Are Children Instinctually More Inclined To Eat Peat Friendly Foods?

G Forrest

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We have heard the phrase "the innocence of a child" and I think it applies to children's own instincts toward the types of foods they eat. What do kids crave? Sweets! Ice creams, treats, candies, and in my daughter's case, lots and lots of fruit: she devours cutie oranges all day. What is it that kids avoid? Veggies, especially the brassicas like broccoli and brussel sprouts. I have also observed with my own kids that they are inclined to eat small quantities of meat, but they rarely specifically ask for it. Salty meats like pepperoni tend to be popular, but in general I find meats are somewhere in the middle, which aligns with Peat's emphasis of consuming limited quantities of meat due to the calcium-phosphate ratios.

Looking back on my own childhood I ate lots of fruit roll-ups, sugar cereals, ice cream, and always had a big glass of Tropicana orange juice first thing in the morning (curiously I continued this up until adulthood: a big glass of oj just felt right, but then I got into the whole new-agey gravy train of limiting sugars and any fruit must be consumed in it's raw state, so out went the carton oj). Of course there was always some very sugary cereal (Golden Crisp, Lucky Charms, Corn Pops) with lots of milk that started the day. I suppose it wasn't the grains in the cereal that was craved, but the sugar and milk - grains always just seemed to be a filler to serve up the sugar. Jello was also a staple nearly every night and I never grew tired of it. Coffee ice cream was one of my favorite flavors in fact until my parents said I shouldn't have it because of the caffeine, even though they were perfectly ok with the whole family slurping up a fully caffeinated 2 liter bottle of pepsi a day back then.) Lobster night with boatloads of melted butter was probably my favorite *meat* night. It all seems very Peat friendly to me, with the exception of breads, however with my own daughter, she tends to only really like a slice of bread with a big slab of butter.

It's interesting that we gravitate towards these foods when we are young, and it isn't until we approach adulthood that we begin to neurotically restrict the types of foods we eat and force ourselves to eat more salads and strictly avoid sugars and saturated fats.

It also seems a bit misguided that parents maybe are going out of their way to restrict their children's natural inclination to eat lots of sugar, or sneak lots of leafy greens into meatballs, or give them multi-vitamins with fish oils added (admittedly my wife and I have been guilty of all of this at various points).
 

kyle

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So true. As a kid I recall learning and hearing how vegetables were so necessary and being worried since I never ate them. You also hear on the news about diseases etc. And how everything tasty was causing it.

Every American seems to have hang ups about food thanks to this propaganda.
 

Dhair

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Children have a higher metabolic rate, so they need a consistent supply of glucose. Unfortunately, many parents withhold "sweets" as a form of reward/punishment due to mainstream medicine pushing the idea that sugar is unhealthy and should be restricted. I wonder how many children are under chronic stress due to their parents' ignorance.
 

Lecarpetron

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After watching all of my friends reproduce, the one thing I've learned is that if I ever have kids, I will not food restrict. It doesn't matter what form it takes (sugar, grains, dairy, or bread are the most popular), it always seems to result in a miserable kid.
 

omnivoracious

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Yes and no. My daughter loves salmon which is loaded with PUFA. My son loves shrimp which is Peat friendly and tri tip which is in the Peatosphere. My daughter doesn't typically like Mac and Cheese which is not Peat - too much wheat - but my son absolutely loves the dish. They both love milk, which is obviously a cornerstone of the Peat diet. They both seem to like berries which are loaded with seeds that Peat doesn't seem to think are a good idea. My challenge is to give them as much Peat approved food as I can with the understanding that when they go to grandpa and grandma's or out to eat they are going to eat a bunch of sub optimal foods. I don't worry about it too much - kids actually have the metabolism to burn off a bad meal here or there - my goal is for 90% of their meals to be healthy. I'm fairly liberal when it comes to healthy foods, I include yogurt and hot dogs. I've tried to get them to eat carrots - another staple of the Peat diet - but at this point they aren't really fans. I do have them on white rice with coconut oil though!
 

Nestito

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I work at a vegetarian/vegan cafe and the owner's son and nephew always order the same things. They are both around the age of ten.

"Hot Chocolate with eleven seconds of vanilla (cane sugar based syrup)!"

