vegetables. Skip it.
Zen Honeycutt:
Yeah. Some people say, you know, yeah, let the cow eat the plant so we don’t have to. Okay. Christine, you go.
Christine Muldoon:
So I agree with Sally on the baby led winning book being a pretty bad book for advice as far as, like, feeding babies. One of the things that Sally talks about is liver. And liver is one of those foods that is pretty difficult to eat unless it’s for a young baby, unless it’s in pate form or, sprinkled on top of the egg yolk, those kinds of things. And there’s other very nutrient dense foods that are difficult to just feed to a baby. For example, bone marrow, broth, ferments. The the part of the baby led weaning that I think could be beneficial is the the part of where bay the connection piece between the caregiver and the parent and the child. So babies, we want to establish that relationship and that feeding relationship with them from infancy, from the time that they come out. And so there’s this belief that babies don’t need to be at the table when we’re eating.
Christine Muldoon:
That, you know, the family eats and then you feed baby by themselves. And that’s actually not ideal at all because babies are watching us eat every single time we sit down and eat. So even if your baby is a month old or 2 months old, include them in family meals because they’re observing, they’re watching you bring the fork to your mouth. And if you’ve ever seen a baby between 46 months old, it’s the cutest thing. That’s they’re starting to like open their mouth. They want to see how you’re eating. They want a bite of that. They’re so curious.
Christine Muldoon:
So that relationship aspect is really, really important. And I’m also a big fan of the oral motor development aspect. And that’s why I do think that as babies get older, it’s okay to give them, a little bit of food from your plate that, so that they can practice picking things up. I think, fish eggs are wonderful around like the 9 to 10 month age range where they can practice that, fine motor skill, the dexterity, they can practice picking up the fish eggs and popping them into their mouth. So, yeah.
Zen Honeycutt:
That’s great. And Pam?
Pam Schoenfeld:
I would like just to add that we should not rely on the use of orange vegetables to supply our children with vitamin a despite what the United States government believes. They want 2 year olds and up just consume 5 and a half cups of orange, orange vegetables a week to meet their vitamin a requirements. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a child that young meet that much. And that wouldn’t be even the matter because they’re very poor, poor computer converters of vitamin a, to vitamin a from beta carotene at that young age. So, you know, it’s just sweet potatoes, a very common food that young mothers parents will feed their child because it’s, you know, mashed up. And, I know there was an advisory against root vegetables because of the contaminants in the soil. We’ve heard that. But I want people to understand that they need the the liver, the egg yolks, the cod liver oil for the real vitamin a.
Zen Honeycutt:
Okay. So before we hit the lightning round, there’s supposed to be 2 questions in the lightning round. I wanna emphasize that I’ve interviewed Pam on an episode called vitamin a and fertility. So you might wanna check that out and share that with a friend. And actually, each of these panelists has been on the Wise Traditions podcast before, so you can find more resources from each of them. And Sally and I did a whole episode on homemade baby formula. So if you do feel like I’m I don’t have enough milk, this is an issue for me, you there are alternatives to the commercial formula sold in the supermarkets. Alright.
Zen Honeycutt:
So my first question is gonna be lightning round for you guys is many people here have older kids too. What do you do? How do you manage it as they kind of grow up and get outside of your control? They’re on the soccer team. They’re exposed to takis or, you know, they’re going to a birthday party and there’s cake. We don’t always have control over the choices that the kids have. How do you influence them as they get influenced by their peers? Let’s start with you, Pam, and then we’ll take it down here.
Pam Schoenfeld:
Question. I had that problem with my own children. And you know what? We were always looked at as the weird family. When people were eating the candy between the breaks and the games and things like that, I would bring them, you know, some, some milk smoothies and things like that. It was interesting though, because while the parents, I don’t know if it’s going to help people, but while the parents were looking at me sort of like making comments, some of the, my children’s friends were actually, Oh, Mrs. Schoenfeld, This is really good. So I think the kids actually want this. It’s the parents that don’t necessarily want to make an effort and it’s too much work to do it.
Pam Schoenfeld:
So I think just do the work and whether the children eat it all the time, you can’t control that, but know that you’re doing the best for them. And if you’re most of the time they’re eating the nourishing food you’re providing and even their friends will see it. They might even say things like, Hey, I like this, just stick with it. And, I mean, it it might be the wrong thing to say, but I never felt like I was going to control every meal of my children’s diet because I knew that would be something that they would probably reject. So I let them make some of their own choices and generally, I think everything turned out okay. But that’s that’s my personal, way of doing it.
