Here are my top 6 basics for my children’s SUPERFOOD kitchen

I try to give my family an 80% – 20% organic superfoods versus non-organic because realistically there are moments that we cannot always be too obsessive. There will always be playdates and restaurants that don’t always cater to our nutritional beliefs and it is important to be balanced as a parent.

By having an 80% superfood and organic diet, I feel that I can contribute to my children’s immunity, long-term health, to help them to concentrate better at school and to ultimately give them the best start in life.

I really believe that a healthy diet can heal your body naturally. I also understand and do not dismiss modern medicines that also have their place when it comes to health and healing, but the foods that we eat really can make a difference to the health of each cell in our bodies.  In this day and age, we should consider going back to basics.  We should use foods that nature provides that has been grown organically and to add to our diets the wide variety of spices and herbs that have been used over 2,000 years and counting, as a health prevention and not to rely 100% on chemicals solutions to fix us when we haven’t take care of our bodies in the first place.

However, I do also believe in being realistic.  I would not recommend making drastic changes in the kitchen but to take one of the suggestions below at a time and to implement them at your family’s pace.  It should be a permanent lifestyle change, and if it means taking baby-steps so be it.  Changes that are gradual will make a longer term impact and that is really the goal.

I hope to be able to share some of the investigations I have learned over the years about superfoods and why I believe so much in this approach.  One of the purposes of this website is to talk and share about all the amazing foods that we can add to our family’s diet so if you have any thoughts do share them with us.

Quinoa – sometimes instead of rice we use quinoa, and at home the children only have quinoa bread.  It is a superfood used by the Incas up in the Andes.  Unlike wheat or rice, quinoa is a complete protein – containing all eight of the essential amino acids that is extremely beneficial to the children’s little bodies.

We avoid cow’s products where possible because everyone knows about the hormones and the antibiototics that now pollute the milk.  My children only have organic goats milk and occasionally when I have time we will make our own almond milk.  The only exception that I make with cow’s diary is Italian Parmesan.  They are half Italian  – spelt pasta with sprinklings of Parmesan is one of their favourites.

Organic Tamari – this is an alternative to soy sauce as my children as also half Singapore Chinese so it is a flavour we can’t always avoid in our cooking.  The taste of tamari is similar to soy sauce and we haven’t missed the real thing ever since we switched.   We try to avoid most soy products at home especially if they are from the US.

Organic meats – like cow’s milk, most animals are pumped with growth hormones and other unknown chemicals, and we try to avoid these meats when we can.  At home, we only serve organic meats, which can be anexpensive investment, in cities such as Dubai but for us, this is a worthwhile expense when it comes to the health of the family.

Avoiding the dirty dozen vegetables – it is true that nutritionally there is no nutritional difference between an organic and non-organic.  What I try to avoid is the chemicals that are in the non-organic foods that can affect our children’s growing system.  See our article on the DIRTY DOZEN coming soon.

Sugar – whilst I cannot always avoid sugar I try to teach my children that there is a time and place for it.  Sugar is highly-addictive and it is really bad for their little bodies.  The less they have, the less they will crave it.  It is up to us as parents to train our children’s palettes towards more healthy foods.  There is much scientific evidence and press articles out these days educating parents about the dangers of sugar and it is worth investigating to make your own mind up.