CHAZAQ Event with Dr Shmuel Shields on "Nutrition and Your Child's School Performance"

okay welcome everybody to another event I just want to express the cars that I've spoken for them on on several occasions already and it's uh it's an unbelievable organization that does unbelievable things awesome things and um you would think by some of the things that they do that they're an organization that's been around for like 50 years right but we know it's uh I don't think you leave I don't think you've been around for 50 years yet right okay but it seems like it because the way they've mobilized and and the numbers of people they reach and the things that they put out not only in uh in volume but in quality is just absolutely amazing so it's a skus for me to be part of this and to be able to be part of the education process and all the other good things that hazak does so welcome and I appreciate you coming out on such a cold night maybe not everybody got the text messages but at least some people came and I'm happy to be here for any number of people and the topic tonight I think is a very important one and I know we're being filmed so hopefully many others will will take advantage and and be aware of what we have to say for those that are viewing if this event if you do want to contact me if you have questions I'll I'll give an email address it's r as in Robert Emma's and Michael Shields s-h-i-e-l-d-s 62 at verizon.net okay so that's the email address phone is 718-544-4036 again that's 718-544-4036 I am a New York State Certified nutritionist I've been practicing nutrition for about 25 years I do a lot of teaching and a lot of educational work and the topic tonight is nutrition for school performance a very important topic and one that's often somewhat neglected and maybe not thought about that much but how many people just sitting here by a show of hands feels that nutrition plays some role in academic performance okay I just want to tell you about 17 years ago I gave a talk for an organization called tauru masara uh which is a big National Organization that coordinates a lot of the day schools and so on and at that talk I had the scuss of meeting rabbi shmuel kamenetsky shlita and he endorsed my topic the topic was nutrition for academic performance and he personally told me that talmudem on not learning as well because they're not eating well and he said I can quote him on that so that's what I'm doing right now since that time I've heard from many of the patients and people that I work with that they're concerned about their ability to concentrate their ability to remember things their ability to focus memory all sorts of things like that so all I can tell you is that nutrition is not the whole answer to everything but it plays an important role and hopefully tonight we'll become more aware of the role of nutrition and how nutrition affects the brain and how it affects obviously the entire body you know there's a lot of research today that shows nutrition plays an important role listen to this I've heard it said that if if there was a computer imagine the size of three empire state buildings if you can imagine such a thing a computer the size of three empire state buildings the brain is able to accomplish what that size computer would be able to do now the brain the ribbonishulam put it into our heads it's a small small area and nevertheless a brain that size can do so much it's truly an amazing phenomena now the process of learning itself involves many steps it includes concentrating processing information storing and retaining that information and then recalling it from memory so it's not such a simple thing what is it that fuels the brain's billions of cells it's food the food that we eat is really what's going to fuel the billions of cells that the brain is made up of every time the human heart beats it sends 25 of the body's blood oxygen and glucose directly to the brain so with each heartbreak beat 25 percent of the body's blood oxygen and glucose are being sent directly to the brain to help satisfy the brain's enormous needs for nutrients for Vital nutrients that every cell needs in order to be able to function so the central nervous system which really makes up the brain and the spinal cord it integrates information received from all parts of the body and it coordinates all the body's activities it depends on things like amino acids essential fatty acids and an array of vitamins and minerals to be able to produce 40 different neurotransmitters neurotransmitters are basically the chemicals that allow the nerve cells in the brain to communicate so my question is what happens if you're missing certain nutrients let's say you're not getting all the vitamins or minerals that you need or you're missing certain essential fats or oils that your brain needs the best way to think about this analogy is like this does anybody here do any baking okay if you imagine yourself baking an apple pie and let's say you got all the ingredients together but you're missing one or two ingredients not enough to prevent you from making the pie but you're still missing an ingredient or maybe more than one ingredient so after the pie is made is it going to be the same quality as if you had all the ingredients no probably not it's going to be compromised in some way it's the same thing with the brain if we are missing out on certain nutrients that the brain needs to make these neurotransmitters it may not be able to make them inadequate amounts and there'll be some sort of loss or deficit or compromise to the brain's functioning ability um well I could tell you that in today's world I don't have to tell you you see it with your own eyes I see it every day in my practice I do work with children I do work with adults I work with seniors children are not eating well today Children's Health forget about