Watching Your Children the Paleo Way

One clear and present problem in society is the way kids are not being allowed to be, well, kids. While that may conjuure up ideas of an argument about schools, this problem stems from parents, and their desire to keep their kids away from harm. Most of us have fond memories of spending time away from our parents and spending that time doing things that we wanted, such as running through the woods, swimming in a creek without supervision, playing with pocketknives and fire, riding a bicycle without a hemet or protective pads on. A parent's worry is understandable, but living dangerously and obtaining scars are a child's lifeblood. They have a physical need to test their own boundaries, even if it means that they need a first aid kit at times. This simple fact can be simply proven by the way children still have need of band-aids even with worried and terrified parents watching over them like a hawk.

Sugar is Causing a Dental "Epidemic"

The BBC reports:

"More than half of the 1,000 dental operations carried out each year are on children under the age of six.
Dental surgeon Sharon Lee said she sees a constant stream of toddlers: "It obviously upsets me immensely but we do have a job to do to look after the child."
Five-year-old Kaitlyn was one of them.

Tooth decay meant that she needed to have eight molars removed - almost half her teeth.

"It could have been sweet drinks, sweets, biscuits, anything. Just too much sugar in the diet," said dental surgeon Dr Rod Llewelyn of her rotting teeth.

Her mother, Sharon, said the culprits were her daughter's love of sweets and tomato sauce. The little girl was at one point eating half a mug of tomato sauce a day.
But after the traumatic experience of seeing her daughter undergo the extractions, Sharon vowed to ban the ketchup entirely and cut back on the sweets served to her three children."

Now, it seems that these dental surgeons understand what constitutes sugar, such as tomato sauces and biscuits, as well as the items conventionally seen as full of sugar like soda and candy. So why are we not stepping up to ban these items as well? Schools have gotten rid of the soda machines and snack machines due to the health concerns over the sugar in the items the machines sell, but then why are these kids being served sweetened milk in the lunch line along with tomato sauces, breads, pizzas, pastas, corn, and potatoes? These items contain sugar as well, but due to lack of education the public has on these things, "What do you mean my bread is sugar?", they are considered acceptable.

It is great to see doctors, even those who deal with teeth, talk about what foods contain sugars, but the lack of education that people have astounds me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erix/ / CC BY 2.0

Yesterday was a Day of Fun and Cheats

We determined that two movies we all wanted to see, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Avatar, were playing at a nearby cinema for only $1 a ticket. Since for us, "nearby cinema" actually means an hour away, we decided to make a day of it and this would mean we would need to eat out at least once. Lonestar is our restaurant of choice due to the fact that Tuesdays kids eat free, we have three of them, and their menu is rather Paleo (Me) and Primal (Wife) friendly. However, the kids and my wife were all begging for Chinese and since the Chinese restaurant has a Mongolian BBQ setup, meaning I pick my meats and veggies and they cook what I want, I agreed.