I thought that too until a couple of things changed my mind.
Thing 1: Within about a week, I got two new nutrition clients that were newer Dads. As with all parents looking to incorporate healthier eating into their family's lives, I gave them a plan for eating the most nutrient dense foods they could get their hands on. I also pointed them to sites such as ThePrimalParent, EverydayPaleo and GrowingUpPaleo. These are amazing resources which are presented primarily from a Mom's point of view (some awesome, smart and totally kick-ass Moms BTW). Let's face it though, being a Mom and being a Dad are two very different experiences. What these Dads needed from me was some real world advise from a Dad's perspective. Obviously, these guys wanted to be the best parents they could be, making sure they had the bases covered, especially with regard to nutrition. Beyond being a great parent however, they were looking to me for advise on being the greatest "Paleo Baby Daddy." Finding information online from this perspective is not nearly as easy as finding all the great Paleo Baby Mama type of sites out there. So, seed #1 was planted in my mind to create this blog.
Thing 2: About 8 months ago my wife and I discovered that we were expecting our own little addition to our family. My wife is now 35 weeks along as of this writing and we're busy getting the house ready for our first child. You might be thinking that if I'm not technically a Dad yet, then what makes me an expert on this? Well, if you want to have a healthy, happy baby, you have to start with a healthy, happy Mama. As the Dad to be, I can't begin to emphasize how important your role is in that. Besides that, being a complete and unadulterated geek when it comes to nutrition, I've spent about a gazzilion hours researching what make for healthy fertility, pregnancy and baby.The fact is, we have information today that we simply didn't have when I was growing up and for that I feel immensely grateful. When we were kids, we were raised on Coco Puffs and Twinkies. In my family we were lucky. Our parents were always cooking and we always had healthy meals but we had all manner or crappy food as well. There was no shortage of ho hoes, devil dogs or potato chips in our house.
Even today most parents read the front of a cereal box and it says right there that it's fortified with vitamins and mineral. It's a good source of fiber! Heck, some of this stuff even has omega 3s and help support your immune system. Back in the day I think parents legitimately believed that nonsence. Today, I really think that when a parent reads this type of marketing, that somewhere deep down inside they know it's a load of crap. But, for some people, it gives them permission to buy it anyway. I don't think we can get away with that anymore. We know better. My goal here is to bring you some useful info so when you see a box of garbage that claims to have some pseudo health benefit, that you can no longer buy that NON food item and feed it to your family with a clear conscience.
Sometimes in order to move forward, we need to take a step back. In this case, we're stepping way back. There are foods that we have clearly become exceptionally adapted to eating, some that we may not be well adapted to and others that are so far from a natural human diet that it's caused an epic decline in our health unlike anything we've seen in human evolution.
Today we have the opportunity to raise our kids with an advantage that our parents didn't have. We have an understanding about food and lifestyle that no longer lets us off the hook. We now have a responsibility to the next generation to not allow the food industry to sway us in to believing that some like Captain Crunch could, in any way, allow our children to thrive. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have the responsibility to make sure our kids are healthier than we are.
Honestly, we haven't set the bar all that high, folks. This should be easy.
Welcome to Paleo Baby Daddy.