the brain for a second let's just talk about their General Health and well-being when you see children the age of three or four or five or six and they already have high cholesterol levels or they have their obese I'm not making this up this is what I see all the time you know what that means that means that these children are already the stage has already been set where their risks of developing diabetes heart disease and cancer are greatly increased when you see children at that age who already have health problems that we normally wouldn't see until a person is maybe middle-aged or older we see it frequently and many of children today so I think it's a very very serious matter and a message I want to try to get across tonight which is very important is for the people listening here and for the people that may view this is to do everything in your power to try to correct the faulty eating habits that many children and adults have today children don't know any better you know we're there to try to protect the health and well-being of children and a child's health shouldn't be compromised at home or in school but unfortunately in today's world albeit not intentionally nobody is intentionally trying to harm their child's health but it's being harmed today by the very poor food choices that are being made so any steps that we can take either at home well think about other institutions or other places that your children children are in that think about the schools find out about the lunch menus if they if they eat the school's lunch find out if school is food being used as a reward which it often is in schools and find out this food have to be used as a reward or is there another way of rewarding a child and you may even want to find out if food is being used what kind of foods are being given out okay these are these are serious questions and I think just as we seriously go after other things in the Jewish Community for example the internet and it's very important that we we Safeguard and we take steps to safeguard our children and ourselves from the internet I think this is a matter that's uh maybe of equal importance the health of our children and helping them to reduce the risk of illness and disease and also helping them to perform at their peak in school you know the school curriculum is very demanding if a child is not eating well um his or her ability to absorb the material and to concentrate and to perform the way you're going to want that child to perform may be compromised maybe compromised again I'm not saying it's the whole answer to everything but it's an important piece and it's a serious piece so I just want to try to stress that as much as I can the brain has the highest concentration of nutrients more so than any organ in the body so even a borderline deficiency of some of the vitamins for example vitamin B1 B2 B6 B12 folic acid niacin a mineral called called magnesium can be associated with memory loss irritability nervousness fatigue mental confusion depression and even emotional instability do you know that if somebody has a low B12 level and that's not so common in children but as we get older it's very possible that your B12 levels could drop a little bit and it could look as if a person has dementia Alzheimer's disease if their B12 levels are very low it affects the brain it affects the functioning of the brain magnesium deficiency which is somewhat more common in children and adults as well may include anxiety hyperactivity insomnia confusion and irritability from a magnesium deficiency magnesium is a very very important mineral it plays a lot of different functions in the body and it's in foods that many children don't eat like green vegetables whole grains fish nuts and seeds beans and lentils foods like that are good sources of magnesium yeah okay great question if you don't mind I'm going to finish soon and then I'm going to pick up on that question okay whole grains by the way are another source of magnesium most children don't eat those Foods greens whole grains like oatmeal brown rice 100 whole wheat bread whole wheat pasta fish nuts and seeds um these are foods that are not readily eaten by kids and and even adults too so it's it's not so surprising that there could be a magnesium deficiency you see these are things that really have we have to give some thought to um okay let's go on a little further and I want to give you some some practical tips right now so basically good nutrition equals good cognition in other words the brain needs good nutrition one of the best ways to get your children off to a good start is to make sure they eat breakfast now the word breakfast is really two words right coming together break fast that's what the word breakfast really means you're breaking a fast your child may have eaten dinner five or six o'clock six or seven whatever the night before they get up six to seven in the morning so they just went 12 hours without eating so comes along the breakfast meal and you're supposed to break you fast and you're supposed to eat I can't tell you there are many kids that go to school without breakfast either they're late in the morning they're rushed they don't have time whatever the story is they're not hungry and they go to school without breakfast let me tell you what the research says so for optimal cognitive functioning at any age it doesn't matter child or adult you have to begin with breakfast the food research and action center reports that children who Skip breakfast show impaired ability to learn and perform in school whereas those who eat a healthy breakfast we'll talk about that in a minute tend to work faster on math problems make fewer mistakes remember more and score higher on vocabulary vocabulary tests and it's true with adults also adults who eat a nutritious nutritious breakfast generally perform better at work