April's CR Diary

As a former tarantula raiser and rehabber, this is truly the most heartwarming thing I've read this holiday season. Mmm, crickets...

Allswell...

What do you mean by rehab? Was it on drugs?

"This is your tarantula. This is your tarantula on crack."

a

This post is classic! I love it.
I too have a huge problem with the overfeeding of people in this nation, especially children, at the whim of the people with the money and power. Power is so often mis-wielded, no?

I like that you identify somewhat with predators, April - a little fire is a good thing.

I'd like to add, after viewing that video, ("Free Bird" playing in the background was a great touch, don't you think?) that I never kill spiders, no matter where or how big they are.
They are always welcome in my home!

Hi April. I've never commented before, but since you touched on kids and nutrition, I couldn't resist.

I'm currently raising a seven year old stepdaughter and I'm 7 months pregnant, and childhood nutrition is of the utmost importance to me. I am rather fanatical about it, to the point where other people (most often my in-laws) roll their eyes at me or accuse me of being a mean parent. You see, apparently it is mean when I feed her meals packed with veggies or let her snack on fruit or offer her milk or water to drink. I'm mean because I don't take her to McDonald's. I'm mean because I don't keep soda or cookies in the house. I'm mean because when she was a baby, I begged them not to stuff her with candy and packaged snacks.

We're not doing any CR in our house right now. I'm pregnant, my husband is fine with eating really healthy but has no interest in CR (and considering his background in junk food, I'm happy with that!), and my stepdaughter is obviously too young. I'm a vegetarian, and we eat mostly whole foods - lots of fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, and some dairy. I was flirting with CR before pregnancy, but I hadn't done it for long enough to consider myself an expert or anything. Now I'm just focusing on super nutrition, and let me tell you how much easier it is to get all my vitamins and minerals on 2,500 calories per day - it's so liberating! I can eat a whole ounce of almonds AND have pumpkin seeds on my salad! I can use a tablespoon of flax oil!

My stepdaughter is naturally skinny, just like my husband, and since she is growing and very active, I have no reason to limit her calories in any way. I don't restrict the amount of food that she eats, but I don't force her either. She seems to be very good on her own at eating the amount of food she needs to feel satisfied. Some days she is so hungry that I can barely keep up and I fill her plate 3 times. Other days she just picks. I try to never force her to eat, even when I think she must be famished because I want to encourage her to respect her hunger and fullness cues. I don't feel bad about giving her as much food as she wants because I only make and serve healthy things, so if she wants 3 bowls of vegetarian chili packed full of vegetables and 2 kinds of beans, I'm not going to argue. It's not like she's getting 3 helpings of chicken nuggets and french fries. It's also interesting in that she will even know when she's had enough of some treat. She doesn't have the clean the plate mentality, even when she's eating something sweet and will often leave half a piece of birthday cake or throw out ice cream at the ice cream shop.

We do occasionally have treats, but there are rules: 1. Treats only come after healthy food, they don't replace it. 2. Treats are bought and consumed out of the house. 3. Treats are for special occasions and not an every day occurrence.

I'm often accused of depriving her of some crucial part of her childhood, but yet no one sees parents who let their kids stuff themselves full of junk as depriving them of part of their LIFE. I wish that more people would recognize that and realize how influential these years really are. I totally agree with what you said about how it's the parents who ultimately buy the junk food. Why would you ever buy that first box of Lucky Charms? Of COURSE little kids are going to want that after they've had it!

Oh, and for the record, she isn't miserable. She comes home from school and wants clementines for a snack. This fall, I could barely keep enough apples in the house to keep up. Sometimes she'll eat a whole cucumber as a snack. She cheers when cherries are back in season. The phrase, "more broccoli, please" is one I hear at least once a week. She is very happy, and I feel like I'm giving he the best gift I can as a parent.

You're right - sometimes it is hard, but my biggest piece of advice to anyone thinking about having kids is to start early and be consistent. Serve them nothing but healthy foods from the beginning and they won't think it's weird. Yes, they do get to a point where they go to schools and parties and see what other people eat, but that doesn't erase the work you've done. My stepdaughter thinks it's weird when people butter their veggies. She thinks it's normal to have fruit with breakfast, fruit with lunch and fruit after school. She loves her veggies and we never have to battle her to eat them. At her 4th birthday party, I put out a huge platter of raw veggies for the kids and the other parents looked at me like I was crazy, and they remarked how surprised they were when she (and no one else!) went to town on the carrots, cucumbers, broccoli and celery.

