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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Day 4 - Paleo for Toddlers


I don't know of a single parent that doesn't worry about the level of nutrition their child takes in daily.

Naturally, at the beginning of The CaveMom Experiment my thoughts went to my son. "His favourite foods are crackers and cream cheese! What will he eat if not Mama's homemade sweet porridge for breakfast?" Of course, with the absence of these items, CaveMan will by default have to eat something else, but we all know how stubborn toddlers can be about their food (One week they eat everything, then it's two weeks of nothing but blueberries, then everything, then only mashed potatoes...)

As of Day 4, I've discovered my son loves eggs. He has fried egg every morning, slathered with catsup (not ideal, but I'll take it), and usually has at least most of a piece of bacon. He's pretty good with meat, too, as long as it's cut into strips (think steak french-fries). He gets bored with poultry, which is considerably frustrating, considering his fondness for fast-food chicken nuggets.

While the protein intake is all well and good, it's driving me crazy thinking of ways to convince him to take in vegetables. Since the Paleo-Diet discourages dairy products, I'm very concerned about making sure he gets enough calcium on a daily basis.

For the moment, I'm encouraging him to drink calcium-enriched orange juice. This is not ideal, however, as it's ruining my efforts to discourage overly sweet foods. There has to be some way to get an 18 month old cavebaby to eat his veggies... right?

Well, CaveMom is not above trickery.

This afternoon, I defrosted some ground beef. While that was going, I threw a handful of walnuts, some almonds, a handful of raw sunflower seeds, and a bunch of raw spinach into the blender with some olive oil, an egg, and some tomato sauce. Hit "liquify". I mixed it with the ground beef and fried it on the griddle in little chicken-nugget shaped patties.

Success! My son just consumed spinach! Woo hoo!

As a side note, other veggie-products that have been a success so far include:
Mashed cauliflower
mushrooms sautéed in bacon grease
........ yeah, that's it. More later (I hope).

***********

Breakfast:
Bacon and eggs

Lunch:
Beefy spinach nuggets

Dinner:
Pork sirloin chops with Primal-ish sweet-and-sour sauce
Mashed cauliflower
5-lettuce salad with sesame dressing.