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The
Hauser Diet Meets The Sanibel Home School Group
A few weeks ago, our good Sanibel buddy, Evette, asked Ross and I if we would mind talking to her home school group about
nutrition and health. We were extremely busy prior to leaving
for this trip. When we first arrived in Florida, we all (a
total of 7 of us) headed down to Miami to compete in the
Miami Man Half Ironman (Ross did the whole event, Evette
and I each participated on Duathlon Teams.) So needless to
say, we didn’t really think to much about this event
until about two days prior, when Evette said, “So,
are you still going to do the nutrition class for the home
school group?”
Oh, boy! I had totally forgotten about it. A quick thought
ran through my mind, “I am supposed to be on vacation.” But
Evette is one of the nicest, kindest people I know. We will
do it for her. She was expecting about 10 kids ranging in
age from 3 to 17 and probably a couple of parents. We had
no idea what to expect, but we’ve done a lot of public
speaking, so I just prepared like I would for anything else.
I find that most kids are very smart, particularly home school
kids. These kids were no exception.
Here was my outline:
| 1. |
Discuss the importance of
eating right for your Diet Type EARLY in life to prevent you from getting diseases
later on in life. |
| 2. |
Discuss the importance of eating REAL fresh food,
instead of things that are prepared with chemicals, dyes,
and other toxic additives. |
| 3. |
Discuss the building blocks of food – carbohydrates,
fats, and proteins, and help the kids learn which foods
contain the most of each macronutrient. |
| 4. |
Provide an overview of the five Hauser
Diets and
briefly review the principles of each one of them. |
| 5. |
Learn how to make healthy, tasty, foods from fresh
ingredients. This section included participation from
the kids. |
So you might think, “oh my goodness! 10 kids in your
house, holding knives, handling food – what a mess!”
I
am here to tell you that it was an awesome experience. It just
goes to show you that kids want to learn and are eager to do
the right thing. Our kitchen is set up in a manner where the
barstools and counter tops surround the cooking area. So it
was a perfect setting to lecture and have the kids help with
the cooking.
We started out with a short lecture covering the
first 3 points. We also had a fill-in-the-blank quiz that the
kids had to complete in order to be able to eat! (just a joke,
but it made them take it more seriously!). We covered all of
the questions with them, and amazingly, after just a short
lecture of about 30-40 minutes, they really picked up the information
well.
There were a number of classic kid moments too…
When
asking for examples of protein-containing foods, one little
boy (probably about 3 years old), said “alligator
meat.” He was completely serious. And you know what,
he was right! Alligator meat is protein!
One little girl, probably
about 8 years old, when asked if anyone knew what a person
was called who ate only vegetable sources of food, raised her
hand and confidently stated, “an
herbivore.”
How funny is that? These kids were amazing!
So then we started
cooking. We made four recipes that were contained in the Hauser
Diet: A Fresh Look At Healthy Living – our
new book that was released about a month ago. Some of the things
that many of the readers have said that they really enjoy are
all the recipes in the book - nearly 200 pages of recipes!
Many of them are our recipes that we have used for years that
have been altered for each of the Hauser
Diet Types. The great
thing about the recipes is that we include a Hauser
Diet legend
where you can figure out which recipes are best for each of
the five Hauser Diets. We provide a section called “tweaking
for your type” which shows you how to take a recipe and
make it more Otter-friendly or Monkey-friendly, for example,
depending on your individual Diet Type.
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But back to
the kids –
First we made peanut butter balls for dessert. This is great
dessert or snack for kids. It includes organic peanut butter,
a drop of honey, your favorite whole grain cereal, along
with dried fruit, chopped nuts or coconut. This is obviously
better for Bears/Otters/Lions, however, it’s a great
alternative to cookies and chips for kids. I discussed why
it is important to purchase organic peanut butter that contains
just peanuts. Nothing else! I showed them the difference
between organic peanut butter and regular store brand peanut
butter, showing them how to read the labels. I enlisted the
help of my friend Evette’s son Kyle. (he is one of
the best kids I have ever met! I’d consider him one
of my friends, even though he is only 10 years old!) We scooped
out about a cup of peanut butter, added in some chopped peanuts,
and a cup or two of organic peanut butter cereal. He mixed
up that gooey mixture. Then three other kids dutifully washed
their hands and came over to the table to roll the mixture
into teaspoon size balls, which were then rolled in coconut
and chopped peanuts. We whipped those out in no time, and
had them in the refrigerator on a cookie sheet to harden.
Next on the menu were homemade cornflake chicken fingers.
These are always a great crowd pleaser. You can make them with
chicken or fish. I purchased six full large chicken breasts.
