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Food, Behavior and Chicken Soup

Megan, my ten year old neighbor, came over yesterday to give cookies to my two dogs and to hold and brush my 20 year old cat. She is an only child who has been brought up by two very conscious parents, starting off with a home birth, no vaccinations and a healthy sugarless diet. I was asking her about all this: What is it like not eating sugar? "Oh, I miss it, especially when my friends are eating candy, but I know it's not good for me. My Mom packs me healthy lunches and I eat them." (Please imagine amazement on my face now, as I did the same thing with my two children and found out later - much later - that they traded their expensive, organic brown bag lunches for some sort of packaged mystery meat on Wonderbread with Twinkies for dessert.)

But, Megan seems to take the nutrition thing quite seriously, and consequently, she seems calm, smart and is fun to be around. Her eleventh birthday is coming right up so I asked her what she would be doing and eating for her birthday: "Well, my Mom's making me cheesecake and biscotti!" Oh, I said, cheescake with a biscotti crust? "No, cheesecake and biscotti! I always get sugar on my birthday and then a couple more times a year, too. Then after the cheesecake and biscotti, my Dad and Mom and I will play games and maybe read." Sigh. A perfect childhood, it seems, which may even contradict my long-held theory that none of us gets out of childhood without pain and that we need to neutralize the demons of our past before we can have a full and happy life.

What's my point? It does matter - desperately - what we feed our children. Food can affect the way our brains work, our anxiety and depression levels, our ability to pay attention and the ability to control our baser emotions like rage and murderous instincts. (What were the Columbine killers eating?)

I recommend that you get your hands on the September issue of ODE magazine and read the article called "It matters what you eat." It seems that in 1997, a highschool in Appleton, Wisconsin did a few radical things: They replaced their vending machines with water coolers, took hamburgers and French fries off the lunch menu, added fresh vegetables and fruits, whole-grain bread and a salad bar. They also gave away vitamin supplements to the kids.

The result: As you might expect, "I don't have the vandalism, I don't have the litter, I don't have the need for high security." said Principal Luann Coenen.

We all want nothing more than to see our children become successful adults. And I feel that the ABC's for successful adulthood are a direct result not only of the education process but what our children are eating during said education process. Stephen Schoenthaler, a criminal-justice professor at Cal State Univ. in Stanislaus has been researching the relationship between food and behavior for years. He has proven that reducing the sugar and fat intake in daily diets leads to higher IQ's and better grades in school. He supervised a change in meals served in 80 low-income neighborhoods in NYC and the number of students passing final exams rose from 11% below national average to 5% above.

Another of Schoenthaler's studies - perhaps his best known study - showed that the number of violations in a teen detention center fell by 37% once the vending machines were removed and canned food in the cafeteria was replaced by fresh alternatives. He summarized his findings this way: " Having a bad diet right now is a better predictor of future violence than past violent behavior." Ode, Sept, 2005, p. 43.

Yet another interesting study was done in England: In a prison for men between the ages of 18 and 21, 231 volunteers were divided into two groups. One group was given nutritional supplements along with their meals which contained the approx. daily need for vitamins, minerals and fatty acids while the other group got fake supplements. Neither the prisoners nor the guards knew who was faking it and who was not. Results: "The prisoners given supplements for four months committed an average of 26% fewer violations than the preceding period, while the placebo group showed no change."

What about ADHD? We all know the post-Halloween Candy syndrome where kids go to school on Tuesday totally whacked out, aggressive, loud, hyperactive, teary and tantrumy. When my son was eight, he took his Dad's shaving cream to school on Terrible Tuesday and got thrown out of third grade. ( I always thought they should cancel school on the Tuesday after Halloween. ) But it's not just the sugar that wreaks the behavioral havoc on our children, it's also the additives. If you want to scare yourself to death, just read the labels on non-healthy foods. Cool Whip's a good one.

The additives most apt to add to ADHD are the "E" additives, or the synthetic flavors, colors and preservatives added to a whole range of food products, esp. E 102 or tartrazine. They are both assoc. with hyperactivity and insomnia. Dr. Neil Ward of the Univ. of Surrey proved that 87% of a group of 357 hyperactive children (who also seem to have a higher percentage of asthma and eczema) reacted to synthetic coloring agents, and 72% to synthetic preservatives. I have many vials of food preservatives for energetic testing purposes in my office. Bring your child in to see if perhaps the "E's" are causing problems.

I have received many requests for my Red Hot Chicken Soup recipe which is just what the doctor orders when you are feeling wretched from the cold or the flu: It will open those sinuses right up.

Red Hot Chicken Soup
1 head garlic, unpeeled
1 large onion, chopped
2 green bell peppers, chopped
2 red bell peppers, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
3 T peeled and grated, fresh ginger root
Two boxes of organic chicken broth
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 whole chicken
Seasonings like S and P and lemon juice

I throw the whole skinned organic chicken into the crock pot and cook it for a few hours with a couple cups of water. ( I also add a bit of vinegar to the crock pot, so the good stuff from the chicken bones will leech into the stock.) Defat the chicken stock and use that for the liquid, adding enough of the boxed stock to make about 8 cups. Pick the meat off the bones and reserve for the soup.

Spread the separate cloves of unpeeled garlic on a baking sheet. Roast for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven or until the garlic cloves are soft. When they are cool, press the cloves out of their skins into a small bowl and mash.

Heat olive oil in your soup pot and add the chopped onion, cooking for about 10 minutes . Add the green, red and jalapeno peppers, mashed garlic, grated ginger root and cook stirring for about a minute. Add the chicken stock and simmer for about 3 minutes. Add the chicken pieces, chopped cilantro and cook a minute more. Add seasonings to taste. Just before serving add the lemon juice.
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