The Co-op Food Stores of New Hampshire and Vermont

added 12/17/08

Healthy People, Healthy Planet: Food, Nutrition, and the Environment

Our personal health and the health of our planet are critical components of our well-being. Decisions made in the Co-op aisles can have lasting effects on both. From packaging to production, ingredients to meal planning, food choices are an everyday way to make a change for the better.

Through this series, “Healthy People, Healthy Planet,” Co-op Dietitian Mary Choate and Sustainability Coordinator Emily Neuman offer their insights on how to choose wisely, for personal and planetary health, as you shop for food. Drawing upon the latest science, common sense, and practical experience, they hope to bring some clarity to the often-challenging subject of “what to eat.”

First Foods on the Path to a Sustainable Food System

by Emily Neuman

Parents play a key role in establishing their children’s habits. When it comes to their ecological footprint, what habits and norms around food will help our children contribute to a healthy planet? Connecting our kids to their local food system may be the single best thing that parents can do.

When their child is ready to eat solid foods, eighty percent of parents today turn to the baby aisle at the grocery store. Maybe they opt for the organic varieties. Feeding one’s child organic food may or may not affect his immediate health, but it is definitely good for the planet, since organic farming methods are healthier for the ecosystems in which the crops are grown. Several years ago, the rise in demand for organic baby food stimulated organic vegetable farming research at Iowa State University, bringing the promise of crop diversity and chemical-free farming to a landscape sorely lacking both.

Right here in the Upper Valley, farms are growing plenty of foods appropriate for babies and toddlers. Parents simply need to prepare it themselves. When the local foods we buy are organic, we’re voting for fewer agricultural chemicals in our local environment.

By starting early with local eating, our children will naturally learn to enjoy each food as it comes into season and look forward to its return the following year. The greater the variety of foods a family eats from local sources, the more it will contribute to biological diversity on local farms and the overall vibrancy of the system.

Participating in the local food system doesn’t mean parents can’t add variety to their family’s diet by eating non-local foods too. One might consider teaching a child to appreciate exotic foods like pineapples flown from Hawaii as the ecological luxuries they are by eating them on special occasions rather than every day.

The long-term health of our local food system also depends on parents to teach their kids the cooking skills necessary to eat locally. When the cooking’s done, let the child gather up the fruit and vegetable scraps for composting. Keeping food waste out of our landfill by composting it is just as important as keeping packaging materials out of our landfill by recycling.

What about snacks? One can buy quick and easy snacks at the store without a lot of packaging. The key is to avoid buying single-serve packages designed for kids. Instead, divvy out the servings from a larger package. This is easy to do with yogurt, applesauce, cereal, crackers, and juice.

Raising kids who can eat a carrot straight from the ground and say no to single-serve packaging will make a big difference for our planet. It takes some effort to participate in the local food system and to resist the marketing on “kid foods.” But it will all be worth it when we realize we’re establishing the path to a sustainable future—a future that we and our children can realize together, one meal at a time.

Does Your Child Need Specially Designed Foods?

by Mary Saucier Choate
M.S., R.D., L.D.

The number of specialty food products aimed at infants and toddlers is amazing. “Toddler real fruit twists” (contains 1/3 cup of real fruit!), “Preschoolers Juice Treats” (first two ingredients are corn syrup and sugar—gummy bears for little ones), “Toddlers Yogurt Melts” (freeze-dried yogurt and fruit bites), and other special infant or toddler foods are heavily marketed to parents who might think that their children could benefit from special, designer foods.

The Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS) was designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the food and nutrient intakes of infants and toddlers. The results were clear: real food can do it all. Food, not supplements, should be the primary source of nutrients in children’s diets. The researchers also noted that the use of supplements either alone or added to foods could lead to excessive intakes.

Children are only at risk of nutrient deficiency if they are not offered the healthful foods the whole family should be eating: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and for young children, full fat dairy and protein foods. (Low fat dairy and lean protein foods may be introduced gradually, under your pediatrician’s guidance, starting after age two.)

Foods from the family table can begin to be offered from approximately age six months on, after an infant progresses beyond breast milk or formula and iron-fortified cereals. At this point an infant can begin to be offered the same mashed or milled foods that parents eat, along with breast milk or formula. Textures and variety of foods offered are advanced as the baby develops, until twelve months and beyond when cutting things small to prevent a choking hazard is the only difference between the family meal and the baby’s.

No need exists for processed drinks, kids’ meals, or toddler snacks. Highly processed snacks and drinks for children contain fewer nutrients such as fiber and phytochemicals (natural plant compounds that protect health) and have more sugars and sodium than whole foods. Commercially prepared foods such as these are more expensive than homemade and actually can be more time-consuming, since what could be quicker than simply serving your child smaller portions of what you are eating — mashed up, milled, or cut into small pieces as appropriate?

Comfort foods are the ones we grew up with. Feeding highly processed snacks and meals will make these foods the ones he or she gravitates toward. Serving your child (and yourself) mostly whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, animal and vegetable proteins, and/or lightly processed foods such as whole grain cereals and breads and dairy products (after 12 months old) will make these wholesome foods the ones your child will go for naturally.

Of course, this brings us to the most important point of all. The most powerful nutrition guidance you can give to your child is to eat the same healthful foods that you are serving to him or her. Research clearly shows that serving healthful foods and eating them together as a family has an important beneficial influence on children’s health, food choices, and behavior.

For more ideas on feeding your child healthfully:

• Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 106, Issue 1, Supplement, Pages 5-152 (January 2006) Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study II

• Books: Child Of Mine: Feeding With Love And Good Sense and Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, by Ellyn Satter

• Web: MyPyramid for Preschoolers and Baylor College of Medicine, Consumer Archives facts and answers

What Do You Think?

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