Children who are diagnosed with conditions like ADHD, Autism, Asperger's Syndrome - are we getting better at diagnosing, or are we jumping the gun to medicate too quickly? In some cases, I believe the latter is true - there are so many reasons why children 'play up' and in some cases, this can be due to an intolerance or sensitivity to a food, or chemical. Remove the offending intolerance item, the child calms down. The elimination of certain foods and chemicals from ones life can take some time to investigate, so do people just not bother and take the easier option of medication? It's a very interesting debate!
For 64% of kids diagnosed with ADHD, a food intolerance is found to be the cause. Thats a huge percentage! Common intolerances include gluten, additives, preservatives and sugar. These allergies may also cause deficiencies of nutrients, such as zinc, omega-3 fatty acids (important for the brain) and protein (which helps with the production of neurotransmitters - chemicals which help with mood balance).
Many parents are not aware of the evils of some preservatives - one that is common in fizzy drinks (and I've mentioned in other blogs - Sodium Benzoate (211). Pick up a fizzy drink, you are likely to see this as one of the ingredients. This happy little guy has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA and when consumed with vitamin C, becomes carcinogenic. Parents may be looking at mineral water for kids as a 'healthy' alternative to coke, but its not a healthy alternative at all.
Please note I'm not trying to belittle any childs condition - every childs case is different, I'm writing this because some parents may not be aware of what can be done before putting their child on a lifetime supply of meds - I think it's important for them be aware of the alternatives.
More and more I am hearing about a diet called the 5:2 diet –
when I first heard about it, I was sceptical at this new fad diet, I even wrote
a Facebook status about it, but I will explain my initial scepticism below. I am hearing
more about it from different sources and have patients and work colleagues both
trying it out, so its made me think... is there something good behind this diet?
Is it just a fad, or is it fact?
About the 5:2 diet
So this diet was first made popular by Michael Moseley, who
tried out the diet in the documentary, Eat,
Fast & Live Longer. After 9 weeks on this diet, he found he lost 20 pounds
(9 kilograms), a drop in cholesterol and lower blood sugar results. Pretty
amazing stuff, as he didn’t increase exercise or anything else in his life.
The premise of the diet is for 5 days your eat normally, and
then ‘fast’ for 2 days – this is not a total fast, but its a low calorie diet –
men are limited to 600 calories a day, women 500 calories (a normal recommended amount to eat is 2000 calories per day). The days of fasting
do not need to be consecutive.
There have been some studies on this diet type, which not
only found weight loss and the cholesterol and blood sugar level improvements,
but also improved brain function and even lower potentially cancerous cells in the blood. This is due to a hormone
known as IGF1. This hormone helps with normal growth in childhood, but in
adults it can promote abnormal growth, such as cancer cells. By fasting, you
are stopping the production of this hormone. Other studies found that intermittent fasting
increases levels of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).
BDNF stimulates new brain cells in the hippocampus – the area of the brain
responsible for memory. The shrinking of the hippocampus is linked with
dementia and Alzheimer’s – so intermittent fasting may play a role in these
conditions. BDNF also has been found to be a mild anti depressant!
Why was I so sceptical?
When I first heard about it, I got told ‘fast for 2 days,
eat whatever you like for the other 5 days’ Thats just opening the flood gates, by
telling people you can eat whatever you want for 5 days - I know some people that would take definite advantage of this! And as for calorie
control – never been a big fan. People may go for lean cuisine, diet foods or low
fat foods to make sure that they don’t go over their calorie count. Just
because something is low calorie, does not mean its good for you! How about your
health? As a naturopath, I work with nutrients, not calories, so this whole
calorie counting realm is new to me. If
people are educated that they need to eat REAL foods and enough protein to keep
them satiated, then this diet works quite well.
This picture encapsulates my 5:2 diet scepticism perfectly.
Time to experiment!
My husband and I are doing the 5:2 diet to see not only how
it feels and what its like to live on a low calorie diet, but also to see what
happens to us. My husband loves to run, so he is observing if by fasting he will have more energy to run or less – online forums give both yes and no answers for
this. The only way to know is to try it ourselves!
The first fasting week
My husband and I this week have started the 5:2 diet. Keeping
in mind about nutrients and to avoid deficiencies, I have been very careful
with what we eat. I have been using the calorie king app to help keep us on
track as far as calories go and it has been a real education to both of us.
