What's missing? PART 1

Okay so I've been really posting a lot about keeping a food journal.  Hope you have been doing it.  I posed this questions to all of my fine readers... How do you know if you or your children are getting adequate nutrients if you aren't keeping track?  Hope this has inspired you to do this!  There are great resources online for those that need help with this.  The link below was the best I found.

Once you've got your food journal.  Now it's time to analyze it to see what's missing.  I have a table on my fridge that shows all the essential vitamins and minerals and what food sources they are found in.  This is super easy and helpful in determining what nutrients are missing.  The Food and Nutrition Information Center from the USDA's website was actually the MOST helpful in all my research. http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=1

For individual vitamins and minerals click here to see what food sources  http://jn.nutrition.org/nutinfo/
Also this is great to print for your notes http://www.nal.usda.gov/wicworks/Topics/FG/AppendixC_NutrientChart.pdf?debugMode=false

Studies show that in America children are deficient in Vita A, Vita E, Vita K, all the B vitamins, Magnesium, Omega Fatty Acids, and Iron and Electrolytes.  Children (and adults) needed to eat more green leafy vegetables, red and yellow vegetables to get rid of these deficits.  After journalling the first time I realized that my children, though I didn't think it was possible (haha) were no different than the typical American.  They were, in fact, deficient in the same vitamins and minerals.  

I went to work researching what foods I needed to get into their diets.  I came across lots of literature and ideas that would help me on my quest. Again I used the USDA website a TON.

This is all outlined in detail in my book.

For example, I learned about Kale and Red Chard and Swiss Chard.  These are all green leafy vegetables that are among the highest vitamin enriched foods.  They have 9 of the essential vitamins needed daily.

Of course, how on earth were my ridiculously picky eaters going to eat more of all the foods they needed especially salads with green leafy vegetables like Kale and Chard? 

Read my next post for the answer (eat it or drink it- part 2)!