Why cooked vegetables are good for mums and children in winter

When I met renowned London acupuncturist Emma Cannon the other day, we started talking about serving raw food to children. I had told her I see so many super mums trekking around on the most delicious looking snack boxes with beautifully cut vegetables, and I often wished I’d done the same.

Emma, however, wasn’t as impressed as me with the vegetables, and since she looks at nutrition from a Chinese medicine perspective, her view was very different. Here are Emma’s top tips on serving raw food to mums and children:

Many parents make the mistake of giving children too much cold raw food thinking it is better for them. Raw food is very hard to digest and since the climate in the UK is very different from LA, for example, children (and adults) in our country need warm, cooked foods to keep them going during the cold months of winter

Slow cooked foods, stews, casseroles and soups are easier for a child to digest and to absorb the nutrients from. A cold, raw carrot dipped in hummus might appear to be good on paper, but from a Chinese medicine perspective it is not as good for a child as a steamed or mashed carrot. It is a matter of digestion and my motto is: “Diet is important, but digestion is everything”

From a Chinese medicine perspective, juices too–even cold pressed ones–are not advisable for children except occasionally. It might appear that it is a great way to get them to eat vegetables, but you are then flooding the system with highly concentrated nutrients and the body needs balance. I would put juices in the category of being overly nutritious – in other words delivering too much nutrition in one hit

I see children who are fed too much raw food who suffer from tummy aches and excess mucus, and my advice is then to introduce more warming food into the diet
If you want to include some raw food then fermented or pickled foods are helpful to build up a good gut flora and fruit can be eaten earlier in the day. Very thinly shredded vegetables earlier in the day can also be tolerated by some

Emma Cannon’s most recent book Fertility to Family: IVF Support, which includes more than 60 recipes and covers food, fertility and philosophy, is available to download as an e-Book (£9.99)

Tags: Acupuncture, Books, Emma Cannon, Fertility, Health, Mum's health, Nutrition, Raw food