The NDD Book

Subtitled: How Nutrition Deficit Disorder affects your child's learning, behavior, and health, and what you can do  about it - Without drugs
by Dr. William Sears

A friend loaned this to me after AC told her that we were having some eating issues with our girls. I finished the book a few weeks ago but haven't returned it yet because I still want him to read it too.

For us, it was a preaching-to-the-choir thing - we already try to eat really healthy and make everything from scratch. We both have family histories of diabetes and would like to delay the inevitable as long as possible. AC is much more of a stickler on our food, but I'm coming around. One thing for us is that we don't buy any kind of bread at all - we make it all ourselves. French bread, pizza crust, pita, hamburger buns, muffins and scones, you name it. All homemade. I can't stand any of kind bread from a store anymore, even when it's the more expensive stuff at a bakery.

We definitely need to improve with breakfast. None of us like to eat first thing in the morning - we prefer to wait awhile. That's one thing that goes well with the homeschooling lifestyle - we don't have to get up in the morning and eat a bunch of food immediately, and get out the door as soon as we finish. I need to find more recipes for breakfast foods. We eat a lot of eggs which are good in the morning but I'm getting bored with them.

Sears certainly wrote a lot about the omega-3 dietary need - that was the other thing that really stood out to me. We'd have to do supplements because we can't afford fish once a month, let alone 2-3 times a week like he recommends. (Is there anyone these days who can afford to get fish that often?) I've been looking more into vitamin supplements for the girls but haven't found anything in our local stores that I've been enthusiastic about. Still looking.

The book didn't really respond to our original issues. It promotes healthy eating and presenting children with "green light" foods. We already do that. The issue is getting them to eat it - or anything - in the first place. There were a few comments in the book about being persistent in presenting healthy food to children and they'll eventually develop a taste for it. I guess we just need to be patient. They'll get to it eventually.