Simple nutrition for healthy kids: Brenda Cobb teaches how to nurture your children with raw and living foods and clean water.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), childhood cancer increased 10.8% between 1973 and 1990. Cancer now kills more children between ages 2 and 15 than any other disease. That's astonishing! Or is it? Children eat more food and drink more water relative to their size than adults. Every time they eat food that is not organic, they are eating pesticides, contaminants, and pollutants! Dr. James Balch and Phyllis Balch (in Prescription for Nutritional Healing) attribute many of the problems children have today--including attention deficit disorder--to pesticides, sugar, and food additives.

Our food processing, preserving, and packaging uses thousands of chemicals that are foreign to our biological systems. These toxins are felt to cause allergies, asthma, hyperactivity, and hypersensitivity, conditions that we "correct" by giving our children drugs. Isn't that adding insult to injury?

Every toxin, pollutant, pesticide, and drug that we take from the time we are tiny babies is stored in our tissues, our cells, and our fat. Our kidney, liver, skin, and lungs are working non-stop to filter out all this garbage. We have become toxic waste dumps!

There is hope if we will change our habits. It is up to each of us to become informed and make necessary changes. We can begin with the following:

1. Eat organic. Conventional fruits and vegetables are sprayed regularly, making them contaminated and dangerous to eat. For example, corn is soaked in sulfur, which then finds its way into hundreds of foods like corn chips, corn syrup, etc. Paraffin, a petrochemical, is used to polish green peppers, apples, and cucumbers. Organic fruits and vegetables are chemical--and pesticide-free and well worth the extra money!

2. Eat raw and living foods. It is a scientific fact that when we destroy many of the enzymes and much of the nutritional value when we heat food to over 105 degrees Fahrenheit. This includes foods that are pasteurized. (1) Raw foods are those fruits and vegetables that we pick off the tree or vine and eat. Living foods are soaked and sprouted, like beans, peas, nuts, seeds, and grains. Living foods have increased nutritional value because they are creating new life when the sprout emerges. These foods energize, detoxify, and restore the body to a healthy state. Worried the kids won't like it? Children love fresh vegetables with azesty rat, dip. (See recipe on page 35.)

3. Stop eating junk and processed food. Eat fresh produce, not pre-packaged, food. Read the labels on packages, even in health food stores.

4. Drink water from a source you know is pure. Drink less of processed drinks and read the label--sodas, many sports drinks, and many fruity drinks are loaded with sugar, dyes, caffeine, or sugar substitutes that are toxic! Only pure, filtered water can adequately hydrate and support the body. If you don't have your own spring or well, then purchase reverse osmosis water or another good filtered water. If you must use distilled water, put a few sprigs of wheat grass in the water and swish around for a few minutes to bring the "life" back into the water. What kind of water are you using for showers and baths? The skin absorbs toxins from unfiltered water. It's just as unhealthy to bathe in tap water as it is to drink it.

These are a few things that can make a difference in your children's health if you are willing to make the necessary changes. The choice is yours. Will you take responsibility for your family and yourself and practice good health by making good choices? Start with just one of these, and then add others as you can. Feed yourself and your family organic, raw and living food and feel great. You deserve it!

Quick & Easy: Smokey Dip With Veggies

Always use organic ingredients!

3 Tbsp. Nama Shoyu Raw Soy Sauce
5 Tbsp. Tahini
3 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1 Tbsp. Honey

Choose any veggies that you like and cut them into strips about 3 to 4 inches long. We suggest celery, carrots, and zucchini, but any that you like will be fine.

Make a dip by combining the Nama Shoyu, raw tahini, lemon juice, and honey. If this is too salty for you, just cut back on the Nama Shoyu until you reach the desired flavor that you like. If you increase the honey you will have a sweeter dip. Experiment to find your favorite.

Dip the veggies and enjoy! This dip has a wonderful smoky taste and you may even like to dilute it with a little water to make a dressing for other salads if you like.

References

(1) Wolfe, David, The Sunfood Diet Success System, pages 81 and 82, Maul Brothers Publishing of San Diego, CA, 1999.

Resources

Balch, James, F, M.D. and Phyllis Balch, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, second edition, 1977, Garden City Park, NY: Avery Group Publishers, pp. 310-311.

The Burton Goldberg Group, Alternative Medicine, The Definitive Guide, 1999, Tiburon CA: Future Medicine Publishing, Inc., pp. 610-611

Brenda Cobb is the author of The Living Foods Lifestyle. For more information, or to attend a free Living Foods Seminar, call 404-524-4488 or visit www.Livingfoodsinstitute.com.