I know that most parents love their kids very much, but for some reason, they don't think there's anything wrong with feeding them junk. Forget about extending lifespan - what about just preventing premature death? I see so many kids who barely get any fruits and veggies but have plenty of hot dogs and soda - that kind of diet isn't even going to get you to the average lifespan.

Hi Kate,

What a thoughtful, fabulous comment! Thank you! Your kids are very lucky to be growing up in the healthy food environment you are providing. Cheers to you for handling the pressure from the snack food pushers and sticking to your guns. Thanks for reading and writing!

a

Hi April
I don't think I could stomach watching the video of the tarantula eating its lunch. It reminds me that my sister in law loves to photograph wild animals in nature and once was shocked to witness and photograph a killer whale eating a seal. What can one say? It's the nature of animals.
Cheers,
Arturo

Wants a tarantula but doesn't want children. Hmmmm.

The tarantula got dive-bombed just off our porch by a tarantula hawk (despite the name, it's an insect). We put it in a spare BMW hubcap and, I don't remember how, but nursed it back to health. Amazingly, it and our cat Felix did not tangle. We also rehabbed a quail who'd gotten separated from its mama and siblings and fallen into one of our water dishes. We rehabbed the quail in an aquarium with sand in the bottom of it until we found a lady who did native bird rescue because the quail was actually depressed. They can't be on their own away from other quail. It would just sit there in the bottom of its aquarium. When we released it into the flock at the rescue lady's place, its transformation was immediate, from sulky little goth quail to social butterfly. It was pretty cool to see.

As for that lady with the clementine-eating daughter, I had 10 clementines today. Tis the season. Mmmm, clementines. What Kate's doing hardly sounds like torture. When I was her daughter's age, my mom tried to combat my asthma with macrobiotic and other fad diets. There was no-dairy, there was raw broccoli for breakfast, there was a no-beverage-with-eating rule, there were handfuls of supplements, there were forced enemas. As long as her kid's not hungry, though, she's not going to be found at the neighbor's house hiding out under tables with bags of potato chips and stuff, and pigging out on forbidden foods out of hunger. I'd give the kid good, free-range, grass fed natural meat and stuff, but that's just me.

I am so delighted to read Kate's comments. She is right on! What is termed "kid food" is a disgrace and something I personally find quite disturbing. Kate, while your children will most likely succumb to peer pressure around puberty and become outside gak-eaters, they will have a major advantage over 99% of their friends, in that their years of rapid growth & development will have been fueled by great nutrition. In addition, as long as you're still providing healthy food at home, the gak they consume elsewhere probably won't do them a whole lot of harm. Stay the course, Kate! MoMR

Hi April, I have been practicing CR for about 4 months now and have noticed lots of nice health changes. I eat a very healthy diet of mostly veggies, some fruits, some lean meat and fish and low fat dairy(mostly plain yogurt). Since your blog this month dealt with predators, I was wondering how you feel health wise about a CR diet based on the Paleo or caveman type diet? I tried it for a few days but felt deprived of some of my favorite foods. I do agree with limiting refined carbs but this eating plan eliminates basically all grains, starchy vegetables, legumes and dairy. Could you please comment on your blog to some of us newbies who are still researching and trying to figure out how to eat a CRON based diet. I love your blog and have read most of the past entries. John

I have to admit that spiders both fascinate me and freak me out. I can, literally, be trapped in a room just because a fat black spider is sitting in a doorway, just hanging out and minding its own business.

Nonetheless, I find them nifty to watch (outside and at a distance) and get a nice happy feeling when I see a web that has tasty little dinners trapped in it. I agree that it's awful what people consider "normal" and "ok" children's food.

I'm so, so grateful that Mom never bought sodas and sugary cereals when I was a kid--to this day my favorite cereal is Nabisco Shredded Wheat with only a dollop of honey for sweetness--and that she used the land we had to have a healthy vegetable garden. Because of my nearby rural farming & hunting family, I was eating lean antibiotic & hormone-free venison that my uncles & grandfather hunted as well as fresh milk from my aunt's farm. In retrospect I think this is why I escaped a lot of the colds and junk that went around as a small child.

I grew up on a healthy version of the SAD diet and I think that is why, even though high school and college introduced me to faaaar too much fast food and junk, it's been easier for me to maintain my weight in my twenties than it has been for my peers.

My formative years were spent eating mostly whole foods, and with a little effort I'm re-discovering that I really do prefer them to the gak I developed a taste for in college.

Ok, I'm going to call Mom now and say thank you. She deserves it!