Berry Bread Recipe + Plant-Based Pediatric Nutrition
Cut this in half and you can fit it into a standard loaf pan. (<—handy for lone wolfs or folks without hungry kiddos.)
Use any berry you prefer. We’ve done 2 full cups of strawberries, and we’ve also done half strawberries and raspberries.
The blueberries aren’t needed, but are a delicious addition.
If you want it sweeter and/or don’t have dates on hand, Maple works great too.
Everything you need for a batch of berry bread: baking powder, oatflour*, salt, flax meal*, 2 cups of berries, 2 bananas, 4 dates (pitted), and the optional 2 cups of blueberries.
*Oatflour: take whole oats and throw them in a blender.
*Flax Meal: take whole flax seeds and throw them in a blender.
Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
If you have some nutritional yeast on hand, it’s always a tasty addition and it boosts your B12.
It’s going to look very wet when you put it into the pan. That oatflour and flax meal are going to soak that up, so don’t worry! <3
Voila!
This tastes better than any of the breastmilk and embryo baked goods you may currently be whipping up, plus it’s better for your heart and better for the environment.
From “We Are The Weather” by Jonathan Safran Foer
Plant-Based Whole-Food Kiddo Breakfast: Berry Bread, Banana, Peanut Butter, and Cashew Cream
Pediatric Nutrition is a point of particular flame with me. I’ve mentioned many, many times that our doctors are not given enough (if any) information about how nutrition affects everything that goes on within our bodies, and we have firsthand experience with this. [I’ve also mentioned that the brilliant Dr Michael Klaper is out teaching a med school circuit, and waking docs up to the fact that you can’t heal a patient with pills alone: you need to also focus on what they are eating.]
We love Q’s pediatrician. He is kind, he is engaging, he is open to listening to the new/vital information we throw his way (case in point: he said he’d remove “How many glasses of milk a day are you drinking?” from the annual physical sheet —because cow breastmilk is not a health food— and ask instead, “How are you getting your calcium?”), and he is learning right along with us.
If you’ve met our son, you know that he is whip-smart. This isn’t just biased Mama Bear love, this is backed by every teacher he’s had, his pediatrician, every doctor he’s met along his calamitous health path, and folks we know through the educational/psychological/medical fields. Even our neighbors often call him “Little Sheldon” because he was educating people about biological facts by 2.
So it was a wallop when this brainy child started falling behind physically and was diagnosed with failure-to-thrive around age 2. His weight has always been steady, but he wasn’t growing like he should in length, and most importantly: he was perpetually sick. Q had sinus infections and ear infections all the dang time, he was wrought with GI issues, he even had Dyshidrotic Eczema on his palms.
We fed him what we considered a very healthy diet. We gave him grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood.
Yet this is what he often looked like:
In this photo, he is battling a sinus infection, a double ear infection, and Croup.
Our sweet pediatrician was at his wits end. He ordered test after test after test, but two years went by with no changes to Q’s health.
Q has endured over a dozen blood draws, he’s had sonograms, he even had an endoscopy.
All this pain, and nothing improved until Ian and I started researching nutrition and learned how foods would alleviate his symptoms.
You want some real-life nonsense?
After the endoscopy, Q was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis by his gastroenterologist, and here are the common foods listed as possible triggers (ie foods to try eliminating):
Milk
Egg
Wheat
Soy
Fish and shellfish
Peanuts (<—Q was tested for this and thankfully nuts are not a trigger for him)
At no point were we advised to cut out any of the above foods.
Q’s bloodwork hadn’t shown Celiac nor had the scope confirmed it, but we were advised by his medical team to avoid gluten and to tell folks to avoid giving it to him at all costs because that was the only thing they could think of triggering the failure-to-thrive… yet when we mentioned that we were noticing a strong reaction to dairy and were trying to cut it out of his diet: the gastroenterologist said, “No! You don’t want to take that one out of his diet. He’s already losing gluten, and you want him to still enjoy food, right? You don’t want him to be that kid at the party who can’t eat anything, right?”
Frankly, what we wanted was for our son to heal & thrive.
This well-reputed gastroenterologist simply prescribed a PPI pill (for heartburn Q didn’t have) and told us to keep feeding Q Standard American Death & Disease.
We fumed and regrouped with Q’s pediatrician. We moved toward Plant-Based Whole-Foods because they are clinically proven to be the best diet for humans, and the only diet that is going to help prevent Q from getting the cardiovascular disease rampant in this country and fleshed out on both sides of our family trees.
Within a year of the change: he grew 4 inches, he lost all signs of the Eosinophilic Esophagitis, he hasn’t gotten a single ear infection, his GI distress is gone, he is somehow even keener of mind and brighter of focus, and his sole sinus infection came with a wail after he was given some cheese and cream at his school’s Christmas party.
If you’re worried about the nutritional health of your child switching to plant-based whole-foods, your fear is misguided. (And I had the same worry! It’s why I started reading books on nutrition and eventually took an online nutrition class through Cornell’s Center for Nutrition Studies.)
If anything should cause concern/worry, it should be the harm we are daily doing with animal products, because we are setting our children (and ourselves) up for cardiovascular disease.
If you think I am hyperbolic about children’s cardiovascular systems, I’ll redirect you to this horrifying/illuminating video again (and again, and again), and the following studies that show the same thing:
Evidence of the Beginning of Atherosclerosis in Infancy and Adolescence”
“Cardiovascular disease risk factors and atherosclerosis in children and adolescents
“A Few Unpleasant Facts About Atherosclerotic Arterial Disease in the United States and the World”
If you have a kid and want to transition them to plant-based whole foods, first: start eating plant-based whole-foods yourself. Our children see what we do and will learn from it.
Second, here are some great resources:
“Nutrition for Kids” from the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine
“Children who are raised on healthful vegan diets have a reduced risk for heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and other conditions. Adolescents raised on a plant-based diet often find they have an easy time maintaining a healthy weight. They also have fewer problems with acne, allergies, and gastrointestinal problems than their peers who eat animal products.
American children often have fatty streaks in their arteries before they finish high school. Children who eat a plant-based diet limit foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol, which can contribute to heart disease.”
“Diet, Children, and the Future” from Dr John McDougall
“Plant-Based Eating for Kids” from nutritionist Emma Roche (who also wrote the book “Whole Food Plant Based on $5 a Day”)
“Pediatric Plant-Based Nutrition Quick Start Guide” by Dr. Jackie Busse
The ever important “Plant-Based Diets: A Physician’s Guide” put out by the National Institutes of Health to our medical professionals
Dessert
j-berry bread with banana, peanut butter, and cashew cream
Q- strawberries, watermelon, and a little cashew cream.
Afternoon cardio <3
Current Poppy State
Plant-Based Whole-Food Family Feasting: red lentils, seared mushrooms, garlicky kale, fresh sorrel, purple sweet potatoes, and enchilada sauce.
Nightly Reading
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
6.5.2020
