Sugar & Spice... not very nice..

Let's face it..... we all LURRVE sugar. Cupcakes laden with icing or a warming HOT chocoloate or a muffin or scone with jam & cream. Yum, the list is endless.

Do you know how much sugar does an average person consume per year? According to this site,
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/050328/28sugar.b.htm, 142 pounds of sugar are consumed per year ( compared to 114 pounds in the 1950s)

People are conned these days- high frutose drinks such as orane juices contain more sugar than the actual juice. I dare you to look on the ingredients listing, frutose will be top of the list and the actual juice would be measley 3% or so.

We are taught that is is ok to eat sugar, lollies, sweets and cakes. We are taught to love ourselves these days even if we are fat and unhealthy because people cannot cope with reality that they need to do something to help themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I love sugar too and too many a time, I get sucked in and tempted to eat cakes and have a sweet cuppa.

But I want to alert people to the fact that the amount of sugar we feed our little munchkins are a little too much. Think of the bar of chocolate doing through a little person's body, the amoung of sugar tolerance is lower than that of an adult, but yet, we feed a typical baby "orange juice in the morning, thinking its good, let your precious take a peice of white bread ( when broken up into simple forms, is only another form of glucose, - sugar) and then whipp up a meal of white rice, and then an afternoon snack of yorghurt ( the kind that companies promote as healthy and has "fruit" ( need I say more)

The whole day, we feed our little ones sugar without knowing it! And twhen the child is good, you give it an ice-cream! And how is that suppose to reward a child? by giving him/ her unhealthy stuff?

The facts:
White sugar suppresses the immune system. It has been shown to decrease the vitality and number of white blood cells, the body's immune response to invaders. Sugar also depresses the body's energy field and makes your blood more acidic, both of which result in vulnerability to toxins, bacteria and viruses. Sugar feeds bacteria like candida and yeast infections.
Refined sugar is an extremely high glycemic food; it hits your bloodstream hard and can have severe impact on blood sugar, insulin levels, digestive enzyme count, weight, and the pancreas.
Refined sugar is in almost everything, and can be very difficult to avoid unless you are preparing all your own food from scratch. It creeps into sauces, salad dressings, preparations of meat and other products, and prepared carbs - whether they taste sweet or not (sugar is usually added to prepared bread and rice, for instance).

It appears under many different names: glucose-fructose, fructose, fruit sugar, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup (known as glucose syrup outside of Canada and the United States) and beet sugar are all heavily processed sugars which can be dangerous to our health.

Read more: http://naturalmedicine.suite101.com/article.cfm/sugars__the_bad#ixzz0Udn6sSUF

What is so ironic is when I choose to feed my child non sugar products, and refuse cake, biscults and the like, I get given the "look" from other adults - thinking whats wrong with this parent? Rather, thinking that hey, at least someone cares for the kid enough to make sure in their capacity that they eat well whenever they can.

Children get their taste palates from young - if they eat sugar, they grow up loving sugar, if they are not introduced to sugar, they never know what they are missing out on, which isnt much.
Eg: I brewed sweet barley water, and I love it, cuz I grew up on it. But my kid wouldnt have it - he asks for water instead.

Rather than compromise on my kid's health, I rather take the right step. It is proven, I am still sick after5 weeks ( I still eat alot of food, cakes, that I really shouldnt) and my son isnt. He got better in 3 days, and he eats really healthy ( which sort of makes me feel bad for not taking care of myself!)

Trying to keep your kids healthy are such a big task these days with the amount of advertising that they are exposed to. So good luck to us all!

BELATED BIRTHDAY PICS

I know its kinda late; but better late than never! I would look back and ask myself one day, how come I got that much energy? This is the KICK OFF to Daniel's 2nd birthday; a soccer theme!

I was cutting out that many balls for decorations that I was pretty over them for a looong time.

Here is Daniel in the morning, before the big event, trying to compose himself... or more like me trying to compose him while I ran around like a headless chook.

Every party must have..... a play / eating area for the kids. Soccer placements, and everything soccer.

OF COURSE! the cake too! Got this ice-cream cake from BREAD TOP ( Melbourne) they have franchised stores all over, so easy to find. I was lucky as this was their new product and to have one made would cost me much much more!

I had soccer candles bought for me to go with as well.

Strike a pose, mother and son before the guests arrive. and yes, a soccer jumper for Daniel.

Even the dog wanted a bar of the party; Cookie was whining the whole way through! LET ME IN!

Plenty of presents; this one I thought is cute. From 2 different people, the assocation seem to point to crocs! Daniel in a croc- suit holding a croc. hmmm... He sleeps with the croc every night now, and its big enough to cushion him from anything at the moment.

And of course - a game gone wrong, but oh well, everyone enjoyed themselves!
July 2009- Happy Birthday baby boy! xoxo Mummy.

Nature & Children

I am a city girl and have never thought abou to how to bring up my kid to admire nature; my husband on the contrary, grew up on a farm and absolutely loves flowers, leaves, bark, etc.

Now I can say that almost every morning, I give my son a choice to pick a flower, some weed or grass before his ride to his carer's place & am glad that he loves picking at them, getting himself in dirt then some silly computer game; I grew up in an era where computer was only beginning to take over kid's lives but hope it will not take over my kids' lives.

There is so much more to living - God's creation. The beautiful skies, clouds, water, trees, grass and the sound of birds. Its back to basics.

Here are some shots taken eariler in the month when we decided to detour to the Melbourne Botanic Gardens when the weather was good enough that afternoon. It was well worth it, Daniel enjoyed himeslf staring at ducks.

Dogs & Babies

Here is Daniel trying to pose for me so he can see how he looks on the camera!
I think its great to mix babies and animals, it gives them lower levels of animal allegies when they grow up, teach them how to treat other beings and train them to love them as well.

Here's some information on dogs and toddlers:
http://www.todaysparent.com/toddler/article.jsp?content=20031111_133217_4312&page=1

Research results found that children raised in homes with at least one pet were actually less likely to develop pet allergies than children without pets. Children raised in homes with more than one pet had a greater decrease in allergy development.
Read more: http://infant-toddler-health.suite101.com/article.cfm/children_and_pet_allergies#ixzz0U4aVPKUV

Just have to be careful not to leave animals and kids on their own, and train the kid NEVER to go behind to hug the dog even if he means well! I'm lucky that my Cookie is trained well enough by past owners, but I still wouldnt push it. As for NANA, shes a push-over and anything goes. Still, nothing is guaranteed.

Hard work does pay off, your kid will grow to be more tolerant.

Mooncake Festival

Its been a while since I've blogged; it seems that various virus has taken the better of my immune system & made a mockery out of me lately... too tired, too cranky, too sick and the like. anyway, I'm back now, still sick but here!

Mooncake Festival! Yum yum, the mooncakes and the lanterns, make me miss childhood days where we used to walk through dark alleys with those lighted characteristic paper lanterns in various shapes, fish, rooster, I remember they used to sell animals in every Chinese zodiac, and I always get a dragon one from my late-grandma without fail every single year! Those were the days when we stay by the corners of the house and play with candle wax and compare each other's lanterns unil someone's got burnt!

Now, I am passing on this tradition to Daniel - hopefully he will enjoy it as much as I did and soak in the Chinese culture ( whatever there is here..)

Happy Mooncake Festival!

For anyone who wants to know what Mid-autumn festival ( or mooncake festival) is about, log on to: http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/Midautumn.htm