Appears in Raw Foods News Magazine.

Creating Healthy Children
About the passion of raising healthy children on raw foods.
by Karen Ranzi

In raising my two wonderful children, I have had to learn on my own all of the incredible, mindful, meaningful ways of bringing up children. When my first child was born in 1987, I had no mother to help me, as my mother had died seven years earlier. My mother-in-law lives in Colombia, South America, and my closest friends were single and childless. I had little information to go on except that my loving father frequently told me how important it would be for me to nurse my child. He had wanted my mother to breastfeed my sister and I when we were infants, but after two weeks of nursing me she gave up because her doctor told her it would be better and easier to bottle feed.

I was fortunate that I was exposed to healthy nutrition through my father and his mother. My paternal grandmother ate a mostly raw vegan diet, which saved her from serious asthma and emphysema earlier in her life. My father was a vegetarian who ate mainly fruits and vegetables and believed in the importance of good exercise, sunshine, rest and healing from any ailment in natural ways.

However, when I was a child growing up on the Standard American Diet which my mother provided for me, I completely ignored my father’s and grandmother’s excellent example on health and nutrition.

In later years, when my own son was ill, I recalled the nutrition messages my grandmother had given me. My son suffered from chronic allergic rhinitis, ear infections and asthmatic symptoms up until he was between three and four years old. I then transitioned him to a raw food diet and was amazed by the dramatic healing in under a year’s time.

Except for the importance of breastfeeding, I did not know anything about attachment parenting–the crucial emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of how to raise a healthy child.

Now that my daughter is 18 and my son is almost 16, I look back at the earlier years and wish that I had had more knowledge and had understood the values of nurturing my children both biologically and emotionally prior to becoming a parent. It has all been a process for me, culminating in my deep passion to provide meaningful information and a discussion about parenting values to people who want to eventually have children, as well as those parents who want to help the children they have right now to be happier, healthier, and more secure.

For the past six years I have been presenting a seminar called “Creating Healthy Children.” I speak extensively about the significance of studying children’s physiological and emotional needs through the raw food diet and attachment parenting. Because many parents rely upon medicine when a child doesn’t feel well, I point out the importance of obtaining the best nourishment for their families and how they can transition to a healthier diet to eliminate a large reason for the cause of illness.

Because a child’s trust and feelings of security are directly linked with his or her physiological well-being, I also talk about the great value of following the mental and emotional needs of the young baby and child throughout the growing years. When a baby is born into this totally new and unfamiliar world, we need to take heed of his or her cues indicating a need for security and comfort, by: carrying the baby constantly, sleeping with the baby, holding the baby skin-to-skin, and following the baby’s continued needs as he or she grows.

My strong feelings about guiding parents toward their basic instincts in raising their children has inspired me to write the book Creating Healthy Children, which describes how to physically nourish our children by giving natural, uncooked foods, and how to emotionally nourish them through meeting their needs at each level of growth and development. Parents need a guide to following the needs of their growing child, and to support them in raising their children differently from the norm.

Among the topics the book covers are the following:

• What future parents should know and prepare for prior to conception to create overall health and the clean internal body necessary for developing the evolving fetus;
• How to achieve an excellent, radiant pregnancy and a quick, smooth, exhilarating childbirth;
• Exercise;
• Circumcision;
• B12 issues;
• Attachment parenting;
• Raw foods for baby;
• Kid-tested recipes;
• Transitioning older children, and more.
• I reveal helpful tips on how to improve the diet of children of all ages.

One of my favorite chapters is on “raw family journeys,” in which I report the stories that families worldwide gave in response to my questions based on information most meaningful and helpful to parents who want to raise children on the raw food diet.

As someone who has maintained a 100% raw vegan diet for over 12 years and has witnessed numerous benefits personally, in family and friends, and clients, I am passionate and excited to present this book. I believe that proper care of children will bring health and excellence in all areas.