"Cheese Pizza."

"Red Skin Potatoes."
 

Waynish

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In some cases, but generally no because modern foods with PUFA don't have taste indicators that they're PUFA rich (i.e. Nutella).
 

benaoao

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ice creams and treats are usually loads of sugar combined with a good amount of fats combined with chemicals to taste good, they are junk but kids can get away with them since they burn off everything (until they're overweight just like adults)

fruits are obviously great but give a kid the choice between an orange and oreos, it might be a disappointing experience (anecdotal reports of "my sweet lil precious would always pick the orange" weigh not much)

salmon is a great food, just get it wild caught.
 

lvysaur

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Lots of cope in this thread. The only constant is that children hate bitter flavors.

Children love protein and starch and PUFA. Some also love sugar.
 

Herbie

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Children can still trust themselves and haven't been had their inner guidance system beaten down by authoritarians who are brainwashed and believe know more then the child know's from within. (parents, academics, school teachers, media, peers)

Sickening society.
 

omnivoracious

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One small win: my kids both love 85% dark chocolate. My 2yo son is obsessed. I think I've created a monster.

I'd say the one constant is that they don't really like vegetables. My daughter will eat sauteed broccoli and my son will eat sauteed mushrooms. Those are the exceptions. With carrots it is very hit or miss.

I'd imagine with all the growing going on their tastes are inclined to strongly favor dairy and sugar. They also love wheat, ie bread and pasta. I need to start tricking them into eating non wheat based alternatives.
 

sunraiser

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Refined sugar is not a peaty food. It’s intended as a short term metabolic intervention, not a diet.

I find it interesting that people reflect on this question as though they were not once children themselves. I was a child. I had constant access to fruit. I did not only eat fruit.

I enjoyed meat, starches, sprouts spinach, sometimes chocolate but we didn’t always have it. I didn’t excessively crave sugar - that only happens during insulin resistance alongside a brain that has been wired to seek the short term neurochemically favourable environment that sugar, a stimulant, brings.
 
OP
G Forrest

G Forrest

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ice creams and treats are usually loads of sugar combined with a good amount of fats combined with chemicals to taste good, they are junk but kids can get away with them since they burn off everything (until they're overweight just like adults)

fruits are obviously great but give a kid the choice between an orange and oreos, it might be a disappointing experience (anecdotal reports of "my sweet lil precious would always pick the orange" weigh not much)
.

Ice cream is great if you can find a good brand or make your own, and is advocated by Peat. The kids aren’t craving the chemicals. The chemicals are added by the food companies to produce the ice cream cheaply.

As far as fruit goes, I would argue that the majority of fruit in supermarkets is of low quality and under ripe from transportation and mass production. That said, anecdotally, both my kids still eat through mandarin cuties and strawberries like machines. But agreed they would likely choose the refined, pure sucrose Oreo, which I think is the natural instinct: to go for the most efficient source of fructose for energy.

Children can still trust themselves and haven't been had their inner guidance system beaten down by authoritarians who are brainwashed and believe know more then the child know's from within. (parents, academics, school teachers, media, peers)

Sickening society.

+1

This is the real crux of this topic.
Kids crave the carbs, efficiently available in fructose form in sweet, ripe fruits, sucrose found in their favorite treats, and galactose from milk and ice cream. They don’t crave PUFA’s - put a bowl of canola oil in front of a kid and see if he/she will eat it. They do enjoy processed foods that may have PUFA, but those foods could have easily been made and were traditionally made with SAFA, like butter, lard, or tallow.

The real issue is mainstream health and nutrition has propagated the ideas that good health means consuming complex carbs, avoiding simple sugars, eating lots of vegetables, and substituting PUFAs for SAFA’s, when kids innately have a sense of the foods they crave.
 
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G Forrest

G Forrest

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Refined sugar is not a peaty food. It’s intended as a short term metabolic intervention, not a diet.

I find it interesting that people reflect on this question as though they were not once children themselves. I was a child. I had constant access to fruit. I did not only eat fruit.

I enjoyed meat, starches, sprouts spinach, sometimes chocolate but we didn’t always have it. I didn’t excessively crave sugar - that only happens during insulin resistance alongside a brain that has been wired to seek the short term neurochemically favourable environment that sugar, a stimulant, brings.