Zen Honeycutt:
Christine? So
Christine Muldoon:
I think that there’s something as a family unit that we all need to establish, which is something called your family food values. And that’s where you decide as your own family, what are your food values, and you set those boundaries and you stick with them. Sometimes in today’s modern society, we just parents don’t have the guts to say no and to just be firm in the boundaries. And that’s that’s the first thing that I want to say about that. And then the other is invite them over. Invite all the friends over and you be the one that feeds them. I can’t tell you how many times I have invited kids over whose parents have told me they don’t eat anything. They’re super picky.
Christine Muldoon:
And then I feed them and they eat like 2 plates of food that I’ve offered and they love what I’m serving. And I think it’s just because they’re hungry and they’re not actually served nourishing foods at home. And it tastes good. You’re right, Pam. And it tastes good. So, feed your kids friends, be that house that everyone wants to go over to, and be firm in your boundaries, and don’t be afraid to set them.
Zen Honeycutt:
Sandrine?
Sandrine Perez:
So I didn’t have children of my own, but I partnered with a man, who I’m with now who has a 15 year who had a 15 year old son when we started dating, and he was eating top ramen from containers. And we did a swap. We made the top ramen with real bone broth and, you know, good ingredients, real noodles, sourdough noodles. He loved it. And we just simply took all the foods that he was attached to and swapped them. And then that’s what we served when his friends did come over. We did invite friends. We made our own pizza.
Sandrine Perez:
He had all he had a homemade ice cream. It was very seamless. And now this is a 19 year old boy who works at a coop. He didn’t wanna work anywhere where they served seed oils. He he started as a dishwasher, but didn’t wanna be any place where seed oils were served. His first paycheck, 19 year old boy, bought organic cotton underwear and organic cotton sheets for his bed.
Zen Honeycutt:
So that sounds like a win. Beautiful. Zen? So when my
Moms Across America Advocate:
son, my eldest son was about 9 years old, he was getting rashes. You guys have probably seen these on kids’ mouth around their mouth like this, red and swollen and lips cracking and breaking, on and off for 7 months. They would last for 2 weeks at a time. You’d have to go to school like that. And he looked at me one day, after about 7 months of this and he said, mom, I wish all my allergies would go away. It’s really sad. And I said, yeah, me too. And then I realized though in my head that my voice was saying, that’s never gonna happen.
Moms Across America Advocate:
Because the doctors had told me that that would only get worse. And then I realized, wait a second that’s a very disempowering voice. That’s not what I’m committed to. I’m committed to being courageous and creative and a contribution and, and so I realized that, you know, my cousin Sarah had gone gluten free for a year and she was able to restore her gut microbiome enough to be able to eat a slice of pizza now and then or piece of wedding cake. And so I reminded my son, Ben, of this and I said, would you like to one day be able to eat a slice of pizza at a birthday party? And his eyes got big and he said, yes. Because that was not the case at the time. We were celebrating Johnny, not his cake. Right? We were bringing all our own food to birthday parties.
Moms Across America Advocate:
And so, so I said, well then would you be my partner in your health? Would you drink green drinks, try acupuncture, like eat whatever it takes, you know, do do whatever it takes. He thought about it seriously and he said, yes. And I then I shook put out my hand and I said, then I promise you when I shook his hand, you’re gonna get better. Now, I didn’t know how that was gonna happen, but I knew if I made a promise and I had his agreement and partnership that definitely there would be progress. Definitely, he would he would get better. And he did. We also watched movies, watched GMO OMG. We watched genetic roulette.
Moms Across America Advocate:
We ed he educated himself. Right? I supported him in getting educated. And within 4 months, those the rashes and all that, just going non GMO, got dramatically better after we went completely organic a year later, because his brother had autism symptoms and we went completely a 100% organic. His allergies went from 19 down to a 0.2. So he no longer has life threatening allergies. My kids, the 20 different food allergies they had before, they can eat eggs and wheat and even nuts. He tries to avoid it because he feels a little uncomfortable, but he won’t die from nuts anymore. He will not die from food and he made those choices himself because we created partnership.
Moms Across America Advocate:
And I stepped up. I mean, I had in my brain, I will eat bird seed with this kid if I have to. Do you know what I mean? It was like enough is enough. So again, it’s mindset. Have you had enough with the way it’s been before? Are you willing to educate your children, make part you know, create partnership with them. Let them go. Sometimes let them go make their own choices. Sometimes they just have to eat that food and learn that they don’t feel good.
Moms Across America Advocate:
My second son had to do that with school lunches. He had to learn that he had consequences on Friday and when he had the school lunch as a treat. And he got in fights with his brother and he lost Saturday morning cartoon privileges. And that had to happen about 4 times before he realized that and then he chose not to eat school lunches anymore. So allowing your children to be aware of the ramifications themselves is also very important.
Zen Honeycutt:
Beautiful. Healing is possible. I love that idea of partnering. Thank you, Zen. Sally?
