Regrouping with the kids

Had a great conversation with the kids at the end of lunch today. I have been concerned about their focus on food and frustrated by their lack of cooperation with our GAPS intro diet last week. I explained that we each needed to give a little, at this point I am not going to insist that we do the hard-core Intro, but that we do the basic GAPS diet - in turn I wanted to explain to them WHY we needed to do this and that I needed them to happily work with me and not complain. We talked about the gut and digestion and nutrition and *why* we eat (eat to live, not live to eat). We talked about how the stomach works and the acids and bacterias that need to be in the right balance, the difference in good and bad bacteria. We discussed symptoms that we have of our gut not working right or the balance not being good in our tummies and how great it will be not to have those problems. I stressed that this is not a mean diet that I am forcing them to do, but that we are trying to teach them how to eat the foods that God has given us and not the non-nutritive, over-processed foods that we often turn to. We also talked about cravings and how they will go away after a while. I think it was a very profitable discussion and will give us a good foundation for making good choices. I cleaned out our fridge and cabinets yesterday and got more good foods. We will eat meat, vegetables, fruits, nuts and honey (no sugar, grains or starches). At each meal we will have a small cup of bone/meat broth and a small dose of fermented beverage of choice (beet kvass, sauerkraut, kombucha, or kefir). We will take probiotics and cod liver oil daily. We will start the day with a glass of lemon water and make sure to drink lots of water through the day. I also plan to have an hour for exercise in the morning and offer more choices for them to do in that time. I feel much better now that we have discussed this as a family and have a plan and purpose! :-)