what breakfast accomplishes it replenishes the blood sugar levels that provide the energy needed for concentration and alertness and productivity okay protein foods are particularly important to be eaten in the morning as well since they help stabilize blood blood sugar levels so for example also there are important building blocks for the brain chemicals we spoke about before the neurotransmitters so a good choice of a protein food could be a low-fat yogurt it could be nuts and seeds so if your child goes to a nut-free school maybe in the morning they could have some natural peanut butter on some whole wheat crackers or something that would be a perfect way maybe an apple or something with it you know or a banana or something that would be a great way to give them something to get their blood sugar levels stabilized and to give them the energy and the focus that they they need so it could be a high fiber cereal with some low-fat milk or soy milk or you know something along that could be a whey protein shake you know a protein shake there are many different options uh it could be an egg with a slice with some whole wheat crackers also or whole wheat bread or something like that um so some sort of protein combined with a complex carbohydrate like whole wheat crackers or something made from a whole grain is very important to help Supply glucose and to keep the blood glucose levels stable one of the biggest problems is is that many children who do eat breakfast or for that matter even adults they usually eat a very sugary breakfast that's the way it is in the United States the the breakfasts are very sugary frosted cereals cereals that could be 50 sugar or other things like donuts or sweetened pastries or cookies or cakes or things like that these things are not a good breakfast or juices that are loaded with sugar are not really the best choice either if you're going to drink juice you're better off eating the fruit or if you're going to have juice you want to dilute it with water as opposed to having you know a very sugary kind of kind of drink um so having said that um what happens is if your child has a very sugary breakfast what's going to happen is the sugar is going to enter the blood very rapidly the blood sugar is going to spike giving that child a surge of energy but then the body has to compensate because now the blood sugar is very high the body is going to release a lot of insulin the hormone that regulates blood sugar and it's going to bring the blood sugar down lower than it was before and now the child is going to crave sweets again so you know what you just what you just did is you set up sort of a vicious cycle of a need of for sugar and I can tell you it's an addiction it becomes an addiction children as well as adults get addicted to Sugar because the body demands it you've just gave your body a spike in Sugar now it drops so low that the body needs more sugar so you want to avoid those types of breakfast and you want to avoid the effects that that could have that could cause hyperactivity it could cause the child not to be able to concentrate well because what happens is when that sugar drops the child is looking for more sugar he can't concentrate when he's looking for more sugar it's a drug sugar is a drug okay so you want to try to avoid these swings to prevent mood swings and behavioral problems and concentration problems and so on and you can easily do that by giving a healthier breakfast I gave you some examples before by the way the book lechaim 18 chapters to live by which is a book that I wrote which is available after the talk has everything in there meal plans every chapter is devoted to a different aspect of health and I think it would be a wonderful book for your family and for your children to learn from and so on it's written you know within a Torah framework so it and it's been endorsed by many leading robundums so I hope you'll take advantage of it and it could be a good gift item too for people you may know okay having said that these swings in blood sugar will also promote obesity so it's another reason why you don't want to do that see those delicious grapes on the table over there if you're able to get your children to eat some grapes in the morning even maybe with some nuts you have a very nice way to get them off to school or you know what uh you could try grapes especially if they're seedless are those seedless grapes by any chance okay you know what I do with those I put them into hot cereal like oatmeal instead of adding a sugar to an oatmeal try those grapes and oatmeal or even put them into an unsweetened or a cold cereal they're delicious yeah bananas are good tool or some raisins or or whatever nuts you can put in some nuts into the cereal there's a lot of things you can do I have in my office a protein powder a whey protein powder it's strawberry flavored there's banana and strawberry there's chocolate there's vanilla you can take a scoop of that and mix it into the oatmeal cereal now you're adding a protein to it and you're giving you could even add it to a cold cereal you add what's that um offhand I forget the name but you can contact me contact you I'll give you the name it's a very good one um uh we could talk after about things like that but the point is if you think a little bit out of the box and you get a little creative um you could you could make some very tasty breakfast and even if your child is not used to this kind of taste right now over time they can get accustomed to the taste of these kind of things and these are the kind of foods they should be eating unfortunately once a child develops a Tom you know a taste for sugary things and for fried foods and for fried everything I see the School menus I would say every other day it's french fries or two times a week it's hot dogs and hamburgers or chicken nuggets whatever