Sally Fallon Morell:
So, I had a family of 4 very boisterous children, 3 boys, and I was actually highly criticized by the parents at the school because they thought my children were wild. Just as an example, my son and one of his friends like to go out at 3 in the morning and shoot rats behind McDonald’s with BB guns. Great experiences in life. So but they had to have dinner at home. So they always had breakfast that I made and there was just no excuses. You had to have dinner at home. If you want to go out and shoot rats, that was fine, but, you had to have dinner at home. And I agree that their friends love to come to our house and they ate everything.
Sally Fallon Morell:
So, you can’t say no to everything. So you have to decide what’s what you’re gonna require and then what you’re going to allow. And we require that to do their homework, that to do their chores and they had to eat the meals and then they could do whatever they wanted.
Zen Honeycutt:
Okay. That family food values. Beautiful. Alright. Now we’re gonna go down the line and I want just one one sentence answers. If the listener could do one thing to improve their health or their family’s health, what would you recommend that they do? We’ll start with you, Sally.
Sally Fallon Morell:
Well, I’d start with a good breakfast and that’s no cereal, you know, no garbage, eggs, bacon, soaked oatmeal. You can and it can be good. You can have sourdough pancakes, but I would always make sure they eat a good breakfast.
Zen Honeycutt:
Zen?
Moms Across America Advocate:
By the way, I need to follow-up. My son chose not to eat the pizza and, you know, at the birthday party a year later. He just doesn’t eat that stuff. He only eats organic. So I would first, switch your grains, particularly your chickpeas. If you’re gonna eat hummus ever, it has to be organic. I would actually make it yourself at home if we can chickpeas. That’s the only way that we found no glyphosate.
Moms Across America Advocate:
It was canned chickpeas. Okay? Everything else even the organic and and store bought hummus had, very very high levels of glyphosate. Also, oatmeal absolutely has to be organic. Very high levels of glyphosate because they spray it on grains as a drying agent. So it’s not just used on GMO’s. So I would switch out all your grains to organic to avoid the highest levels of glyphosate.
Sandrine Perez:
Sandrine. I would say avoid seed oils, canola, soy, corn.
Zen Honeycutt:
What am I missing? Safflower, sunflowers.
Sandrine Perez:
Avoid seed oils. That is, I think, the number one thing you can do to improve your health.
Zen Honeycutt:
Christine.
Sandrine Perez:
And eat butter instead.
Zen Honeycutt:
That’s right.
Christine Muldoon:
I completely agree with all of them that food matters and I also think relationship matters. Your relationship with your children is so incredibly important, so really cultivate that.
Zen Honeycutt:
Beautiful. And Pam?
Pam Schoenfeld:
Find a way to include liver at least once a week in your diet or daily if you’re gonna do it in the capsules, etcetera, and try to eat eggs every day if you can tolerate them unless you have an allergy.
Zen Honeycutt:
On behalf of the Weston A. Price Foundation, thank you so much for your time today. We’re thankful for you. Our guests today were the panelists at the Wise Traditions Conference in Orlando, Florida. Zen Honeycutt, Sally Falamorell, Christine Muldoon, Sandrine Perez and Pam Schoenfeld. And their websites are respectively, zenhoneycut@momsacrossamerica.com, sallyfallenmorell@nourishingtraditions.com, christineludoon@nourishthelittles.com, sandrinepetes@nourishingourchildren.org, and Pam Schoenfeld at women and family nutrition dot com. And I am Hilda Librado Gore, the host and producer of this podcast on behalf of the Weston A. Price Foundation.
Zen Honeycutt:
You can find me at holistichilda.com. And for the transcript of this podcast episode, visit our website, westonaprice.org, and and click on the podcast page. And now for a recent review from Apple Podcasts. Aunt May said this, love this podcast. I have listened for years and it gets better every year. Aunt May, thank you for your review. There are also reviews that are not so positive, but whether you love the show or hate it, tell the world what you think. Go to Apple Podcasts, click on ratings and reviews, give us as many stars as you like or as few as you’d like, and let the world know exactly what’s on your mind related to the show.
Zen Honeycutt:
And thank you so much for listening, my friend. Stay well and remember to keep your feet on the ground and your face to the sun.
Hilda:
On behalf of the Weston A. Price Foundation, thanks for listening. We have many free resources to support you on your health journey. Visitwestonaprice.org to find podcasts, articles, videos, and more. You can also find a local chapter near you for help in finding sources of great food. We invite you to support the foundation’s mission of education, research, and activism by becoming a member. Thanks again and take care. Wise Traditions is a project of the Weston A.
Hilda:
Price Foundation for wise traditions in food, farming, and the healing arts. The content on this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for the advice provided by your doctor or other healthcare professional. It is not intended to be nor does it constitute healthcare or medical advice.
🖨️ Print post
Leave a Reply