Back to School!

-From the desk of Dr. Brkich

As this school year is about to begin, many parents and students are understandably experiencing more anticipatory anxiety than usual. At the best of times, the beginning of every school year is marked by a higher degree of nervous apprehension until things settle in and a routine is established. Many questions are running through the minds of parents as we anticipate the unknown.  

As a parent of a 12 year old, like every parent, I have more questions than answers about how things will unfold in the new school year.  Will school be a safe place for my child? Will my child be able to learn as well in the new environment? What challenges and pitfalls lie ahead that nobody has anticipated? What new things will parents have to learn and contend with? As if we don’t have enough to deal with already.

I have come to realize that children feel things very deeply and don’t always show it outwardly. Let’s not kid ourselves, children feel things more than we may realize. They pick up on our fears and insecurities and the negativity that comes from news media and everywhere around us. Children are taking it all in, and it is affecting them in ways that we as parents may not recognize or understand, and every child is different. We know from The Great Depression of the 1930’s that the lives of future generations were changed in ways that would not have happened had the depression not occurred. We will have to wait and see for the full extent of the pandemic’s impact on the collective consciousness of the new generation.

During 4 years of naturopathic medical training and 25 years of practice as a naturopathic physician I learned some fundamental truths about health in general and children’s health in particular. I learned that health is more than the absence of symptoms of disease. I learned from the work of Dr. Weston A. Price, Dr. Francis M. Pottenger, and other insightful and forward-thinking researchers of the last century that nutritional deficiencies in a mother’s diet are passed down to the next generation. Dr. Weston A. Price carefully and meticulously documented how anatomical characteristics that develop as a result of deficiencies in a mother’s diet are passed on to the offspring in a manner that resembles how genetic traits are passed on from generation to generation. Observational data from animal studies showed that it takes 3 generations on a fully optimal diet to reverse the developmental changes induced by a suboptimal maternal diet.

Anne's Recipe: Salad Meal Prep 

I don’t know about you, but September for me can feel overwhelming. My husband (Robert) is a teacher so he will be back at work soon and my son (Jonathan) is back to his studies at university, so both will be less available to help with our day to day household chores. Gaetana and I have the clinic to operate as well as a janitorial business that was started by my parents. Since dad passed away we continued to operate this business for mom, who is this sweet Italian lady, soon to be 90 years of age. 

PREP PREP PREP PREP is so important for me if we want to have healthy meals at affordable prices. I spontaneously took the photo of salad bags that we made this morning. Simple, nutritious, quick and definitely less expensive than purchasing pre made salads at retail stores. We will all be more likely to eat vegetables when it is a grab and go style. I like to make sure that there are options of personalizing the salads so we put the basics in the bags and each person can add salad dressing, beans, pumpkin seeds, nuts, cranberries, blueberries etc. before they run out the door. We usually use glass containers or mason jars but all of them were dirty and I simply had no time to wash them before leaving the house. That is why you will notice the BPA free plastic bags (which I will wash diligently and reuse).

Having the family to help with food prep is great. I washed the lettuce, air dried, Jonathan sliced the carrots and washed the baby tomatoes, Sophia (my niece- Dr. Brkich’s daughter) sorted them into the bags and Robert did the grocery shopping. It was so fast and easy. One person could prepare one weeks supply for 4 people on their own in less than 20 minutes (I do use a food processor for slicing, shredding, etc).

-Anne Deni, B.Sc. FdNuClinical Nutritionist, Director of Clinical Services

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