happened to chicken that that's not fried check in with vegetables and maybe some sort of a whole grain would be a very nice meal or you could have a soy burger or beans or something like that children have to learn how to eat better you know I'd be happy I'll talk anywhere on this topic so the whole wheat is not good they don't like it yeah some whole wheat is better than others they have to it's also acquiring a taste it's it's it's a whole process but don't give up on the process in the book I give a lot of examples of how you can teach your child or family member to transition to better Foods they also give substitutes for a lot of the bad foods they're eating I have a checklist of instead of this try this so it's it's there's a lot of good information there that uh so it's an interesting point this whole concept of gluten um I think it's a little bit more of a fad although there are a lot of testimonials that people seem to lose weight and do better and so on and so forth with gluten free diets I would say if you legitimately have a problem with gluten you got to stay off it because it is bad then but if you don't have a problem with gluten and you stick with whole grains and you use them sparingly I think it should be fine but if you want to test yourself and you feel you do better with with without so much gluten in the diet or less gluten you can certainly give it a try whether it's right for everybody I'm not convinced what about casing and milk again a child or an adult could have a sensitivity or a problem with almost any ingredient in a food if you could be tested for some of these things if food allergy testing could be done I would certainly try to weed out things that could be problematic certainly artificial coloring and dyes and thing and flavors and things like that if you can get kids off of that kind of stuff if you can get them off of the sugar if you can get the diet just cleaner and healthier you're going to be moving in in a better Direction let me just go a little further a few more points and then we'll we'll open up to some more questions and comments so basically um if you want to uh feed the brain so to speak there are certain foods and this is not an exhaustive list but some of the foods that are known to be good for the brain include things like fatty fish avocado walnuts whole grains blueberries cranberries and I'm saving the best for last dark chocolate doc is loaded with antioxidants and has some some beneficial effects there not only for the possibly the brain but certainly for the cardiovascular system in the heart but it really has to be dark chocolate it has to be at least 70 percent at least 70 percent cocoa content and even then uh you know sparingly because it does have a lot of calories it does have a lot of calories so you got to use it sparingly okay uh yeah I don't see you know it's not really a small amount uh once a day if you can control the amounts it's um it's amazing the amount of from the cocoa again the the higher the cocoa content the more antioxidant activity that you have and so on you got to keep in mind that the brain can be harmed by oxygen and that's why a diet rich in antioxidants colorful fruits and vegetables are very very important and they have done animal studies that show that animals that are given a diet rich in antioxidants like they did it they had two groups of animals so one one group was fed blueberries strawberries and spinach and the other group was given foods that weren't so healthy the animals that got the better Foods did better on the various mazes that they go through they were able to remember a maze faster they were able to learn better and so on so so the foods really do have an impact on on brain function and on the cellular level and so on and they do protect the brain also the cells of the brain are protected against oxidative damage by having the right kinds of antioxidants in the diet for those of you who have children that really don't eat fruits and vegetables you should encourage them and be patient and try to get them to you know try to incorporate fruits and vegetables but I recently came across a very interesting kosher product I didn't bring it but you can contact me afterwards it comes in different flavors it comes in chocolate it's parv and it can be mixed into a drink it can be mixed into milk it can be mixed into water or anything and it's the equivalent of three servings of fruits and vegetables it has all the colors of you know red green orange yellow purple fruits and vegetables made into a powder greens it's fantastic it's organic and it's parv so that would be if if you 've got your child to even have something like that and they make they have it for adults also it for adults it's the particular product that will give you four to five servings of fruits and vegetables a day you can mix it into a smoothie you can mix it into different things cereal yogurt whatever but I'd be happy to provide you with more information on that um okay so I think we covered some of the basics basically a healthy brain diet would be fish about maybe two or three times a week except for tuna tuna because it's higher in Mercury I wouldn't have it more than once a week and uh there is one brand of tuna that advertises or promotes lower levels of mercury than other forms of tuna you could look around for that but vegetables four to five time servings a day fruits three or four or five servings a day things like nuts seeds beans you know four or five times a week getting enough water cutting back on sugar and salt and white flour products and also increasing your fiber intake to about 25 grams a day so this would provide a lot of antioxidants and a lot of healthy things for a well-functioning brain okay let's open up the some questions and comments that people may have uh go ahead in regards to soy