Got your attention, didn’t I?
Well, is it safe for a child, sneaking around behind the barn or school bathroom, to quit smoking cigarettes? Of course it is. In fact, it is a wonderful thing for child, and later adult, health.
Similarly, parents sometimes ask: Is it safe to remove wheat and grains from my child’s diet? To help you understand, let me restate the question: Is it safe to remove wheat and grains from a child’s diet, foods not consumed by humans for the first 99.6% of our time on this planet and we are thereby not fully adapted to digesting, made worse by the manipulations made by agribusiness? Is it safe to remove the behavior-altering, gastrointestinally-disruptive, inflammation-provoking, and autoimmune-triggering effects of the seeds of grasses (“grains”) from the dietary experience of a child?
Of course it is. Just as adults experience transformations in weight and health, so do kids. They may, of course, experience more in the way of preventing or avoiding later health problems experienced as adults, but kids benefit just as adults do by eliminating this toxic “foodstuff” mistaken for healthy food.
But beware: Just like adults, children can experience the opiate withdrawal syndrome when the gliadin protein of wheat and related proteins of other grains are removed, showing itself in your child as misbehavior, crankiness, sleepiness, nausea, and anger. But the effect, thank goodness, is transient, but reflective of how awful the stuff was in the first place. And it’s also important to understand that, if your child has been wheat- and grain-free for more than a few weeks, the partial (NEVER total) tolerance that he/she had acquired from prior grain consumption will be lost. It means that any re-exposure, intentional or inadvertent, to wheat or grains will trigger re-exposure reactions: misbehavior, nausea, bloating, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, skin rashes, anger. Any parent knows that is impossible to completely control a child’s diet while they are, for example, at a sleepover or birthday party. But it is important that 1) the child understands that he/she may become ill with any exposure, and 2) how to recognize what foods will make him/her sick. In other words, education of your child is the key. There will be mishaps in younger children, but the lessons will be learned as they get older and better able to navigate diet safely on their own.
Thank you for posting this. I agree and I was actually about to ask this question. Although my daughter displays crankiness and anger after her blood sugar drop and the never ending wheat hunger cycle, so I think wheat withdrawal couldn’t be worse. Childhood moves so fast and there are so, so, many opportunities for eating really bad foods at school, parties, even my daughter’s dance teacher gives the students pixie sticks and taffy for being good in class. It’s really hard to shield them without being a nag or mean mom who the child ends up resenting for not letting them participate with their friends.
When my daughter was a baby she was lactose intolerant and we fed her “soy” formula. One day I looked at the ingredient label and the first ingredient was corn syrup. I just looked it up now and it says first ingredient corn syrup solids 54%, second ingredient vegetable oil 26%. I feel really awful for feeding my baby that. That always stuck with me.
For children dependent on the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the odds are stacked against them. As a public school administrator (now retired), I could see the growing bellies and encroaching diabetes occurring right before my eyes–on a daily basis. As the children filed out with their trays of “whole wheat” (healthy pizza!) crust pizza, biscuits, noodles, cereal, it became more and more difficult for me to bear witness. I was entrusted with the care of these children, yet I felt was watching and participating in the beginning of their death march. Schools are bound by the nutritional requirements of the NSLP if they want to participate in the Free and Reduced program, so I don’t see how this toxic practice can be changed any time soon. It’s really disheartening. Millions of children (most of whom are living in poverty) are fed grain-based diets through this program. Plus, with so many organizations touting the benefits of whole grain and agri-business heavily invested in grains…it seems insurmountable.
I’m really appreciative for all the work that Dr. Davis and Dr. Perlmutter do to educate and promote. It would be so nice to see the NSLP at least offer grain free options.
Google “school bake sale usda rules” just within the last 24 hours.
The toxic diet in government schools is going to continue getting more adverse for some time yet.
There have been several major developments in health news this week that poke major holes in the USDA’s MyPlateOfMetabolicSyndrome diet. Parents with kids condemned to government schools need to be whacking the admins on the head with these documents, and advising them that it won’t be long before class action lawyers are circling overhead.
Here’s one, published lately in US Endocrinology:
http://www.touchendocrinology.com/sites/www.touchendocrinology.com/files/OsamaHamdy.pdf
T2D used to be called “adult onset” diabetes.
The ailment hasn’t changed.
What causes it has (the official diet).