One super duper late night (or probably very early dawn) last week, Â my workmate and I had an online chit-chat (we were still up that time due to some tasks) about our home’s daily food. It actually started as simple “kamustahan” until I asked her about their daily meal. I was exhausted and stressed that time (and until now) from fixing the the issue I had with our client’s data ( it still haunts me :(), doing the household chores including the meal preparations and taking care of my two daughters. I was wishing that I could get from her some ideas about meals that are easy and quick to prepare.
To make the long story short, I learned from our small talk that her children’s diet does not include much sugar. Her daughters’ milk is the sucrose-free kind of milk, their pancakes has no sugar, no candies and chocolates and no juice and soda. Her kids do not also munch on processed meats like hotdogs and canned-goods are no no. Her kids’ diet rotates on rice, pork, veggies, cereal, oatmeal and sucrose-free milk. Â Exactly opposite of my daughters’ diet and I felt so guilty.
As a busy work-at-home-mother, I often opt for the easy and quick meals especially when under pressure with my day time job. And when I say easy and quick to prepare meals, I  mean processed meats like hotdogs and ham, canned goods, instant noodles and of course egg. I cook dishes for our supper and usually it is a  veggie dish. We will only have fish or chicken (very seldom pork) when the vegetables I bought the previous Saturday were all consumed. Within the day, my daughters often munch on biscuits, sweet breads, jellies, candies and peanuts alternately. But I always see to it that I have something to offer them quick when they want to eat. I know that they are not healthy but nonetheless, it will satisfy them for the time-being. I also buy them fruits and juices. Once in a while they  indulged in ice cream, pizzas, and sodas.  After the chit-chat with my officemate, I calculate mentally the sugar intakes of my daughters and sad to say, I am leading them to early health problems.
I decided to cut the sugar intake of my daughters. My last trip to the grocery store, I refrained from buying biscuits and other packed bread. I just also passed by the jellies and candies shelves. I still bought them juice but I looked for the the less-sugar one. I ended up buying Mott’s. It is cheaper than Welch. Instead of the usually snack, I bought them fruits enough for the week.
My toddler is bugging me the whole week for biscuits, jelly bees and candies. But since I don’t have those junk foods , she settled for apples, oranges and grapes. And if she does not like them anymore, she’ll just say “Dede na lang mommy, ha.”
I used to not give sweets to my son but now that he’s a toddler, I give in once in a while. But I still don’t give him processed food, he’s never tasted hotdogs or the like. Anyway, about the sweets, it got me thinking. Maybe I should slow down giving it on him, too. I will just continue giving him fruits instead. This post is a great reminder for us to be mindful of our child/ren’s diet. Thank you, sis.
what allan said is true sugar makes your kid hyper we call it sugar high , I think there’s a lot of people doesn’t know about it why their kids has so much energy and didn’t realize the sugar cause it.
I made dessert once a week but I’ll make sure the portion they eat every day. No SODA for my kids but once in awhile I tend to give them hotdog and chicken nuggets especially Friday. Making adjustment little bit a time help a lot.:)
http://pinayexplorer21.blogspot.com
We avoid giving sweets to our son para hindi maging hyper. 🙂
My son loves biscuits too. As much as I want to make healthy merienda for him, we have no time e. That’s one guilt also I have. But I am not buying much junkfoods naman. Once in awhile we cheat din, hehe. My husband also do our own nuggets, tocino, longaniza so medyo same naman kami sa processed food except for hotdogs 🙁
The kids in our lives usually take after the diets and health decisions of the adults. Lugi agad sila when we don’t make wise choices for ourselves diba? Pero recently parang di na masyado sa sweets yung pamangkin. Tsaka looks like he likes Skyflakes so pwede nang hindi bilhan ng Stick O or Chips Ahoy. Hindi rin sya usually nag jujuice. Water lang. Tsaka Chamyto ngayon as advised by a pedia.
I agree that while our kids our young we should offer them healthy food choices so that when they are grown up, they know how important it is to make the healthy choices themselves.
I just realized I needed to be healthy and did something about it about three months … and funny, my 17 year old son is the one guiding me to eat more fruits and vegetables and much much less rice (trying to have none), sweets (sometimes can’t resists chocolates!) and soft drinks (didn’t realize I can resist after all!)
Interesting that everyone is so into health these days even if they are kids. But,actually, it is good to start early. My son is now 17 years old. He lost 30 kilos when he was fourth year high school. And he really looks good after being so fat for a long time. Now, he is the one “training” me to eat right… with fruits, vegetables and fish/ non-fatty meat.
I too agree that our kids are exposed to too much sugars and processed food and am working to give them more fresh foods to eat each meal.
This is another timely post for me, too. Are you reading my mind, Ms. Mylene? Hehe. I’m also trying to cut sugar from Yuri’s diet kaya I took advantage of grocery-shopping yesterday and looked for fruits and healthy snacks.
I think that altering your grocery shopping habits is a great start towards a healthier diet for your household. I am also guilty of feeding my kid a biscuits as snacks, but I also try to limit his sugar intake from fluids. He doesn’t drink soda and rarely drinks juice. Good luck to us on teaching our kids to make better meal choices, mommy! 🙂
We were listening to radio yesterday and we found out some disadvantages of sugars in our body. One of the immediate effect is making us hyper.
I think I had to cut down the sugar usage at home na..
I try to make sure that my kids eat healthy food too. Usually I make vegetable soup from scratch. I serve fruits too. We don’t buy powdered juices and opt for the ones that are 100% natural. As much as possible, I serve vegetables on the table. But yeah, when I’m overwhelmed with so much work and chores, I am also guilty of giving them processed food. But as long as we limit that, I think they’ll be fine. 🙂
Luckily, my youngest brother isn’t fond of sweets, so we don’t have any problems in that aspect. However, he is pretty picky.
I even remember when I was young that I always love sweet treats. It’s only now that I became conscious of what I eat. I take more fruits than sweets. 🙂
theresa
http://www.thecuteanddainty.com
While we still can, it’s best to give our children healthy food because they will discover junk food when they are older. I also give fruits as snacks to my kids in the morning and in the afternoon.
Julie and Julia are not allowed to eat sweets as well. No junk foods for them too. Julia’s throat is so sensitive with cold drinks. Rest assure that if she drinks 2 days straight choco drink or eat a bar of chocolate, hello cough medicine and fever on the 3rd day. So no no no sweets. Beside they are already hyper even without it hahaha!
My pamangkins are not exposed to junkfood. Once, i gave my 2-yr old nephew some soda and his face turned sour at the taste of it, hehe! It’s good that you replace the junks with fruits and hopefully they’ll get the hang of eating it in the days to come 🙂
I agree! I should be more strict on the sugar intake of my kids as well. The younger one pa naman really has a sweet tooth! Good work so far, sis! 🙂