milk is it dangerous to have it on a daily basis for children okay interesting question why would you think soy milk would be dangerous on a daily basis for children too much estrogen okay okay I just wanted to see which angle you were coming from I would say it's probably a good idea not to have really anything excessively on a daily basis it's interesting to note that the foods that children and adults that the that people are most commonly allergic to are the ones that we eat most frequently for example the most common foods that people are allergic to are eggs corn wheat soy um and dairy products right dairy products and I believe maybe chocolate also after I gave all that good news about chocolate but but wheat Dairy soy corn um yeah those are some of the more common foods that people are allergic to those are the most common foods in the diet so I would say it's probably good to alternate the soy milk in other words maybe every other day you know and you could alternate with rice milk or soy milk or you could get organic regular milk if your child doesn't have a milk allergy or okay so it's fine if there's an allergy or a sensitivity or any problems with dairy lactose intolerant whatever it is you could find many good substitutes so soy would be a good substitute almond milk coconut milk rice milk anything that's for but what I would do is with these other milks to make it a little bit on par with regular Dairy get it fortified with calcium and other nutrients this way you'll be getting some of the things that these other milks May typically be lacking okay so so those would be some options that could be available to you okay yeah it's not it says no hormones or no injections yeah I would say that would be a better qual if you're going to use Dairy make it a better quality Dairy look to get something like um organic or no hormones or antibiotics added things like that I would definitely opt that way um why not whole milk why everybody don't let it goes for lunch right now right right so I would say whole milk is important for uh you know for a baby or a toddler's developing brain they do need whole milk um it's a good question you gain more from you've gain more weight you're saying from the low-found dog yeah yeah so I I would say that you know it's an interesting question the idea of whole milk I I I would tell you that most of the information we have about fats is really not so accurate I could tell you that hydrogenated fats which was supposed to be the substitute for butter to keep the heart healthy are the worst fats in the world and they've been out there for 40 or 50 years already and the government is moving very very slowly to get them you know off the market in New York City they have a law that restaurants can't cook with them but they're still if you go to the supermarket today and you buy bread or you buy pretzels or you buy crackers or cookies or cakes or pastries or Donuts or muffins or commercial peanut butters they all have hydrogenated oils and they're known to increase the risk of stroke and heart disease and damage the blood vessels and the list goes on and on and on yet they're out there being sold manufacturers are still able to do things with them and use them and so on so that's a deadly dangerous fat but if you're talking about um you know let's say organic let's say butter you know like organic I'm talking organic now organic butter or organic whole milk or um the extra virgin coconut oil these in in moderation these fats are better than some of the other fats that were already mentioned and we're talking about again I I don't think I would load up on a lot of saturated fat I would use some of these things sparingly but I like um plant you know plant foods that have a fat content like an avocado or nuts and seeds or okay now we're going to move into an animal fat which is omega-3 which is found in fish these are the the more important fats to emphasize fats that are naturally found in nuts and seeds and whole grains in things like avocado olives okay and fish those are the fats that I would emphasize you know that's where my emphasis would be um you know in the fats especially in fish if for some reason you don't like fish they do make organic ground flax seeds the flax seeds grounds are another source of Omega-3 it has to go through a conversion it doesn't it see the fish oil is already in a form that the body utilizes right away there's two essential omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA that's found in fish when you eat fish or you take a fish oil capsule the body uses the EPA and DHA right away just the way it is no conversion but the other oils found you know the Omega-3s and flax they have to be converted to EPA DHA so there's a little bit of a loss but it can be done it can't be done right I'm sorry the body does it chemically the body will convert the oils that are in those seeds into the EPA and DHA uh you know it's not as quite as efficient as what you find in fish but you do get some of it that way um you could add it you could add a tablespoon or two a day to into yogurt it's a salad into cereals into oatmeal uh yeah so it's a good source of fiber and but I would get it organic and I would keep it refrigerated because it could go you know bad you know it has to be packed properly there are some companies that are very good that that make it if you want to ask me afterwards or contact me I can give you some ideas of it should be in a container where there's no light coming in and packaged you know the right way grind it yourself you could do that also get organic if you get get organic flax seeds grind it yourself you know store it refrigerated and you know maybe don't grind too much grind enough for maybe a few days keep it refrigerated use it up and then only the ground one has to be refrigerated or this yeah yeah the