Jack: Nutrition Investigator

I hadn't really stopped to think how often I check the label of a packaged food until Jack started to read them to us at every turn. Any meal that includes a packaged food these days is punctuated by a small boy intoning "fat, five grams, carbohydrate three grams, calories 125 grams, sodium 25 milligrams.

Yep, food labels are important in our lives. We eat relatively few processed foods, and we always check the ingredients for trans fats, HFCS, and refined carbohydrates in deciding whether to buy one. But, of course, the nutrition facts grid is far easier to read, and so every label that Jack gets his hands on treats us to a dramatic reading. Of the entire label, mind you

Did you know that a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg contains 3 calories from an unspecified source? No, me neither. But Rod found Jack in the pantry reading the spice jars and baking ingredients after lunch this afternoon

All of this would be great, except that we haven't really started talking to him about what it all means yet and so Jack is figuring out what it all means all by himself, leading to some pretty interesting conclusions.

Because I have to watch my carbs so that I can balance them with fats and proteins to keep my blood sugar even, I comment on carbs pretty regularly. Unfortunately, Rod and I have developed a shorthand that leaves out a lot of assumptions and Jack seems to have picked up the idea that "carbs are bad". He read the maple syrup label this morning and wanted to forgo Dad's Perfect Pancakes simply because maple syrup is virtually all carbohydrate (...well, plus many minerals that they don't mention on the labels) and pancakes just aren't the same without maple syrup. Fortunately, his nose eventually won him over.

But clearly it's time to talk to him about food, balance, and what really matters in the food labels. Jack reads everything he can get his hands on these days and he can read at an early fourth grade level -- but he still has the life experience and understanding of a four year old. That can be dangerous if we don't help him to interpret what he's reading.

For example, Jack's misunderstanding of my caution about carbohydrate needs to be redirected for Jack to a wariness of refined carbohydrates. Until he's actually trying to moderate his diet to ease life for his own pancreas, limiting carbohydrate isn't appropriate.

If I don't move on it now, Jack is likely to pick up the current hysteria about fats. Fats are both good and necessary and I'd much rather he direct that concern into avoiding trans fats and hydrogenation. Those toxic pseudofoods really are worth avoiding.

Then again, I am very glad he is taking an interest in nutrition. It will serve him well in the years to come.