I'm not Keto, so I don't know what's on the no-no list, but,
Fruit dipped into all-natural nut butters?

minties82 wrote: »

I don't know if I would want my kids on a "funny diet". It's already hard enough growing up as it is. Mine are only 2 and 4 though.

They do eat lesa carbs now than they used to though :-).

I'd rather my kids be on a funny diet than have to undo 20 years of metabolic damage from a shoddy diet.

Have you researched this thoroughly? I've heard of people putting children on a ketogenic diet as therapy to treat epilepsy and some metabolic disorders, but not for normal healthy children. You need to keep in mind that there are side effects... just scroll down to Limitations and side effects to see for yourself: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/en/resourcecentres/epilepsy/treatmentofepilepsy/dietarytherapies/pages/ketogenic-diet.aspx

"The ketogenic diet may cause some mild side effects in some children, including dehydration, constipation, vomiting, high cholesterol, and kidney stones (due to uric acid build-up in the blood). Some families notice mood changes such as hyperactivity or irritability. More severe side effects include loss of bone density, alteration in the blood electrolytes, and poor growth. Infections may also be more severe in a child treated with the ketogenic diet."

Do you really want to risk that if your child is generally healthy? I know I wouldn't.
I experience some of these symptoms now and then as an adult... I bruise easily, if I don't drink tons of water my kidneys hurt, and constipation. I wouldn't want to inflict that on my children.

I'm just guessing but Maria Emmerich's kiddos probably eat a high fat, moderate protein low carb diet. You can google her and find many *fun & cool* recipes for lunch ideas.

As for my brood they eat the same things i do but we are not a carb free home. In other words my husband and kiddos eat pretzels, toast with their eggs, noodles and potatoes with our main meal, etc. They are all healthy with exuberant energy. It is only me that has "issues" with carbohydrates. And with that I'm gonna say, everyBODY is different. I do believe however it has a lot to do with how you were raised. So keeping your dear ones eating what you are breakfast and dinner but letting it slide a bit at lunch doesn't seem to be such a bad thing. It seems balanced to me. Like timeyn said, real food is best!
(Just my 2 cents.)

tlmeyn wrote: »

I don't know. Some people thrive on carbs despite their heredity. My husband's body is a carb burning machine. Unless kids are overweight, I would wait to see what their bodies naturally do, then make adjustments. Chubby kids, especially boys, tend to grow out of it. With girls, you have to wait and see what their hormones do...

A balanced diet with real food is probably best

LCHF is balanced (or, more technically, not inherently unbalanced by virtue of being LCHF). "Balanced" does not mean equal parts carb, protein, and fat (though by even that definition, not even the SAD food pyramid is "balanced" at 50% carbs), but nutritionally sufficient. In that regard, LCHF is actually more "balanced," usually, than the typical SAD.

And no, I don't agree with the idea of "wait and see," because by that time, it's too late for some things. Did you know that fat and the fat-soluble vitamin K2 are required for proper jaw development, allowing the wisdom teeth to grow in properly? How many people do you know actually have jaws that fit all of their teeth?

Fat gain beyond the usual "add a layer, then use that to grow taller" is a symptom of a problem already in the making. Certainly, address it when it occurs, but if you have the opportunity to prevent it to begin with, isn't that the wiser choice? That is, after all, the idea behind things like vaccinations, wellness checkups, and even prenatal care. Why is diet any different?

Keto_Tara wrote: »

Have you researched this thoroughly? I've heard of people putting children on a ketogenic diet as therapy to treat epilepsy and some metabolic disorders, but not for normal healthy children. You need to keep in mind that there are side effects... just scroll down to Limitations and side effects to see for yourself: http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/en/resourcecentres/epilepsy/treatmentofepilepsy/dietarytherapies/pages/ketogenic-diet.aspx

"The ketogenic diet may cause some mild side effects in some children, including dehydration, constipation, vomiting, high cholesterol, and kidney stones (due to uric acid build-up in the blood). Some families notice mood changes such as hyperactivity or irritability. More severe side effects include loss of bone density, alteration in the blood electrolytes, and poor growth. Infections may also be more severe in a child treated with the ketogenic diet."

Do you really want to risk that if your child is generally healthy? I know I wouldn't.
I experience some of these symptoms now and then as an adult... I bruise easily, if I don't drink tons of water my kidneys hurt, and constipation. I wouldn't want to inflict that on my children.