Spring vegetable soup with cumin - my very filling and a tasty 150 calorie fast day lunch!
By the end of the first fasting day, we both found it
strange to eat and be hungry 10 minutes later. No food could fill us! The next
morning my body felt very clean internally – hard to describe it. We went out
to breakfast where this one meal was the more than the whole calorie count of
the day before, but the food felt so nourishing and like every molecule of that
food was beneficial to the body. A great feeling!
Possibly my new favourite meal- quinoa crumbed eggs with goats cheese and green bean & almond salad. This was my post fast day breakfast from The Artful Dodger in Elsternwick. Definitely more calories than I consumed the day before! nom nom nom!
I’m typing this on my 2nd
fasting day – it could be because I’m at home, but I’m finding it a lot easier
today. I haven’t hit night time yet though. J
I will write blogs to follow up on the progress of this diet
and will include meal ideas in those.
Ok, so its been a little bit longer than days since my first post about my maccas burger, but when I filmed this video and wrote this blog, it WAS 40 days, I've just been a little slow in pressing the 'Post' button. The world has changed a lot in this time, but the burger hasn’t much at all! It seems to have shrunk a little and the bun is so hard that it could cause some serious damage to someone if it got dropped from a building. It could even possibly break a footpath. Inside, the burger looks a bit shrunk but mould free, the cheese is pure plastic and the sauce is hard. The fries have gone crispy and brown and are also bullet hard. They still look quite greasy. There is still that greasy maccas smell present as well. In conclusion, the burger and fries are wrongtown.
But what does this mean? Well as I see it, as the burger has shrunk as it has dehydrated. This means that there was moisture in it when I bought it. Mould, fungi and bacteria love moisture, as they need this to survive. Yet none of these creatures decided to take up residence here when the burger was been sitting out when moist! Has the preservatives in this “food” outweighed something to make this burger hospitable to live in?
One other thing I have to point out... this burger lives in my office on a bookshelf. It is easily accessible by mice, rats, flies, ants, roaches, cats, dogs, lions, tigers, dinosaurs... yet NONE of these creatures came in to investigate or eat my burger. I was a bit disappointed about the lack of dinosaurs. The only interested creatures were humans, as I gave my burger a show & tell session at a baby shower I was hosting. So who knows real food more – humans or rodents?
Dehydrating Food
So I mentioned in my last post that I would talk about other reasons why this burger wouldn’t age. And one reason is something I have touched on already – dehydration. Dehydration is one of the oldest methods of preservation – it is food in which all the moisture has been taken out of it, thereby preserving it. As I said earlier, mould, fungi and bacteria thrive on moisture, so dehydration is a fabulous method of preservation, as long as the food has been dehydrated properly!
Good things about dehydrated food...
Preserves food for months
No need to refrigerate
Make your own healthy snacks rather than store bought snacks
Dehydrated food keeps its nutritional values
You can buy dehydraters at department stores and online. You can also make your own dehydrated food by using an oven on a low temperature setting with the door left ajar (you keep the food in it for a long time), or sun drying your food (just make sure that its a sunny day with no rain and your food remains bug free!)
In regards to this in conjunction with the maccas burger, if it has totally dehydrated, then it is preserved and therefore not going to age. I did some research on how long does dehydrated food last, but I couldn’t any conclusive time periods. Dehydrated food not exposed to oxygen can last 15 years. But this burger is exposed to oxygen... will it start to disintergrate?
What is Grimace?
I also mentioned in my last blog that I would talk about Grimace. The happy go lucky purple blob mascot for Maccas. What is he? The definition of the word grimace is: A twisted expression on a person's face, typically expressing disgust, pain, or wry amusement. Yes, well when naming happy food mascots, Grimace is obviously the first word I can think of which would make sense! (0.o) I have come to the conclusion that he is an enlarged fatty liver who shows kiddies what happens if you live a life of just eat maccas. His shape if put on the side is definitely liverish –
See where I'm coming from here?
He seems to be not too bright, showing decreased brain function, which happens when your liver isn’t working properly and you only eat maccas. Case closed.
Seriously Ronald, take him to rehab and save his life!
I had to include this picture in the blog, cracks me up, Ronald scares me so I would react exactly the same -
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