Vincent Family Eating Plan

While in Texas, I got to work on my recipe book! What is this you may ask?  Well I realized that I have a billion recipes all over the place and I needed to combine them all in one place and put them in one book! 

Which also leads me to the new Vincent Family Eating Plan that I know you have just been dying to hear. :)  Here is the book that started it all...
 

And here are a couple of the facts that stood out the most.  I put the things we have changed in our house because of them! 

Now please realize, I am no expert (I have a degree in Biblical Studies, not a medical degree) and this blog is definitely not about getting big with thousands of followers (I think you have to post more than twice a month for that).  This was an awesome book and since several of you asked about what we had changed and the reasons why, I thought it was worth sharing!

-Health predictably results from healthy living.  Inferior childhood nutrition has led to a nation with high levels of chronic illnesses and out-of-control health costs.  

-Once they pass their childbearing years, many children will be overweight, age rapidly, require drugs for hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease; have a heart attack or die prematurely of cancer.

-Cancer kills about 35 percent of all adult Americans, heart disease and stroke about 50 percent.  The more years of nutritional abuse and the earlier in life the abuse begins, the higher the risk.

-Raw nuts, seeds, and avocados are foods rich in fat, but they contain healthy fats, important for normal growth and development, and they are rich in nutrients as well.  Consumption of these foods has been shown to have powerful protective effects against disease.  The results are so striking that in one study men who ate raw nuts had half the heart attack rate compared to men who did not eat nuts.

Since I have 4 men in my house, we have added bags of raw nuts to a shelf in the fridge and they can eat them as much as they want but everyone has at least a handful a day.

-The foods with the most nutrients per calorie are vegetables and beans.  Vegetables are also very rich in protein and calcium.  Most vegetables have more protein per calorie than meat and more calcium per calorie than milk. 

We have taken out two meals a week that had meat in them and added vegetarian ones with all vegetables.

-If you take antibiotics repeatedly when you are young, you further diminish the population of good bacteria that protects you against harmful bacteria.  In addition, the harmful bacteria become more resistant (harder to kill with antibiotics next time).

The rule in our house has always pretty much been that you have to be sick for at least 3 days before we go to the doctor.  I have found that we can kick a lot of colds on their own. And I hate wasting money and finding out it's a virus and we could still be at home cuddled on the couch together instead of standing in a doctor's office in our PJs (yes, we visit the doctor in our PJs.)

 

-A healthy child has no problem recovering from an ear infection without antibiotics.  In the United States almost all these children are routinely given antibiotics.  Taking the antibiotic kills off the beneficial bacteria and promotes the colonization of more disease-causing strains, and no the next ear infection has a greater chance of being bacterial, not viral.  Viral, bacterial, or mixed infection, it matters not, because at the next visit your kid gets another antibiotic anyway, starting the cycle of infection after infection, antibiotic dependency, and impaired immune function.

Okay, we are currently testing this one out!  I have one who I think has an ear infection and I am seeing if we can kick it without the antibiotics.  Now before you think I am a horrible mama, he is taking Tylenol and sleeping in my bed…I am taking good care of the boy.  And if he isn’t better in three days, I will take him to the doctor.  But he has had it a day and a half now, and he is no longer complaining about his ears so I think we might be on the right track!

-Women who had more than 25 prescriptions for antibiotics over a 17 year period had more than twice the risk of breast cancer as women who had not taken any antibiotics

Just an interesting fact to add.

-What is needed to battle the development of asthma and allergies is the same adequate intake of omega-3 fat as well as a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

We have taken everything that is a snack in a box out of the house except a box of cheerios and goldfish.  Everything else is made by me and if they are not, snacks are fresh fruits, vegetables, yogurt and granola…stuff like that.

-Besides the link between high-saturated fat foods (dairy fat) and cancer, there is a body of scientific literature linking the consumption of cow’s milk to many other diseases.  If we expect our children to resist many common illnesses, they simply must consume less milk, cheese, and butter.

-Cheese consumption during childhood is a major concern because it takes 10 lbs of milk to make one pound of cheese.  Besides the bovine growth hormone given to cows, their milk contains estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, prolactin, and other natural cow hormones.  Cheese not only is richer in saturated fat, but is a more concentrated source of these hormones.  These milk hormones can exert effects on humans.

We have lessened our cheese intake by at least half.  We are also doing half soy milk and half cow’s milk.  Since I have a house of boys, I know that soy milk can be bad for them so we have not switched 100% that way.

-We feel the symptoms of toxic hunger (feeling weak, headachy, tired, mentally dull, and stomach cramping or discomfort) when our body is attempting to detoxify from a harmful, low-nutrient diet.  Dieting or trying to eat less food, is not an effective way for adults to lose weight.  The best diet isn’t one at all.  If you eat large amounts of healthful, nutrient-rich foods, you will lose the toxic hunger sensations and get back in touch with true hunger signals. 

I have lost 15 lbs since we started this way of eating and Matt has lost 5.  We are not dieting at all, we have just changed the foods in our house.  Our kids haven’t lost any (just to clarify) and they eat whenever they want.  And believe me, with three boys, that is a lot!  We have noticed that our bodies have regulated themselves to eat less and we aren’t hungry all the time.  We also get full sooner at meals.

So that's it.  The book is amazing and I would highly recommend it!  As I finish our recipe book, I will try to add some of the newest recipes we have that everyone is liking.  Feel free to ask questions!