ground one right the ground one right and the ground seemed to be better because when you grind the flax seed then your body is opened up to getting the oil out of the seed the other unground flax seed is is very hard and it passes through the body undigested it'll give you more fiber but the oils and the vitamins and minerals that are in the seed you may not be able to access until it's it's ground up okay any other comments or questions yes Chiropractic the casein I'm not sure I'd have to look into the issue of casein and some people could have a problem with it not necessarily hyperactivity but they could have other problems with it um I'm not sure what what its relation is with hyperactivity if a child wakes up already or like you didn't mean to me already feels like hyper and he didn't need anything is it from the 48 of the night before 10 feet of sugars I mean uh it's interesting it could be maybe from low blood sugar you know it's possible it could be low blood sugar um I couldn't tell you I'm not a physician so I can't diagnose a problem but I is it is it the same way all the time or do you find the child is kind of hungry and also you might want to see if uh if certain dinners the night before make a difference also okay you try to Pat you tried there's no real Pat you did you find a pattern there's more carbs it makes it a little bit okay okay so it's possible people have a lot of different sensitivities and some people um you know some people could fast the whole day and be fine some people really after two or three hours if they don't eat their blood sugar drops and they they have low blood sugar you know some people just thought what we call hypo glycemic and and they really have a much more difficult time so how people metabolize and handle glucose varies but there are things you could do with foods and I usually recommend that people and for your children also if they're going to go more than five hours without eating or having a snack in between that can affect certain children you know they in order to maintain stable blood sugars you sometimes need an in-between snack you know some for some people it might be three hours after a meal but getting the right small meals and snacks sort of space throughout the day is the best way to keep the blood sugars more stable okay and if you give them something let's say they do want something sweet I mean you should try to be a small amount but at least get a protein first I would say um yeah maybe what I think would be a good combination is maybe like fruit and nuts so they have something sweet with like a protein and like a little bit of a fabric okay if they don't like fruit okay it makes a little bit harder um what kind of things do you what the you know there there are Shabbat if you give them a dessert you want to make sure that they ate a good dinner and have a good protein like that balanced protein carbs whatever right before you get into something sweet otherwise right that could right so yeah that's true so maybe some homemade something could be uh you know the answer to it when you control the ingredients right right where you control the sugar content you'll find out the sweeteners and so on yeah if you know once a week the green tablet yeah yeah so after this what we have to do okay so she's asking a question about vitamin D by the way it's very important yeah it's very important that everybody should have their vitamin D levels checked children and adults because it's one of the most common deficiencies in the world today eighty percent of the population could be low especially in Northern climates with vitamin D almost all my patients I tell them to get checked most of them are low or deficient and there are many ramifications for low vitamin D levels which we we're not going to really get into right now the main thing is is to check them let the doctor maybe advise the dosage to get you in the right range you're talking about a very high dose that sometimes doctors recommend to get the range up very quickly but after you follow that therapy you do need a maintenance dose a much lower maintenance dose but you can't say that's the end of it I never take vitamin D again that's not true but a lot of times uh there isn't the proper follow-up you have to get checked again a few months and then maybe you have to take 800 or a thousand a day or something like that only from the Sun which there isn't too much out nowadays okay sunlight is the natural source the only food source where you have a natural source of vitamin D which is uh a nice sauce is a food that children don't eat it's fish fatty fish fatty fish like sardines salmon mackerel Herring Bluefish tuna salmon and sardines in the can of the two best fish with a lot of with a good amount of vitamin D but if your levels are low you cannot rely on a food to really bring them up they really won't do it you will need some sort of supplementation yeah Services I read the ingredients I was like oh my gosh it has so much Pharmaceutical okay so contact my office we'll give you a very pure vitamin D uh without any any you know just a pure vitamin D is that chewables you could chew it you could swallow it it's very small you know you can you can get it it's available the dose most experts agree that the 400 units that are in most multivitamins is not high enough I develop my own multivitamin supplement but you have to swallow it's not a chewable I'm working on a chewable right now for adults on children but the one that I have I put 800 units of vitamin D most experts would say 800 to 1000 is a more optimal range to be in some people say higher than that for I think 800 to 1000 is a is a better range and we put 800 an hour supplement it's for children adolescents and adults as long as they can swallow a tablet it's not a tremendous tablet but it's a it's a good one there's