I received the following comment in response to a post about my son eating cream puffs for breakfast at my brother-in-law's house:
I've posted before on your website and I will again, because I am seriously fearful for what you are doing to your children. I've noticed numerous posts about your children wanting carbs for breakfast or snacks (ex: craving sugar and carbs in the cream puffs on dec. 29). Ever think that you're depriving your children of the very nutrients that make them grow? I don't know why you feel you have to deprive your children of one of the essential parts of nutrition. Fruit has carbs. Whole grains have carbs. What makes you think that these things are evil? I feel terrible, TERRIBLE for your daughter. Saying that your children will be "working off" the 2 cream puffs they had for breakfast is horrifying and I can only imagine the psychological ramifications that will result from your dietary obsession. I pray that your daughter doesn't develop an eating disorder as she grows older, and you should too. for shame.
I am going to take these comments as coming from the heart rather than someone coming to the website and trying to start a confrontation just for the sake of starting a confrontation. (I have a few people who like to do that.)
I, as a blog writer, also have to realize a few things:
- Many people come in and just read one post, are not regular readers, and don't know how to navigate the entire site to see my whole philosophy.
- When I write, I sometimes leave things out that seem obvious to me but are really not obvious to the reader.
Let's dissect this post on cream puffs, which I wrote quickly while I was up in Vermont just as a filler. I didn't even give it a category because it literally was a "puff piece." If you don't categorize it, then it just kind of scrolls off with the date. (I have since rectified this and put it into Low Carb Kids because of the great comment.)
Cream Puffs for Breakfast During the Holidays
OK, OK, OK, I am not a low carb zealot, I let my kids be kids every once in a while... but this one even shocked me a little bit.
My son slept over his cousin's house and they both wanted breakfast. My brother-in-law recited the list of breakfast items that they could have and they said, "naaa" to each one of them. Finally, one of them piped up, "How about cream puffs?"
(New comments: These cream puffs are the cream puffs sold at Costco. I don't have the label to put up for the nutritional content because I don't buy them on a normal basis to have in the house. They are about an inch to an inch and a half around, made with white flour, with powdered sugar on top. They are stuffed with a sugared cream filling. I highly doubt that there is any fiber in them.)
This breakfast suggestion didn't shock me coming from kids, but my brother-in-law said yes! When he first told me he said he split up 25 small cream puffs into two piles and let each of them eat half. He then rescinded that version of the story and told me he let each of them eat two for breakfast. After that I breathed a sigh of relief -- only two!
(New comments: If you piled up 12 to 13 of these cream puffs into a pile, you would have quite a huge bowl to eat! I wish I had the container information so I could tell you the calorie count as well. There is no fruit in them. I guess they might have some calcium due to the cream, but that is about it.)
(And they are both going to work off those cream puffs sledding and making snow forts today!)
(New comments: I'm thrilled whenever my son goes outside to play in the cold northeast! Believe me, the kids themselves didn't see this as a chore or a hardship, they were excited to use their new Christmas sleds and play with each other!)
If you read the rest of my site, I have my kids on a low carb modified diet. What does this mean for breakfast? It means that they actually eat more fiber now than they did before the diet. I don't let my kids eat sugary cereals. They eat eggs, lots of low carb bread and cereal products (which have good carbs and lots of fiber compared to your normal white bread products.) Some items include: low carb bagels, low carb bread, low carb pitas.
As far as fruits, I have them eat the whole fruit rather than drink the juice. They eat whole apples, whole grapes, whole pears, whole tangerines, whole strawberries, whole blueberries, whole cherries -- with the skin except for tangerines. The only juice that they drink is the Light'n Healthy Orange juice.
As far as veggies, my son only eats Costco broccoli and celery with cream cheese. He has at least one of these every day in a huge helping. My daughter eats everything, including kale, spaghetti squash and other exotic vegetables.
So, what have I cut out? Pre-packaged foods filled with sugar and white flour, including most soft drinks. I have substituted some pre-packaged foods filled with soy and splenda or other ingredients because kids don't want to be different, and I can understand that.
My kids are by no means skinny, and that is because I don't limit their intake when they go to parties, music nights, etc. They then eat the pizza filled with white flour, and the regular chips, and yes, the cream puffs. I'm waiting for them to self-enforce the rules at these times if they need to in the future. I'm also hoping that time and height will take care of some of the problem I created for them when they were young, letting them eat all that refined white flour and sugar.
They are also not stunted in their growth. My son just turned eight and he is 4 feet 7 inches tall. I don't have my daughter to measure right now, but she just turned 11 and is over 5 feet tall. If my son were left to his own devices, he would live on sugar cereals, Bisquick pancakes with real maple syrup, white bagels with cream cheese, sausage, bacon, white rolls and biscuits, fried mozzarella sticks, chicken teriyaki, crab rangoons, white sticky rice, chicken fingers, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, pepperoni pizza, cupcakes, cookies, candy, chips and Doritos, ice cream sundaes, sugar sodas, fruit juice, peanut butter and jelly on white bread, and bologna on white bread. Oh, he does like eggs once in a while. And he will eat apples and pears. The above is a recipe for disaster: bad carbs, fat, and sugar.
So, after learning more -- is a modified low carb diet bad for kids? I'd like to hear your comments, because, as I said above:
- Many people come in and just read one post, are not regular readers, and don't know how to navigate the entire site to see my whole philosophy.
- When I write, I sometimes leave things out that seem obvious to me but are really not obvious to the reader.