John is still very limited in his eating and would happily live on five foods. We hope to make more progress (more eating, less throwing up), but in the meanwhile some investigation and smart food-buying choices on my part are helping a lot.
This morning I watched John eat breakfast and it all seemed so "white" and empty, but analysis reveals it was excellent!
First of all, I'm thrilled to announce that I think John might be drinking chocolate milk now. Before, he had taken one or two tentative sips of chocolate milk on fewer than a half dozen occasions. We've done plenty of milk play for a year now to try to get him accustomed to being around milk and touching it, but he still wouldn't drink it. Then a few days ago, he brought me the tin of Ovaltine and asked to mix it, so I said yes, figuring this was just another fun mixing experiment. But then John drank twelve ounces of it!
This morning's breakfast looked like white bread with white cream cheese with chocolate milk. But check this out:
Milk: We buy whole milk from a local farm (which delivers!) that uses only Jersey cows and processes on site. I no longer have the nutritional chart to check, but laboratory analysis reveals that the combination of Jersey cows, the production techniques, and the freshness lead to something like 25% more of the calcium and protein than standard. John probably drank at least 80 calories, 4 g protein, 4 g fat, 150 mg calcium. Plus I mixed in Ovaltine instead of a pure chocolate-and-sugar powder, so that was another 20 calories plus good vitamins (I'd list them all, but it's shorter to say that Ovaltine is like a mini multivitamin suspended in sugar--I don't understand why anyone buys Nestle and such when Ovaltine tastes just as junky but actually contains many vitamins).
Bread: I'm not on a bread-baking kick right now, so I'm buying Nature's Own breads, which are misleading soft and delicious, like nutritionally vapid breads. I really don't know why anyone who wants a puffy, "easy" bread would buy any other brand than Nature's Own because it is such a nutritional powerhouse. I buy various flavors, but just noticed today for the first time that the WhiteWheat (made with a hard white spring wheat instead of traditional red wheat) is more nutritious even than the Whole Wheat! The WhiteWheat contains 280 mg calcium and 2.3 mg iron, versus the Whole Wheat which contains 85 mg calcium and 1.5 mg iron. (A child John's age needs 500 mg calcium and 7-10 mg iron per day.) So, today John ate four pieces of toast and would have eaten more if I hadn't stopped him. That means he ate 440 calories, 4 g fat, 20 g protein, 16 g fiber, and a lot of good vitamins again (including his entire iron need and more than twice his calcium need for the day!).
Cream Cheese: We've switched to Bruegger's Bagels Yogurt Cream Cheese--something which John could happily eat at all meals and snacks if we let him. It has a much better nutritional profile than standard cream cheese. With yogurt cream cheese on every slice of toast, John ate 120 calories, 7 g fat, 10 g protein, and good calcium (8% of an adult daily value, whatever that is).
Total Analysis:
Calories: 660 [At 33 pounds times 45 caloric need per pound, John needs about 1,500 calories per day, so already ate more than a third of that at breakfast.]
Fat: 15 g [Fat should not be lower than about 30% of caloric value for preschoolers. John's breakfast was 20% fat.]
Protein: 34 g [he needs about 16 g daily]
Fiber: 16 g [Excellent! "The National Academy of Sciences recommends a daily fiber intake of 14 grams per 1,000 calories for adults and children. This Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is higher than the amount previously recommended by the American Health Foundation and the American Academy of Pediatrics."]
Calcium: about 300% of his daily need
Iron: about 120% of his daily need
I have to do this analysis for myself sometimes to keep myself from falling into despair over John's limited foods. He also gets a multivitamin and a calcium supplement (500 mg)--and it looks like I should probably stop giving him the latter!
(And, of course, Mary eats anything and everything. This week I made lentils and onions and she asked for five servings. Mary gives me no nutritional worries so that I can save up my worrying for all her climbing to great heights.)
That's a lot of great information! Way to go John!
ReplyDelete2 of my kids drink the Ovaltine chocolate milk a couple of times a day. Mary Elizabeth is the one I have to worry about as she eats like a bird. I let the "sugary drink" in when she weaned and it was the only way I could get her to drink milk.
I never knew that about the cows and their milk. Y'all are very lucky that they deliver, too!
Here is a post I wrote where I mentioned a book you may be interested in. I used this book to sneak nutrition into my fussy eaters!!
ReplyDeletehttp://neverfadingwood.blogspot.com/2010/08/random-thoughts.html
Thanks for the tip on Ovaltine! I am personally unable to tolerate the flavor (I think it's the maltyness of it that gives me the gaggy "shivers"), but with how much Emma LOVES her chocolate milk, sneaking in something less empty would be beneficial. I use the chocolate syrup from Trader Joes, but it's really not much better than Hershey's chocolate syrup.
ReplyDeleteMilk delivery would be fantastic, but I don't think that's available here. I've been relying on the Trader Joe's label lately...much less expensive than the organic brands, but (I'm assuming) better than what I get at one of the bigger chain stores.
Glad to read you are beginning to have positive progress with John and his eating!!! You've been working SO hard with him!
Lily: Thanks for telling me about that nutrition book. The reason I haven't invested in one of those books so far is that when I have read reviews of recipes, the recipes are the type that John would never eat anyway. He won't eat wet food or mixed food, so that precludes virtually everything. If he won't eat mixed foods, then I can't mix something in and hide it. And many recipes in which one can mix something are wet foods, and those are a no-go. It's really hard! But maybe as his willingness expands, some of those recipes will move within our reach, which would be a real blessing.
ReplyDeleteYour welcome. I hope the book comes in handy :) There are some really "normal" foods in there, including baked products. Maybe there is something in it which will work.
ReplyDeleteKatherine, Have you ever tried "Chocolate Zuchini Muffins"? Will John eat dried fruit? What about potato? Fried potato slices with a little olive oil, or toss bite size pieces in olive oil and sea salt and roast them in the oven. You can also make those with sweet potatoes. If he likes carrots maybe he would also like raw jicama? Just some ideas!:)
ReplyDeleteRachel: John eats ZERO fruits and ZERO vegetables, in any form. No mixed foods. No wet foods. And I haven't bothered with the baked goods because, while they sneak in a little bit, I figure I'm giving him tons of sugar and fat for a miniscule amount of vegetable, which has had a lot of the nutrients baked out of it. I can give him a multivitamin without all the sugar, you know?
ReplyDeleteIt's all very depressing if I think too much about it.