Thursday, July 16, 2009

My $1/Kid per Day Experiment

I bought the bullet and spent a small fortune on supplements today. Something for everybody but I am most interested in the kids formulas. Alex is a fantastic eater. I often wonder what he would be like if he lived off Kool Aid and chicken nuggets. He loves whole foods and natural tastes. As long as it isn't spicy, he will try anything. So getting this boy all his nutrients is no big deal. Izzy is another story. My kid who would eat condiments with a side of condiments is slowly improving. She ate salad last night. That was a first. She is slowly coming along with breakfast. Steel cut oats and Kashi Go Lean are now two things she will digest willingly. Her big issue is vegetables and after the baby food went away, so did her vegetable intake. I have never seen her eat a carrot - though she once dipped it in ranch dressing and licked it off. I can hide some veggies in her dinner, as long as it is casserole form. She is coming around to beans and rice too. There may be hope yet.


So I did some research and decided to try some products by Genuine Health, a Canadian company based in Toronto. A mom I met recently was extolling the virtues of dha in her son's diet and how he was settling down and his concentration was better. Well, this would be fantastic for Alex. I read that when looking for fish oil supplements the company should be using small, wild fish, such as anchovies and sardines, that have been molecularly distilled. I prefer the oil to the pill because you take a smaller, more concentrated dose and I doubt the kids could swallow those large capsules anyway. Plus it is easier to lower the dose. Alex is taking 1/2 tsp per day and Izzy will take 1/4. This brand has a natural orange flavour to it. No fishy taste or smell at all. I bought a different omega fish oil for Rob and I to try, o3mega+3679. It adds some other healthy oils, such as macadamia nut and comes in vanilla. It tasted fine. This from someone who refuses to eat fish, lol.

I also picked up some powders from their Greens+ supplement line. The kids formula has a berry flavour and can be mixed in water or juice. My neighbour and I tried it and thought it was quite yummy. All natural. No dyes or sugar. It contains vitamins, minerals and antioxidants from 25 organic fruits and vegetables. I should have had Izzy on this years ago. Again, I picked up one of the adult versions too. The one with the added vitamins.

So we'll see how it goes. Our diet has improved even more over the last few months. Everyone is exercising more. Hopefully this will give us all a little extra boost. For $180, I sure hope so!

Here is the Genuine Health website if you want to check it out. We just started the supplements so I can't say anything about how effective it is yet but everything tastes great and the customer service people at the office were very friendly and helpful.

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