I too recall enjoying the things you mentioned (not sure about spinach and sprouts though), but I distinctly recall going for sweets and fruits first: sweet peaches in summer, orange juice, sugared cereal, ice cream, jello, popsicles, and strawberry shortcake all come to mind. I liked some meats and starches, but mostly if they were drenched in butter, like lobster, artichokes, or potato. In regards to the idea of "excessively craving sugar," I think sugar is a food that is useful for energy. Refined white sugar, or sucrose, is not an ideal sugar source, but can still useful as a fuel. I think children's cravings for sugar are normal for meeting their energy needs.

If we get into "Peaty" semantics, then agreed, Peat has said sucrose isn't the ideal source of sugar - fruits are preferable. He mentioned how the potassium in orange juice acts a buffer to rising insulin. Then again he has stated making ice cream with sugar and also drinks Coke, so for him personally it seems he doesn't view sucrose as expressly forbidden, so whether or not that's Peaty (like all things "Peaty") is open to interpretation. He has also stated that starches are not an ideal source of carbohydrates when better sources (fruits) are available, while also stating that starches can still be compatible with good health. As always, all in the right context But if we were to boil down an ideal "Peaty" eating approach it would probably be: carbs from fresh, sweet, ripe, fruits like oranges and tropical fruits; protein primarily from milk and bi-products, with some meats provided they are eaten with some collagen of the animal, and an occasional egg from pastured chickens, along with vitamins and minerals from the occasional seafood or liver (if available). Maybe some lightly boiled greens in broth when other foods aren't as plentiful. He alluded to this in the most recent Generative Energy podcast describing how an ideal society would have animals for milking with orchards of fruit trees.

True, most modern kids foods are unhealthy, but this is because the food industry and advertising has manipulated children's basic impulse for sweet, sugary foods by making poor quality, hyper-sweet packaged foods. But I still think the basic impulse exists for children at an early age before they have been indoctrinated with what are considered "healthy foods," and I think these impulses are in line with what Peat has written about. But it's not the kids fault that they think packaged sugary cereal tastes good, they are merely following their instinct for sweet carbs.
 
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Runenight201

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As a kid I LOVED sugar, and would eat candy like crazy. Both my brother and I would dip into our hands into the sugar jar and literally just eat raw sugar. My mom would also make jars of powdered lemonade and that was how we hydrated aaaalll summer long it was great. Fueled my many adventures haha. I was certainly a precocious child, and both my brother and I were very athletic, so I think it went hand in hand. It wasn’t until my teen years when I can recall my nutrition and sleep going downhill that I began running into problems.

That being said, that amount of refined sugar completely wrecked my teeth and gave me a ton of cavities as a kid lol. So I think maybe we can’t always completely trust our own senses as a kid being not fully mature because I didn’t give af I would eat candy until my stomach hurt. I remember my younger sister when she was growing up ate a whole jar of those multi-vitamin gummies cuz they tasted good and then she got hit with a terrible stomach ache that night lol.
 

Elephanto

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Children are weak, as you grow up you learn self-restraint and discipline. Like the calf is addicted to its mothers milk's casomorphins, ensuring its survival, so is the human baby and so is the kid that continues to be addicted to casomorphins and fructose's opioid receptor-triggering effect. Addicted to food in general too, always needing to eat and in a constant blood sugar rollercoaster due to sucrose. An adult on a diet of milk and sugar remains hormonally a child. Both have been shown to adversely affect testosterone production, and it wasn't before I got into intermittent fasting (without suffering from hunger) and a low sugar diet (vinegared white basmati rice and carefully soaked adzuki beans, with a little coconut oil/olive oil) that my testosterone production visibly increased. Went from looking like a kid at 26, to growing a hard stubble and gaining a lot of female attention in a span of a few disciplined weeks. Before that I was full-on peat. Ironically fructose even negatively affects thyroid health which is the reason a lot of people are here. Anyway, like this forum's motto says "Perceive, Think, Act." If your situation isn't optimal, you need to question your habits, look past simple dogmas and research, and finally act. A lot of good to learn here but also a bit of bad.
 

Herbie

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I used to take jelly packets to school and eat it out of the packet, don’t see any adults doing this.
 

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