I am exploring some ideas around unfooding and wondered whether anyone had any experience of this? Have you tried it with your own children? And what were your experiences? I like this idea – we follow a similar approach to education at home so I’d like to find out more about the un- or defooding process.
There seems to be quite a lot of talk about this in the States at the moment. The way I understand it you leave your children to completely govern their own food choices; when, where, what and how much. This follows on naturally from child-led breastfeeding, where the baby determines when he wants food and how much he needs. I guess I am part way towards providing an unfooding environment for my children. Mealtimes tend to be a big hotchpotch of raw goodies, some homebaked stuff, salads and a main dish like risotto or pasta. Everyone just chooses what they fancy eating at that point (and sometimes that’s quite a lot of food and sometimes barely anything). I try hard to suppress the anxious mother that resides deep inside and is eager to see her children eat nutritious food, and to trust their natural instincts instead.
So, in a sense they get to eat what they want (or what they want from the limited food selection we have in the house). However, the choices around when and where they eat is not so simple. I like all food to be consumed around the kitchen table (except for extenuating circumstances – think popcorn and occasional family movies, raw chocolate icecream and a deep bath and so on) because it means less tidying up etc. And family mealtimes are usually one of the best times of the day – we all get together to talk, laugh and eat at least twice a day. I love mealtimes for their sense of coming together and feel so lucky that as home educators we sometimes get to share all three meals with each other in a day. I wonder if choosing to unfood would affect this.
Another issue that I have is that I believe that we need a certain amount of nutrients and the right balance of foodstuffs to realise our full potential. I don’t think that I have managed to achieve the completely nutritionally perfect diet for either of my children yet (and certainly not for myself, although I am well aware of what it is!) although I keep trying and making adjustments. So, would allowing them free reign with food undo all the work that I have done over the years to try and establish this wholistic diet?
I’d love to hear from anyone with any experiences of trying defooding. Am thinking about putting an article together for The Green Parent once I have tried it myself and it would be great to speak with others too.
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