Sunday, May 29, 2011

Food Liam Eats Part 1

Fruits and Vegetables:

Organic is a biggie in my household. I use to stick to the dirty dozen foods when I had to be on a budget. These foods should only be bought organic. These can be found here: http://www.walletpop.com/2011/02/24/the-dirty-dozen-produce-exposed-to-the-most-pesticides/. The clean 15 have the least amount of pesticides if you want to save money and can be found here: http://www.walletpop.com/2011/02/25/the-clean-15-foods-you-dont-need-to-buy-organic/. Now I just buy everything organic to play it safe. I just want Liam to have the least amount of chemicals in his little body. Places I tend to shop are, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods or our local farmers market. I have researched it and now know which places have the cheapest organic fruits and vegetables. 

Fruits are easy for Liam to digest. He can eat just about everything. I limit his apple intake and always take the skin off. Grapes and watermelon are two other fruits I give sparingly. I try to give him mostly fresh fruit. However I do buy frozen fruit for smoothies. Liam usually has a smoothie everyday either with breakfast or as a snack. I also buy canned fruits for days that we are traveling. I do not do it often because you can't buy organic canned fruit. I also only buy them when they are packed in juice. They can be hard to find sometimes. Most canned fruits are packed in syrup. Below is a list of fruits that we eat in our house are:

  • Bananas
  • Strawberries
  • Blueberries
  • Blackberries
  • Raspberries
  • Avocado
  • Oranges
  • Kiwis
  • Mango
  • Pineapple
  • Mandarin's
  • Peaches (skin off)
  • Nectarines
  • Watermelon (sparingly)
  • Grapes (sparingly)
  • Apples (skin off and one a day)
Vegetables are a little tougher for Liam to eat, especially raw ones. I try to not give him much raw vegetables, due to it being "roughage". Roughage can be hard on his gut to digest and so if he does eat veggies most are cooked. Lettuce is one vegetable I do not give Liam at all. I will give him cooked spinach, but raw leafy lettuce is not very good cooked, so I just avoid giving it to him. As you read you may also be surprised that I don't have potatoes or corn on the list. Potatoes and corn are high in fiber, which I try to keep Liam away from. They are high in carbohydrates which  breaks down into sugar. Sugar is hard on a gut, especially a UC gut. As you learn more of how I feed him you will find that I don't feed him a lot of carbohydrates or sugar. But I will go into more detail in the sugar post.  Because, we are talking about fruits and vegetables I will only explain that fruits and vegetables are actually simple carbohydrates -still composed of basic sugars, although they are drastically different from other foods in the category, like cookies and cakes. The fiber in fruits and vegetables changes the way that the body processes their sugars and slows down their digestion, making them a bit more like complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are considered the "good" carbs. Below is a list of the raw vegetables that he can eat are:

  • Tomatoes ( he loves cherry the best)
  • Cucumbers (skin off)

When I give Liam cooked vegetables I usually steam, stir fry, roast or BBQ them. I will post some yummy recipes in a couple of days. Check out my list below.

  • Asparagus
  • Green Beans
  • Carrots
  • Sugar Snap Peas
  • Cauliflower
  • Broccoli (small amounts)
  • Sweet Potatoes
  • Red Bell Pepper
  • Green Bell Pepper 
  • Orange Bell Pepper
  • Yellow Bell Pepper
  • Zucchini
  • Yellow squash
  • Collard Greens
  • Spinach
  • Cabbage 
  • Bok Choy 
I hope this helps some of you. If you have any questions or ideas please feel free to comment. I would love to chat about this.

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