The side effects that are reported from studies come from the classical ketogenic diet, which no one really does in real life (seriously, it's basically enriched soybean oil, and both calorie and water restricted). Something like modified Atkins or LCHF short of keto doesn't generally have these side effects. (Your link does not provide references, so there's no real way of knowing where the information they're claiming comes from, but it sounds pretty consistent with the old classical ketogenic diet studies.)

Then, there's also the matter of the side effects of the sugar and carb-laden SAD diets. The attention issues, the hyperactivity issues, and so on. I've actually seen drastic improvement in my own child's behavior since changing his diet and working to correct the deficiencies caused from his "balanced" (SAD) diet, which has included reducing the amount of sugar and general carbohydrates he eats and trading them for more fats and proteins. I also see regressions when he's spent more than a day or two at his grandparents', where he gets far more sugar (typically in the form of cereal, chocolate almond milk, Goldfish, and whatnot, some candy, but surprisingly little) than he does at home.

Keep in mind, too, that "LCHF" used to just be called "eating" (and in some places, still is). You eat meat and vegetables, and sometimes fruit for dessert. You put butter on said vegetables, and you had eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Kidney stones suggest an underlying issue with purine metabolism or kidney problem. Some of the worst offenders for purine level include cauliflower, beans, oatmeal, and asparagus, which are also often part of a "balanced" non-LCHF diet.

Constipated? Eat more fat and drink more water.

On a side note, I took a peek at your diary, and there are days when your protein grams exceed your fat grams, which might be contributing to the symptoms you're describing.

Now, I do agree that specifically seeking out keto is probably overkill for most kids, but LCHF isn't, and a real-food LCHF way of eating shouldn't be an issue at all.

dorkof82 wrote: »

does anyone have kids who eat this way? What do you put in their lunches for school? Was the transition hard? Did other kids tease them about eating "weird food"? I want to switch my daughter over to my ketogenic lifestyle, and I have breakfast and dinners down but I'm struggling with lunches since she doesn't have access to a microwave or any other heating.... I've decided to just finish out the school year as she's currently eating, so this summer we'll transition ( and she will have access to a microwave everyday) but once school starts again I want to be prepared - any ideas on what I can put in her lunches that don't need warming would be greatly appreciated

Here are a couple of resources you might be interested in:

http://christinecronau.com/ (she's got a couple cookbooks and part of them should be kid-friendly as she has kids of her own)
http://myzerocarblife.jamesdhogan.com/wp/2015/02/post-6-keeping-kids-off-sugar-teet/ (what she feeds her kids, which essentially amounts to meat and vegetables)
http://profgrant.com/2013/04/21/what-about-kids-on-lchf/ (provides sample meals)
http://www.dietdoctor.com/?s=children&submit.x=0&submit.y=0 (a collection of articles about kids, LCHF, and sugar)

For more detail about my own son, he's currently 4 and in preschool and daycare. He's in the process of recovering (for lack of a better term) from the damage that was done from too-liberal antibiotic use. He had frequent ear infections and sinus infections that I now suspect stemmed from his lactose intolerance, but we didn't know that at the time, and his pediatricians never bothered to refer him to an ENT or do anything other than shell out antibiotics. As a result, he ended up with several nutrient deficiencies, and his gut was completely devoid of lactobacilius strains of flora. We had trouble getting him to eat meat, but his diet was what SAD would consider "balanced." He got the bulk of his protein from yogurt and/or peanut butter, some fats from the peanut butter and cheese, he ate bunches of fruit and vegetables (he's a berry and pepper fiend), and he started his days with a bowl of cereal (with almond milk after finding out his lactose intolerance). The doctors said this arrangement was fine. Yet when we got him tested by an integrative doctor, which we took him to after he effectively got kicked out of a daycare facility for behavior issues, we found he was deficient in several nutrients (primarily the ones found in meat -- most of the fat-soluble vitamins, as well as carnitine and a couple other things -- if he didn't gag on liver, I could probably fix most of the problems with it, but he put in a heroic effort to eat it and was desperately trying to not throw up).

Additionally, I've found that for myself, I'm far better off without grains. I even reversed my anemia pretty much solely by removing grains, and I suspect my son is similar.

