I'm very pleased to let you all know that we have been approved as adopters. Our panel meeting was a few weeks ago and we wanted to wait for the official letter before we made it fully public.
The next
step is for us to be allocated a new social worker and work with them and a family finder to be matched with some children. Obviously this stage is really sensitive and confidential, as a result I won't really mention our adoption journey again in this blog until we have children and they are settled in.
During the panel meeting, the doctor pointed out that there was a slight concern that our diet was restricted as Fran had mentioned at our medicals that we don't really have dairy or gluten on a regular basis. They were worried that a child might miss out on some nutrients like calcium.
Amazingly I didn't launch in to a full rant.
Just calmly mentioned that the bioavailability of calcium from dairy wasn't great, pointed out that we could argue about that all day without really getting anywhere and moved on the the restricted diet comment.
I let them know that the standard person has a restricted diet because they eat gluten and dairy.
Having cereal every morning for breakfast is restricted,
even if you have weetabix one morning, cornflakes the next and coco-pops the day after. Breakfast cereals have little to no nutrient content at all. Dairy causes digestive issues in lots of people we coach, myself for one.
We occasionally have porridge for breakfast, mores in the winter.
The rest of the time we have something different most days. Something with nutrients.
This week, we've had different types of veggie stir fry, a breakfast hash, eggs, seeds and some fruit. All full of goodness, nothing needing fortifying with cheap quality synthetic vitamins.
Having a sandwich every day is restrictive. I know people who have had the same sandwich filling for the past 20 years for lunch. Bread every day at lunch is not varied and when you fill up on the bread you eat less of the stuff that has the goodness in, the filling, the salad, the meat.
I do eat the occasional sandwich and wrap but it certainly isn't my daily 'bread'.
We have a different evening meal most nights, that meal is always based
around meat and vegetables. A couple of nights per week we have a vegetarian meal for a change, it is also more cost effective and adds a lot more fibre with beans, pulses and lentils.
In my opinion, the standard diet is restrictive. Cereal and toast for breakfast. A sandwich or pasta pot for lunch
and something healthy in the evening does not give you a varied diet. Especially when most people we speak to initially about food think that because pasta is low fat, it's ok to eat every day.
You shouldn't have any item every single day. My point with pasta or the other starches is that they are high
energy, low nutrient.
Nutrients are the key to better health.
We can help you plan a better week to fit around your lifestyle and
your family.
Our next camp starts on Monday, we have our 6 week challenge as well as our usual 4 week bootcamp.
If you have any
questions let me know.
Darren 'not restricted' Checkley
PS I do eat breakfast cereal, crunchy nut cornflakes are my favourite. We just don't have them in the house because they become an easy option and I get lazy.
PPS Lots of children who come in to adoption have food 'issues', we are very aware of this and deal with food 'issues' with lots of our members. I wanted to point that out before I get comments back about being a food nazi with a child and everything will change
when we get children etc.
As with everybody we help, we will meet them where they are and help them move to the place that we feel is better at a pace to suit their needs.