Book Review: The Resourceful Mother’s Secrets to Healthy Kids
The Resourceful Mother’s Secrets to Healthy Kids
Author: Meredith Deasley, BA, RNCP, RHN
Publisher:www.theresourcefulmother.com
Publish Date: 2011
Meredith Deasley writes with authority as well as the knowledge and wisdom honed through hard experience and the passion to find a solution. As a new mother she faced a dilemma that is every parent’s nightmare – a newborn whose health was compromised. She also found little in the way of conventional medical wisdom to help.
Thus began a ten year journey into researching food sensitivities and allergies and learning how to detect, manage and eliminate her child’s reactions to certain foods. Along the way came a realization that this was her calling; to reach out to other parents facing similar challenges regarding their children’s health.
As Dr. Zoltan Rona writes in the book’s foreword, “Very few of us were lucky enough to receive a course on how to keep our children both physically and mentally healthy. Even fewer of us were taught that what we feed, or do not feed, our children from Day One could have such an enormous influence on every aspect of our children’s future lives.”
Many, if not most, parents who challenge the conventional medical system on this topic and opt instead for a healthier, non-toxic lifestyle for their children face varying degrees of resistance on many fronts. Well-meaning family members, friends and authorities question the wisdom of a parent who refuses vaccinations for their child, or insists on certain food selections or restrictions. The accumulated knowledge, advice and inspiration found in The Resourceful Mother’s Secrets will prove an invaluable tool for anyone facing such criticism. The reader will also be armed with the information needed to find healthy solutions to whatever food related challenges may be affecting their child. As Meredith points out in her introduction, “The choices you make concerning what you feed your children will affect every single area of their lives. It will affect how they feel, how much energy, strength and brain power they have, how they look and whether they will age with vitality or not.” How I wish I’d had Deasley’s book when I was a young mother. Like Meredith, I too believed that having children would be the most important job I could ever have; and one that would provide the greatest opportunities for learning in my life.
Whether it’s wanting to raise healthy children, or to be a positive influence in the lives of grandchildren, learning how to optimize health through food choices is an education worth seeking. It is found in abundance in this book. You will be helped to determine which foods are healthy, which are the culprits in your child’s life, and why. Beyond that, you will learn how to prevent or eliminate reactions to those triggers. In short you will have the tools needed to improve your child’s health for life.
Deasley also weighs in on the controversial topic of vaccinations. To those (pro-vaccine) parents who argue, “You were vaccinated. You are healthy. Why are you questioning vaccinating our grandchildren?” she offers the following: “Vaccinations are different today. They are combining vaccinations and giving more vaccinations than ever before and without evaluating the side effects of doing so.” Included are the statistics confirming the vast increase in the number of both vaccines and dosages between 1982 and today. She points out that “vaccinations are the only product sold in North America that carry the risk of injury or death and which are legally required to be used by every healthy citizen” and that “a growing segment of the population question the wisdom of injecting foreign proteins, aluminum, mercury derivatives, formaldehyde….into a child’s bloodstream”. She also cites the increasing reports on the association between vaccines and autism, chronic ear infections, allergies and asthma, to name just a few.
Though we are bombarded through the media with ever more information on health and illness from the so called ‘experts’, we are seldom advised that much of the latest medical research indicates that many, if not most, of the current illnesses our children experience are food related. Parents tasked with making choices about vaccines and foods will be grateful this book cuts through all of the confusing data on the subject of how to help our children grow up healthily. Deasley gives us the straight goods. She writes as one parent to another. Understanding that children today face greater obstacles to health than did previous generations, she clears the clouds of confusion around available data and helps us to understand the link between children’s well-being and nutrition.
