My Daily Rind Journey of a Raw Mom

Good question. This is a question I ask myself every single day to help guide me and keep me present. He is not fed a 100% raw diet right now. He has been in the past. Most days he eats all raw, but sometimes I feed him sprouted bread, rice cakes, quinoa, spelt pasta, cooked mushrooms, and once in a while he’ll have eggs. He has eaten meat in the past. He loved it a couple times and then said to me “No more meat.”

Here’s what we do: we listen to him. He may not be able to articulate “I am feeling like I need more protein today,” but he does communicate with us exactly what he needs and wants. We pay close attention to him. For the most part, it is very easy. He has access to all fruits, veggies, nuts, and seeds. Because he doesn’t have any emotional story around food, he gravitates directly toward what his body is needing, without judgment or question. He will mono-eat (eat only one thing all day long) at times and will fast other times.

I feel like in this area, we are excellent parents. We step out of the way of our own food story from childhood imprinting and trust that his body knows.

One of the most important things to me as a parent is that I instill in my child to trust his body, his intuition, his inner wisdom. How can I apply that to only certain areas of life that are easy for me and not to others where I may have more fear lingering? All areas must be supported. So, I practice what I preach when it comes to food.

Now, it is my responsibility to provide nutritious possibilities, and I do that. There is no refined sugar in my home. You will not see packaged foods in my cupboards or in my freezer. Am I against these things? No, not at all. Will my son ever eat them? Most likely he will. So why are you only providing fresh stuff, why no sugar? Because I feel it is critical to be conscious of how I am imprinting him. He has his whole life to eat Halloween candy, meat and potatoes, Ben & Jerry’s, if he so chooses. I don’t hold judgment around those things. What I do know is this: If I start him out on those things, then he has no choice. He WILL be addicted and his body will continue to desire the chemicals in these products.

Also, it is my belief that with a clean diet (let’s call it that, because he’s not all raw all the time) he will be better supported to be able to listen to his body and his intuition. Then when he is considering his options in the face of candy and cakes, he will have the tools to consider if he wants to put that in his body, even if this is a subconscious consideration. I’m not fooling myself in thinking that at 6 he’ll be like, “No thank you, no cake for me, I don’t want to have a sugar rush and then crash and then feel really sluggish tomorrow and not be able to focus on writing my alphabet!” It’s a process like all things. I’ve always heard that we return to our roots.

I hear a lot of criticism about our lifestyle. I can go on and on about my theories around that. But I will only say this, that people are worried that the backlash of Jonny not eating candy, for instance, will be that he will go nuts and eat only that the first chance he gets. I highly doubt it for many reasons. But the main point is that Jonny is not forbidden anything. I have control at my home over what is available. However, at other people’s homes he sees it all. He has been offered it all. When he told me he wanted to have a piece of cake at a birthday party, I said “Sure, I’ll have some with you.” We trotted off to get cake together and ate it snuggled up on the chair. No big deal. Not a regular occurrence. A healthy and happy experience. I am casual, and I am aware of what a rigid stance can do to a child. I will redirect him or say no to something that I know has MSG in it or high fructose corn syrup, just as I will intervene if he tries to step into the street.

I welcome your questions and comments.

So much joy,

Shawna

“Mom, may I please have some salad?”

This is what I heard this morning. Jonny wanted salad for breakfast. Here’s why, leading to a point…

Last night I did end up having that salad I wrote about. It was quite late and my son was still up (my fault, I’m confused by the sun setting at 9:30). He loves to higrate the cucumbers and avocado from my salad. I thought it would be fun to climb in bed for a salad picnic with him. Why not? Life is supposed to be fun. So there we were being cozy and having a salad in bed right before lights out. He was happily picking out all of my cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives this time. He ate around the mustard greens. This special and different time shared made him really happy and imprinted on him a positive experience. He was still beaming from that this morning and wanted to repeat it. He told me to make a salad and listed off: “greens, olives, cucumber, and tomatoes”. As a special surprise I added his two favorites: mushrooms and avocado. We snuggled on the couch (the other forbidden food zone) and ate out of the bowl together. Again, he avoided the mustard greens, but joyfully ate everything else.

I really like living like this. We have a lot of rules, which are obviously important, but sometimes it’s so fun and crucial to just let down our guard and have fun; be silly.

But that’s not the point of this story.

I want to share about something much more important: listening to our children. For the purpose of this blog, I’m referring to the context of food and nutrition. This will be the first of many posts on this topic.

I truly believe that our bodies are infinitely wise and divine. I believe this, and in my journey Home to my Self, I am learning to listen to my body and be still for a moment. I mentioned this in a previous post. So, if I believe that our bodies are wise, doesn’t this apply to children also? They have bodies. Why is it then that we so urgently impose onto our children an adult diet, so to speak? Why do we force them to sit and eat 3 meals a day? Why can’t they fast if they want to for a day? Because we believe we are doing the right thing. We care about our children and we are carrying forward what we have learned about nutrition from our parents. We are doing what we know.

But what if they were wrong? What if we truly listened to our children’s dietary needs from a relaxed, open standpoint? What would that look like? Would they eat only candy? Would they never drink water? Would they eat salad for breakfast?

I cannot count how many times I hear from mothers, “I wish my child wouldn’t eat so much sugar!” This is just one example of a phrase I hear regarding food and kids. I have to respond that our children are eating what we give them. That’s the truth. If we don’t have sugar around and we model healthy habits (in bed under the covers with a flashlight and a big bowl of sliced bananas and cherries – hey, that sounds fun!), then our children will follow suit. That’s what they do.

Here is my mission and my commitment: My intention is to lovingly remind and encourage mothers and fathers  to take back the power of their children’s health and nutrition. To empower us all to nourish our families being guided by our deepest knowing of what our spirit is telling us is right. To educate ourselves about nutrition and take responsibility for it.

This is too important to not worry about. Look around you at the youth of today. Children are obese everywhere we look and malnourished. Children have adult-onset diseases. Read that again: adult-onset diseases.

I am not saying that a paradigm shift in our kitchen is easy, but what I am saying is that it’s worth it. There are a bazillion resources on the internet to give support along the way. We always say that it takes a village to raise a child. I always say that it takes a village to raise a parent.

More to come on this with some fun stories of what we do with Jonny.

Have a beautiful day!

Shawna