food on the brain--intial ramblings on the subject

i have also been thinking a lot about this whole radical unschooling idea of allowing kids complete freedom in choosing their foods. part of this unschooling approach is the idea that people will crave or gravitate towards anything that is monitored or restricted, plus they will never learn to self-regulate in these areas. so if there are no restrictions or hang-ups around food, kids will eventually be able find which foods work best for them and therefore develop a much healthier relationship with food.

so far i have been able to get away with controlling my kids' diet without the illusion of control, although i suspect that they energetically pick up on this nonetheless. the boys, though, will eventually become much more aware of their options and i am not sure what i will do.

My plan right now is to talk about why I make the food choices I do and have conversations about it. but in doing this, i do not want to make them fearful of particular foods or feel guilty when they eat foods i wouldn't necessarily want them to eat. i try to keep my tone light and explain that everyone has different thoughts about which foods are best to eat.

One hitch is that I have been reading some literature about the science of the brain, and from what I have been reading, I believe that before the age of 7 (generally), children don't have the capability of critical thinking and/or it's not healthy to encourage children to use this part of their brains until they are more developed. so according to this research (The Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce), it's important to foster creativity and imagination rather than explaining literally how things work.

So, I just don't believe that young children have the capability of discerning at a certain level whether or not they want to take the risk of eating certain foods. They cannot understand the long term damage these foods can cause. So isn't it my job as a parent, to help my kids make healthier choices when it comes to food?

On the other hand, I wouldn't have to ask them to actually be able to understand rationally why I don't want them to eat certain foods, but intuitively, they would make healthier choices if my restrictions were not imposed on them. Trusting them in this way would allow me to let go of any hang ups I have. It's *just* that step towards ultimate trust that I would need to take.

After all, this is only my perspective about which foods are healthy and which foods are not. I have plenty of friends who are vegan and vegetarian who eat pretty much the opposite of the way I eat. Whose to say that their diets are not healthier ones?

Another issue I see here, though, is the highly addictive quality of unhealthy foods. Would an emotionally healthy child be able to avoid this type of addiction? Wouldn't that food that could potentially cause emotional disturbances and psychological problems impair the child's ability to make a healthy decision?