Cynthia Lair's book on whole cooking
We hear it on the radio, see it on T.V. and read it in the newspaper. It seems everywhere we look, we are told to eat and be healthier. Go green! Eat more green! We're inundated by all kinds of claims to get healthy, get more economical, get, well, more out of life. So, who do we listen to? And what about those of us who have kids with food restrictions? And exactly how hard will it be to do just that? It sounds so overwhelming. It sounds complicated.
Well, perhaps we need to just get simple again. And Cynthia Lair has a plan for us: with or without allergies.
Cynthia Lair's book Feeding the Whole Family gives us easy, healthy ideas for meals. What if we cut out (or at least down on) the processed foods we eat and just eat simple, whole foods again?
To determine what a whole food is, take a look at the food you are about to put in your mouth. How many ingredients does it have? A whole food will have one ingredient: itself. Can you imagine the life of the food? Can you picture it growing in a field, growing on a vine, growing from a baby to an adult? A whole food has been grown. Not processed in a factory. A kiwi fruit is a whole food. Fruit Loops are not. Chicken is a whole food. Chicken nuggets are not.
In our busy lives, our food intake has become one of convenience. We head to the frozen section of the supermarket and fill our carts with lasagnas, pizzas, waffles and all kinds of other goodies because we know that making our own food at home is going to be work. A lot of work. And working is what we do all day.
But a lot of those foods contain ingredients that perhaps you or your little one can not have. And, what if it does not have to be that hard? And what if we could benefit our kids by putting things rich in nutrients and not rich in fillers (like soy, wheat, eggs, corn and other potentially allergenic foods)? Could there be such a thing?
Lair has a plan for adults and children and even babies: feed them whole foods, foods that have not been processed and foods that are genuinely healthy for them. She introduces grains that are not used in a lot of households, such as quinoa, spelt, millet and barley. These grains may not be at the tip of your tongue yet, but they are out there and a lot are even relatively inexpensive, especially if you buy them in bulk.
If you have a child with wheat or corn or even dairy allergies, this book opens up a new world of different things that you can be making for or even with your kids. Yes, she even has a section on how to incorporate your children in making the recipes she includes in the book. And, the recipes are pretty straight-forward and a lot of them are relatively easy to make. Preparing her food does not have to be hard. Just because the food is good for you, it does not mean it has to take two hours to prepare it.
When Lair writes about feeding the whole family, she means it. After each recipe, she gives adaptations and suggestions for serving the food to babies 6 months of age or older. She obviously has a passion for getting children involved and eating these healthy foods at early ages. Hopefully, that passion will be contagious for those of us with small children, who are learning from their parents what is healthy and what is not.
This book would be a great addition to households where there is or where there is not someone with allergies. It introduces new foods to your family, foods that can complement or substitute for other foods, perhaps ones that bring about allergic reactions in your household. It also outlines what we are supposed to eat and why. This book could be more than just recipes in your household: it could become a tool as to how to eat. WIth or without allergies.
For more info: check out this book from your local library here in Sioux Falls
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