An old TV commercial advised that if we want to perform our best, we better eat our Wheaties. These days, a whole lot of people are cutting back on their family’s wheat eating, but the reasons are not well understood, at best.
The culprit behind this wheat avoidance is gluten, a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. While generally nutritious for most of us, gluten can cause an inflammatory intestinal condition,
If your kid is gagging on her broccoli, thank Mother Nature.
Turns out that veggie aversion is rooted not in fussiness, but in physiology. Children, though smaller than us in every way, actually outsize us when it comes to our taste buds. They’ve got a whole lot more of them – as many as three times.
This difference has been the cause of kitchen-table standoffs for generations, as kids refuse their vegetables and parents pursue creative and sometimes desperate measures to get their kids to Please … just … take … one … bite.
There are many things about our children’s future we have yet to know, but do we really want any of them to involve what we put on their plates?
We speak here of three simple letters that are capturing increasing amounts of attention, yet are still misunderstood: GMOs, or genetically modified organisms. You’ve likely seen the letters, but what do they mean, and why should we care?
We care because of the unknowns.
