I went out to dinner with somebody who will remain unnamed, and we were talking about our kids.  Eventually the conversation swung to our kids and what they like to eat, and we talked about how under-weight Nathan is.  In a very nice way she said if I wasn’t such a health nut, Nathan could eat more foods and be chunkier.

Here’s the thing.  Yes, I have become a health nut.  Through research I learned that your body is what you eat, and I became very conscious of the things I put into my body and into my kid’s bodies.  Because without health you have nothing and I want us all to be healthy.  Because I want us all to be as happy as can be and cranky over sugared children are not happy.  Because sick manlourished kids are not happy.  Because whenever I eat sugar I feel bloated and anxious and it’s not a good feeling.  So yes, I am health conscious and diet is a very important aspect of health.

But.  It became really hard.  I felt like an army general policing what the kids ate.  I was the scrooge telling everyone not to give my kids hot dogs or lollipops or ice cream.  So I gave up.  And as of a few months ago, my kids eat junk.  I try to make sure they at least eat a healthy breakfast and lunch.  But dinner is up for grabs.  The dinner menu rarely varies from hot dogs, pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, ice cream.  Nathan eats a chocolate for dessert with lunch every day.  Izzy demands an ice cream every time we go to the mall, and a chocolate chip cookie every time we go to the mall in Hollywood (often).   She goes to the junk food cabinet at least once a day and demands something from it.  Sometimes I feel that a whole day will go by and Izzy ate little more than sugar.  I do my best to get her to eat good stuff but she’ll refuse to eat unless she gets what she wants.  Sometimes I give in because I’d rather know that she at least has something in her stomach, even if it’s a bad something.

I ask myself all the time.  What’s more important, to be right or to be happy?  I want to be happy more than I want to be right.  I know the right thing is to make sure the kids eat a healthy diet.  But we kept Nathan casein and gluten free for 2 years and it was HARD.  And stressful.  I don’t want to go through that again.  I’d rather be happy.   I posted yesterday about Nathan’s allergies.  I know that if he was eating better the allergy situation would improve.  But then his appetite would decrease because he likes junk food, he’d get skeletal again, which makes him vulnerable when illness attacks.

So. What do you think?  What’s the balance here?  How do you guys do it?

On our way to Chicago for some work meetings I sat next to a high powered businessman and we started talking about our kids, and the conversation rapidly evolved into discussions about our jobs. He works in marketing and is focusing on internet marketing, so we had lots in common to talk about. After a few minutes he told me that he spent 11 years working on the “Got Milk” marketing campaign, and that he was one of the first marketing executives to work on that account.

What I heard was pretty eye-opening.

He explained to me that, since milk is an expensive commodity (yes, a COMMODITY), their challenge when they started the campaign was to make people believe that it was NOT a commodity but a NECESSITY.

So what they did was they formed an alliance where all of the milk distributors teamed together to hire a very expensive PR agency. They created a “tax system” whereby for every single container of milk sold, a percentage would be paid for marketing the “milk collective”. So if you think of the “got milk” campaign – you never think of a brand – it promotes drinking milk, any milk, not a brand. By forming a collective it allowed them to have a much larger advertising budget for the product, and then they would all benefit from the campaign.

11 years ago the budget started at 35 million dollars a year to promote milk.

When he left the PR agency 4 years ago the budget was 235 million dollars a year.

Yes, my friends, 235 million dollars to promote milk. To tell people that milk is a necessity, not a commodity. To shift perception of milk so people think it’s healthy. To convince people that milk is the only source of calcium and that we all need it for bone health. 235 million dollars a year so every household in America would permanently keep a gallon of milk in their fridge.

Next time you believe that you HAVE to give your kids milk, you’ve been conned.

The truth is:

- Milk is NOT the only source of calcium – there are many other very healthy sources of calcium.

- You need magnesium to absorb calcium – so it’s very possible that you’re not absorbing ANY calcium from milk unless it has magnesium, and then you will only absorb as much calcium as there is magnesium.

- In order to meet the demand on milk, distributors use hormones and other products to increase production of milk and special tools to extract it. Often there is blood in the milk from these products which then cannot be removed and is disguised in the sold product. Also, what and how are those cows being fed? Doesn’t that affect quality of the milk?

- Milk proteins are very large and difficult to digest, and can cause problems for people with sensitive digestive systems.

- There are wonderful calcium/magnesium supplements that are better for the body than milk, like Floradix.

- Raw organic milk has valuable enzymes and other health benefits.

The obvious question is, if you stop giving your child milk, what can you replace it with? Here are some good milk replacement suggestions:

- Coconut milk
- Almond milk
- Hemp milk
- Rice milk

Some people also use soy but I am not a big fan of soy because the proteins in soy are also hard and difficult to digest.

I hope you find this as enlightening and eye-opening as I did!