Our daughters were born in 1978 and 1980, long before Barry began his search for a diet in which food would be our best medicine. In those early days, I was clueless about nutrition. When my girls were small, I thought nothing was wrong with fixing the kids macaroni and cheese for dinner. Lunch bags were stuffed with sandwiches, potato chips, cookies, and an apple. Most of the time the apple came back to me at the end of the day. Imagine that.
—Lynn Sears
Kids can be incredibly picky eaters. The story about our younger daughter in the Introduction is true—at one point she would only eat chicken for her protein choice and green apples and grapes for her carbohydrate choices. She often ate a grilled chicken Caesar salad on green lettuce and green grapes or a green Granny Smith apple for dinner. That was a bit monotonous, but at least it kept her in the Zone. Meal preparation couldn’t have been simpler. We would get skinless, cooked chicken breast from the supermarket’s deli and throw it in the microwave to heat it slightly. While it was warming, we opened an individual-size Caesar salad package from the grocery store and tossed it with the dressing provided, or our own healthier olive oil and vinegar recipe. We cut the chicken up and put it on top, and just to keep it interesting, put about four of the package’s croutons on top of the salad greens and threw the rest away. Then out came the bowl of green grapes or green sliced apples, and that was that.
Until our daughter entered her late teens, she was a picky eater. Then all of a sudden she began to enjoy eating everything, including vegetables and fruits of all colors.
By the time the Zone concept entered our household, our older daughter was ten and our younger daughter was eight. As we began to bring our children into the Zone, we found that it was easier to regulate their consumption of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats by putting a lot of different bowls of carbohydrates on the table. In other words, don’t put all your carbs in one basket. That way we could eyeball what our kids were eating.
The protein was easy to measure. We would put the correct amount on their plate, say two or three ounces of chicken. If they didn’t eat it all, we knew they would eat a piece of string cheese.
Carbohydrates we put on the table included the proverbial bowl of grapes, a bowl of chickpeas or kidney beans for salads, and hummus on a small wedge of pita bread. Hummus also tastes great on a salad. If you use it as a dressing, eliminate any other fat because hummus contains both carbohydrates and fat. When you serve your children fruit, cut it up. A child will more readily eat an orange that’s been peeled and sectioned or an apple that is seeded and cut in wedges.
Usually, a child of elementary school age eats 2-block meals, and a middle school or high school student graduates to 3 or more. Of course, each child is different. Some kids are still tiny in sixth grade, while others are much earlier bloomers. Take a cue from your children. If they are in the Zone, they will be eating the size portions that are right for them. The earlier children enter the Zone, the earlier it will become second nature for them to stay in the Zone. We’ve had numerous Zoner parents tell us that when somebody gives their child an apple, he or she asks for protein to go along with it. By the time they’re teenagers, kids will be so used to the extra energy and mental acuity the Zone brings that they won’t be as tempted to eat badly when they go out with their friends for dinner or lunch. If you must take them to a fast-food restaurant, follow the guidelines in chapter 4.
In a study conducted at Harvard Medical School in 1999 (Pediatrics 103: E26 1999), twelve obese teenage boys were given low glycemic-load and high glycemic-load meals containing the same number of calories. In essence, some of the boys were given a Zone meal and the others a meal based on the USDA Food Pyramid, which relies heavily on grains and starches. Both meals had the same number of calories. At the next meal the boys who had eaten the Zone meal consumed 25 percent fewer calories. Therein lies the power of the Zone dietary program. If you aren’t as hungry, you don’t eat as much food at the next meal.
Let’s begin to bring your kids into the Zone. The Zone Food Block Guide on page 365 gives countless combinations to use to make Zone meals. Here are a few choices to get you started.
First come the protein choices pre-adolescent children should have at every meal.
Children should eat any combination of two of the following protein blocks at each meal. Each choice equals one block.
1 ounce lean beef or Canadian bacon or skinless chicken breast or canned tuna in water or low-fat cheese
1 egg or 1 piece string cheese or soy sausage link or soy hot dog (check the label)
1½ ounces ground turkey or lean ground beef or crabmeat or lobster or scallops or shrimp or deli meat
2 egg whites
3 strips turkey bacon
¼ cup cottage cheese or egg substitute
½ soy hamburger (check the label)
2 ounces firm tofu
Next add the carbohydrate choices.
Children should eat any combination of two of the following protein blocks at each meal. Each choice equals one block.