So, I started removing the refined carbs from our home. That's largely been pretty easy. Sorry, we're out of macaroni and cheese/bread/cereal, this is what we're having instead. Breakfast is still not quite where I'd like it, but he's too young to make his own bacon and eggs or somesuch (and that's still a hairy part right now), and morning schedules don't line up such that we can find and make something for him. As a result, that does consist of gluten free waffles with peanut butter (which he largely prepares on his own). Since bacon and eggs are hit or miss still, it's a concession for now.

Snack time on preschool days are actually one of the easiest, and the teachers are jealous of his snacks. It changes periodically, but for example, last week, it consisted of a cheese stick or two, a beef stick, and some homemade strawberry gummies (strawberries, a little lemon juice, some raw, local honey, fruit pectin; the equivalent of about 6-10 bears). Sometimes, it will be carrots and almond butter (no peanuts in the classroom). Sometimes peppers and a cheese sticks (I tried Ranch dressing to dip, but he didn't like the dill in my homemade version, so I'm still working on that one).

The hardest part right now are the rest of the meals at daycare. They do one of the government programs, so it's a bit sketchy for trying to take food for that. Since he only has a couple of months left before he grows out of daycare and is grade school aged, though, we've determined that that's not a battle worth fighting, especially since he's down to breakfast (which he may or may not eat) and lunch. Once he starts school, he'll be taking a bagged lunch each day. Probably with things like ham and cheese rollups, cheese sticks, peppers, carrots, almond butter, berries, and similar foods.

As for drinks, he drinks water at the house and rarely asks for anything else (we've had cartons of almond milk of all kinds end up going bad from lack of use). We do allow him to get lemonade or juice when we go out to eat, and he usually only drinks one kid-sized glass of it.

Personally, I would just want to cut out the processed sugar rather than putting the kids on a ketogenic diet. As long as they're growing, they can handle a bigger carb load than we can.

But mostly I just want to congratulate you for being good enlightened moms. I lecture my 12-yo once in a while, but it doesn't help. Mom is in charge of food, so I mostly bite my tongue. It's hard, but I figure the kid's metabolism is still robust enough that she can handle the blows, and she'll have plenty of time to improve her diet.

What's great about LC is that it can reverse a lot of problems pretty quickly. The body does a pretty good job at dealing with whatever crap we throw at it, and it thrives when we give it a break.

I think you chipped at a good topic in relation to this subject, sugarbeat. Having the freedom of choice is gonna happen weather it be now or later... In other words we should be striving to raise kiddos with the knowledge of where our food comes from and how it can effect us rather than enforcing a certain way of eating. This allows them to (hopefully) make the right decisions for their own bodies and not become food police, no?

We use to be a homesteading family and i could go on and on about the benefits of growing and slaughtering ones own food. My husband heard on the radio just the other day the dj (they have to have a more politically correct title for this position today but I'm ignorant) say that his eggs did not come from chickens but rather a carton. It wasn't funny because he was serious! SMH

Unfortunately, my long post was shortened upon posting.

I used to try to make lunches. That would last about a week and they would want school lunch because it was easier. Its way too much trouble for them to bring their own lunches now because its such a long walk from their lockers to the cafeteria. Like the width of a football stadium plus 2 wings. It was a lot easier to control what they eat when they were little. For little ones I would think a lot of veggies and meat could be made into finger foods that can be eaten easily and quickly. I don't think keto would necessarily harm kids if done correctly, T1D's seem to manage it.

OP - my kids are not technically keto but mostly paleo/primal. Just not as low carb as I am. Some ideas:
Ham spread with cream cheese rolled up
HB eggs/egg salad
Salami
Half avocado ( they eat it with a spoon)
Olives
Sardines
Chicken legs
Nom Nom Paleo did a great series on Paleo lunch box foods for kids that I think would give you some good ideas to work with, with a little modification to your liking. Check out her site and search that series!

I limit the amount of grains and starches my kids have now. They'll have sprouted grain bread for sandwiches for lunch, other than that the only carbs they get are from dairy, fruit and veggies. My kids are healthy, but my son does have neurological disorders so too much grain or starches can cause headaches. Pretty much every day they'll eat fruit, yogurt, cheese, eggs, bacon, veggies, tuna, chicken, ground beef, cottage cheese... I think that's about it. My son doesn't like mayonnaise so I make some with sour cream, olive oil, raw apple cider vinegar, salt, garlic & onion powder, dill, and parsley.