I had already sliced 4 of them into strips. First I cut the
chicken breast horizontally to make the strips thinner, then
sliced the halves into strips. We discussed the importance
of purchasing organic, non-hormone injected chicken. We also
talked about how processed chicken fingers in the bag in the
frozen section of the store contains a lot of chemicals, hormones,
and other additives and fillers. You could definitely see the
lightbulb go on in the mothers’ eyes. We talked about
how those pre-packed chicken fingers are “quick and easy” but
they are not good for you. One of the key factors to cooking
well is preparing ahead of time. These chicken breasts could
be cut into strips when you purchase them and frozen separately
in plastic freezer bags. Then all you have to do is take them
out of the freezer, run the bag under warm water, and you’ll
be in business in no time. One of the factors that many moms
face is finding the time to make quick foods. This chicken
was made very quickly. Back to the recipe – we took some
organic corn flakes, a little flour, our favorite seasonsings,
and mixed them all in a plastic bag, crushing the corn flakes.
Three girls volunteered to be the chicken dippers. They expertly
dipped the chicken pieces (one saying, “it’s not
too gross”) into the corn flake mixture and placing them
neatly on a baking sheet. We popped those into the preheated
oven at 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes. |
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While those were
baking, I chopped up some fresh broccoli into bite-sized pieces
and started them steaming in a saucepan on top of the stove.
Again we talked about the benefits of fresh veggies versus purchasing
something pre-made with cheese sauce. We were going to make a
great homemade cheese sauce for a delicious broccoli! Hum, they
looked suspicious! I don’t
think they believed me on that one!
Next came the homemade French fries. I enlisted two of the
older teenagers to take a very sharp knife to slice the freshly
scrubbed skin-on russet potatoes into French fry strips. They
sliced up the entire 5-pound bag – very expertly, mind
you! We drizzled these with olive oil and some coarse sea salt
and popped some in the oven, and cooked the other half on top
of the stove on a griddle (we ran out of baking sheets!). |
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While those were cooking, we checked on the chicken strips.
Those were browning nicely. My trusty 17-year-old assistant
Ben was a great help with the hot dish-handling. He got in
there and flipped the chicken pieces so that they browned nicely
while we were cooking the fries and starting the homemade cheese
sauce.
Kyle loves cheese, so he wanted to help with the cheese sauce.
This has got to be one of the easiest recipes on earth! It
all starts with learning how to make a basic white sauce. I
think I learned how to do this at age 10 or 12. You start out
by making a rue – which is a paste that will thicken
the liquid you pour into the pan. Here’s how it goes:
Set a saucepan on top of the stove at medium heat. Melt 2 Tbsp
butter. Mix in 2 Tbsp flour to make the rue (paste). Pour in
1 cup of milk all at once. Stir in the rue. Keep gently stirring
until the mixture is thick and bubbly. We discussed food allergies
here because we used soy milk instead of cow’s milk for
our white sauce. A couple of the kids were already drinking
soy milk for cow’s milk allergies. We have seen that
many times food allergies cause all sorts of symptoms including
GI distress including bloating and diarrhea, or even pain in
joints, skin conditions, and sinus trouble. But back to the
white sauce…you can add anything to this sauce – sautéed
mushrooms, shredded cheese, onions…whatever! It is THE
substitute for canned cream soups – throw those out!
MSG city! We finished up the white sauce. Turned off the heat
and folded in the shredded cheese and some seasonings. The
kids were turning up their noses, but I knew they were going
to love it. We poured it over the steamed broccoli and our
meal was ready!
You know what? There was not a drop of food left after these
kids got done with it. One of the young ladies even asked if
we could make some more broccoli and cheese. It just goes to
show you that cooking can be easy, fun, and delicious!
Kids are smart! They want to grow up and be strong and healthy!
It’s our jobs to help get them there! We hoped we help
a little with this during our lecture/demonstration to the
Sanibel Home School group!
The response from the parents was amazing. Our friend Evette
received emails from them and they went something like this…
Parent 1: “That was amazing. What a blessing! My daughter
took her quiz home to share the answers with her dad. She was
so proud of what she learned.”
Parent 2: “Thank you so much for organizing that. I
didn’t really want to go, but once I went, I was so happy
I did. What the Hausers said made so much sense. We really
need to do more of this and learn more about the foods we eat.
My daughter even said that she feels sorry for her Aunt because
she just eats junk food and may end up with a disease! I guess
she really retained something from the session! How cool is
that?”
Thanks to you, home school parents! You too are doing a great
job! |
Ross and I with the home school group! |
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