Super Moon Sat. March 19th!

Here is a great little video to share with the kids and then get outside at "moon rise" tomorrow (Sat) night to experience the first super moon since 1983!

Diet Instead of Drugs, May Help Kids with ADHD

It is now being learned, that a high percentage of children diagnosed with ADHD are simply experiencing a hypersensivity to food. Remove the reactive food and you remove the cause of "dis-ease", and find a sense of "ease" again.

Here is an excerpt of a great article by NPR regarding the study.

Kids with ADHD can be restless and difficult to handle. Many of them are treated with drugs, but a new study says food may be the key. Published in The Lancet journal, the study suggests that with a very restrictive diet, kids with ADHD could experience a significant reduction in symptoms.

The study's lead author, Dr. Lidy Pelsser of the ADHD Research Centre in the Netherlands, writes in The Lancet that the disorder is triggered in many cases by external factors — and those can be treated through changes to one's environment. ...

According to Pelsser, 64 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD are actually experiencing a hypersensitivity to food. Researchers determined that by starting kids on a very elaborate diet, then restricting it over a few weeks' time. ...

But diet is not the solution for all children with ADHD, Pelsser cautions.

"In all children, we should start with diet research," she says. If a child's behavior doesn't change, then drugs may still be necessary. "But now we are giving them all drugs, and I think that's a huge mistake," she says. ...

"We have got good news — that food is the main cause of ADHD," she says. "We've got bad news — that we have to train physicians to monitor this procedure because it cannot be done by a physician who is not trained."

[Read full NPR Article: Study: Diet May Help ADHD Kids More Than Drugs: 3/12/11]

Read the study in The Lancet

Feeding Kids Salads

Give kids a chance to like fresh, living foods. Beyond the regular finger foods of carrot and celery sticks, expose them to tasty salads. It's ok. Let them play with their food. The other night I served my 6-year-old some rice pasta and marinara sauce along with a small bowel of cabbage, carrot, and cilantro salad (no dressing). After only 2 bites of the pasta, she literally pushed her bowl aside and grabbed her bowl of salad. Gobbled it down and had 2 more helpings! This is now one of her favorites! "I could sing my mouth is so happy!" she told me.

So how do you get kids to like living salads?

• Expose them to the salad at high-hungry times (after physical activities, snack times, before meals). So what if they fill up before dinner... it's the best thing they can eat!
• Eat living salads yourself, and often (do as I do, not as I say)
• Make games of it: "Are you a rabbit?? Here's your munchy, crunchy meal!"
• Ask them intriguing questions: "Can you tell the difference between the red and green cabbage?"
• Constant exposure pays off. It may take 1 or 250 times before they'll try it, but persistence pays off, especially when they are hungry. It becomes a "known factor" to them. So keep it visible!
• Be Creative and let them gravitate towards their natural instincts to eat living food.