| | Kalea Jerielle Niednagel
Third Generation Healthy Eater
It’s amazing observing a child who is born and raised in healthy eating. In the case of my daughter Kalea, eating healthy is a joy. It’s healthy children like her who ask for green drink in the morning, for codliver oil, for millet, broccoli, seaweed -- and turn up their noses to bananas!
Not that bananas are bad, but my husband and I focused our daughters diet on greens, sour foods such as fermented vegetables (the Korean staple-food “Kimchi”), and very little sweet foods.
Children are born with a natural sweet-tooth so as to desire a mother’s milk and then this sweet tooth is further cultivated by the typical first baby foods – sweet potatoes, grapes, bananas, cheerios, etc. By focusing Kalea’s initial diet on non-sweet foods, we gave her broader taste-buds (for life!) to enjoy all foods, not just the sweet ones.
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Kalea’s diet was 100% breast milk for her first 8-months
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From 8-months on we gave her bites of avocado, peas, and cucumber, as well as 1 teaspoon codliver oil everyday.
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By 12-months she got nori (a sea vegetable), fermented vegetables (learn more about this “superfood” pereparation technique in the book “Body Ecology” by Donna Gates), lightly steamed zucchini, and soft-boiled egg yolk.
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Between 18-24 months I introduced rice, millet, quinoa, buckwheat and amaranth in small amounts (all pre-soaked for 8-24 hours before cooking for increased digestibility)
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For “rewards” Kalea’s all-time favorite food is goat cheese, which mommy gives her a bite of when she picks up all her toys before daddy gets home from work. J
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Kalea is now 28-months-old, eats blueberries and goat yogurt for breakfast (although she begs for “nori and kimchi!”), or grapefruit which she insists to call an “orange” as well as occasional kiwi or green apple. For lunch she eats her favorite meal of millet, nori, kimchi, and grated carrot “with dressing!” (hemp oil, flax oil, olive oil, pumpkinseed oil and apple-cider-vinegar). For dinner she may have 2 egg yolks with guacamole, fermented vegetables and steamed greens. She can barely wait for the plain/unseasoned zucchini to cool off so she can eat it!
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She has been sick as many times or less than I can count on one hand! And the sickness she has had hasn’t slowed down her “energy bunny motor” hardly at all! Her energy level and learning ability is incredible, “lethargic” is the antithesis to our little gal!
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I’m still nursing Kalea at her nap and bedtime which she is unwilling to grow out of just yet. J Feeding this innocent baby what her body really wants/needs, gives me the greatest fulfillment as a mother. I pray that Kalea’s testimony will encourage you in your goal to be a healthy-food-provider for your children too.
Follow the Path to Vitality!
~Danielle Voeller Niedangel
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