Making Easter happy and healthy

While the meaning of Easter goes far beyond candy, nevertheless, a colorful and plentiful assortment of sugar and food coloring is what most children are accustomed to finding in their baskets Easter morning.

Many of our patients have been working diligently to make healthier food choices, and to reduce their family's consumption of sugar and all things artificial. Do we have to just toss this work aside, for “just one day”?

Is it possible to celebrate the joyous occasion, and honor our family's health, without disappointing our children's expectations?

It's certainly worth a try!

The best option we've found is to fill the majority of a child's Easter basket with non-food options like small toys, bubbles, sidewalk chalk (Spring is coming, we promise!), books, jump ropes, kites, flip flops, and other things your children may enjoy.

 

If our children are very young, this is a great opportunity to begin building fun and healthier traditions. Children are less likely to miss what they've never learned to expect!

However, with older children, compromise may be necessary. Fortunately, we have resources available to us today that may not have been available a few years ago.

Did you know some Easter favorites, like jelly beans, are available without artificial food coloring from places like Trader Joe's, and online at www.naturalcandystore.com? There may not be time to place orders for this year, but keep that website available for delicious, natural Christmas treats as well.

If your children can't imagine their Easter baskets complete without certain goodies, and you cannot locate more natural substitutes, a good option is to limit quantity. In the past, while transitioning to a more “natural” Easter basket, we have opened prepackaged items to divide them amongst multiple children. You can find decorative plastic baggies to repackage these treats at most grocery stores, and maybe even at a dollar store.

Chocolate also is a decent option when you're looking for candy – especially if you buy organic, fair-trade, dark chocolate. (We've found that while some children don't notice a difference between dark and milk chocolate, others do.) We've also used those decorative baggies to repackage things like chocolate-covered almonds (protein!), or dark-chocolate covered cherries from places like Costco.

Please remember that all of this advice about candy comes with a very big disclaimer. SUGAR IS STILL SUGAR!! We can't tell you how many people come in for Nutritional Response Testing after the holidays, not feeling well, and testing sensitive to sugar! Sometimes it only takes a day or two of extra sweets for our bodies to become over-stressed. It's important to take an honest look at what your family will consume both from Easter baskets, and what you will consume from other sources throughout the day.

If you are attending a big family meal, will your family be eating refined rolls or other bread? Will grandparents be giving your children candy? If so, can you offer to bring healthier alternatives to the meal? Or can you ask grandparents to provide your children with non-food gifts, like those we mentioned above? Sometimes we have to be patient, as it may take a while for extended family to share our passion for healthy eating even on the holidays!

One of our children's favorite Easter traditions is the plastic Easter egg hunt. We fill plastic Easter eggs with stickers, coins, xylitol gum, and dollar-store-trinkets. This provides the children with a lot of fun, and no increased sugar consumption.

Certainly take advantage of the meal(s) you can control, like breakfast, to fill up your children's bellies (and yours) with some protein and other healthy choices! Also, painting and hiding real eggs can encourage children to get excited about eating these special protein-packed snacks through the day! Do you have egg wars? Our children love seeing whose egg is the strongest – simply tap the tip of each egg together as you count to three. When you get to “three,” the tap is more of a whack, and the winning, unbroken egg continues on to battle again! Of course, before the battle someone must agree to eat the cracked egg!

Perhaps the greatest gift we can give our children and ourselves this Easter is good health!

Happy Easter!

 

The Lakeland Chiropractic staff