1/8 cup dry pearl barley (check the label; 1 block is 9 grams)
¼ cup black beans or chickpeas or kidney beans or lentils
1/3 cup water chestnuts or unsweetened applesauce or Mandarin oranges canned in water or fruit cocktail canned in water or steel-cut oatmeal
½ cup tomato sauce or blueberries or boysenberries or grapes or peaches canned in water or cubed pineapple
½ apple or grapefruit or nectarine or orange or pear
1 cup artichoke hearts or tomato (canned and chopped) or raspberries or strawberries (chopped fine) or spaghetti squash
1 kiwi or 1 nectarine or 1 peach or 1 plum
1½ cups green or wax beans or chopped onions or snow peas or chopped fresh tomatoes
1½ cucumbers
2 cups whole boiled mushrooms or zucchini or bell peppers or sliced celery or cherry tomatoes
3 cups cooked broccoli
Bread/toast (not more than 9 grams)
Finally, add two blocks of fat.
Children should eat any combination of two of the following fat blocks at each meal.
It should also be noted that 1 cup of 1-percent milk contains one block of protein, one block of carbohydrate, and one block of fat.
So here’s what a child’s day might look like.
Breakfast (eaten within 1 hour of waking):
We can’t overemphasize how important it is for a child to have a Zone breakfast within an hour of waking. That lesson was driven home to us one morning when a client visited our Zone Center. It was a school holiday, and she brought her six-year-old son along for her appointment. To say that the boy misbehaved is an incredible understatement. His antics included ripping up papers on a desk and taking pencils out of their holders and hurling them across the room. His mother was aghast and told us that her son had never acted like that before. We asked what she had fed him for breakfast. She said that “as a special treat” she had taken him to a restaurant for breakfast where he had eaten pancakes topped with a sugary blueberry syrup. The realization hit her that the “special treat” wasn’t very special after all.
Lunch
A good lunch for an elementary school child might consist of:
Just as it is for an adult, the timing of a child’s daytime snack depends upon how much time elapses between two meals. If a child eats breakfast at 7 or 8 A.M. and has lunch between 11 and 12, then he or she should wait and have a snack after school. If the lunch hour comes at 1 P.M. or later during the school year, ask the child’s teacher to allow a midmorning snack. If a child is in a childcare program, make sure the afternoon snack is one made at home and not provided at the daycare facility. Have you ever noticed how children are bouncing off the walls when their parents pick them up every afternoon? That’s because the traditional midafternoon snack at a daycare center is cookies and apple juice, all carbohydrates—and bad ones at that.
Most of the snacks Americans give to their kids are bound to raise their insulin levels sky high. In the last thirty years the obesity rate for children has tripled. This means they are on a fast track toward diabetes and heart disease. Excess insulin production is also associated with attention deficit disorder and asthma—two conditions that have also seen epidemic surges in the last thirty years.
Snack foods to eliminate or greatly curtail include dry cereals, sodas and sweetened fruit drinks, canned pasta, popcorn, potato chips, and sweets of any kind.
Kid-friendly snacks include:
Dinner
A good dinner for a child of elementary school age might be:
Remember to have simple substitutions on hand. For instance, if your child won’t eat chickpeas, have a bowl of grapes ready. Also, keep a supply of string cheese in the refrigerator. If your child won’t finish the chicken, one or two pieces of string cheese will make sure adequate protein is consumed.
Use sauces to make food more appealing to kids. Instructions are given on Campbell’s Soup cans, such as cream of mushroom and cream of chicken, on how to make a tasty meal cooked in soup. Even children who say they hate vegetables will eat them in soups and stews.
Packaged Knorr sauce mixes, such as Béarnaise and Hollandaise, will also make vegetables taste great. Just use 2 tablespoons of olive oil instead of the recommended butter. Tofu mixed with dry onion soup mix is also a good dipping sauce for raw broccoli and celery. Just tell the kids they’re eating snow-covered trees. It worked for me when my kids were growing up. Check out the other delicious dip and dressing recipes that start on page 166.
And don’t forget a snack before your child goes to bed. A glass of 1 percent milk might hit the spot, and it also might cause the little tyke to go to sleep earlier.
We also want to talk about another dietary dilemma in our family, when our older daughter became a lacto-ovo vegetarian at the age of fourteen in 1992. It was a challenge. We could use eggs and cheese, but just about the only soy product available back then was tofu, which at first looked like a disgusting, slimy mass, but we got used to cooking with it pretty quickly. Today there are a number of good-tasting soy products at the supermarket. People have to get used to using the gram method of Zoning when figuring out soy product portions, which we explain in chapter 8, The Can-Do Zone.