a vitamin it's it's it's very unusual that a vitamin would cause acid reflux but uh you know anything's possible anything's possible so if you know it could be a certain ingredient in that particular vitamin you could maybe try another one you know the one that we made up doesn't have any artificial coloring flavoring preservative sugar dyes tar glue or whatever they they normally put in to hold the pill together it's you know at least it's we we try it doesn't have any yeast it doesn't have any Wheat it doesn't have any dairy you know what I mean sometimes other vitamins could have ingredients that could that may somebody could be sensitive to or allergic to or whatever uh so uh it's it's gluten free the one we made so it's you know it's maybe it would work out better I don't know child like my children they love their Foods they love their vegetables they eat their meat they eat their carbs whole wheat or sticking it we're trying we're working they eat the beans they're good in that so but the doctor still tells me you got to give them multivitamins blood work doesn't stain it so what's the input if we're healthy or trying to follow uh-huh like do we really need to take multivitamins okay so that's a very good that there's a raging debate whether um uh multivitamins are needed if you're eating well I would say that even if you're eating well there are some nutrients that are hard to get like vitamin D for example your kids and your family members could be eating fantastic but they still will not get enough vitamin chances are that they will not get adequate vitamin D have they been checked for vitamin D levels there you go there you go Bingo you see so so the truth is for some of the other nutrients it's very possible that if you're a good eater you could be covered from the foods alone but there are some nutrients that you may not be getting enough of vitamin D is the classic example and uh you know um so that you know there may be a point to say that a good multivitamin mineral supplement could be a little bit of an insurance policy it has to be made properly and it has to have the right kind of ingredients and you know it may provide some benefit that way certainly for the Vitamin D alone I think is it a myth or it's really is true that a vitamin would improve the child's immune system uh only if the child is deficient in something in other words if you could prove or see that the child is not is low it doesn't have an optimal or an adequate let's say vitamin C intake or they have a low zinc level we know it's in senior adults that they were shown to have deficiencies in certain vitamins certain minerals and where they took a multivitamin mineral supplement it did improve immune function but that's in the case where there was a deficiency see what I mean no only only if the doctor orders vitamin and mineral testing which is not typically done but a vitamin and mineral levels are checked assuming these kind of testing that they do is accurate then you would know you would have a better idea also it's a good adult to check it's very good but it won't be routinely done unless the doctor could I guess legitimize ordering a test like that if he suspects that you have a vitamin or a mineral deficiency they may want to test but there's no doctor today you know that's routinely ordering a whole assay of vitamin all the vitamin and minerals even though it probably would be a good idea you know to see um but uh but I've told some patients to get certain things checked and and you know certain things I have a chapter in the book it's called let me just tell you what the chapter says here it's listen to this chapter it says the following it says um you need as opposed to chicken it says best chapter number nine best protein choices meat for Shabbos but not the rest of the week okay so we do talk about other we do talk about other protein options and meat is um let's put it this way if you had the Sheck your own animal okay we would have a lot of vegetarians in the room we eat more meat than we really should because it's available it's just laying out there in the stores for us it's already slaughtered it's already salted it's already cautioned it's already cooked already you know it's not terribly expensive whatever so we consume far more than we really need I usually try to I usually recommend limiting red meat to no more than once a week it's chicken also uh no no chicken and fish could find their way into your diet a little bit more often but I think red meat should be limited to no more than once a week and they do make some better quality red meats nowadays without hormones that are grass-fed there are some stores that sell grass fed beef and that's really the way animals are supposed to eat cat cows are supposed to eat grass you know in moderation I'd be careful with the red meats but I would say if you're going to eat red meat then you can get a better quality and you keep it to a small portion you know that's the way uh that's the way meat was always you know even from a Torah perspective meat is a special occasion kind of food for yamatoivam and Shabbos maybe you know I mean it's not it wasn't really meant to be eaten two or three times a day seven days a week you know I mean yeah that's a different story you know there could be other Foods or supplements or things things like that um they're pretty close the nutrients yeah well hormones and antibiotics and things like that are always a problem a potential problem uh with the way meats are processed um if you could get organic sources of these Foods it's probably better certainly you can get organic dairy products and yogurts and milk and things like that and I would use the animal protein sparingly even chicken I don't think it has to be the other thing about it is the amounts that you eat you've got to make it into a side dish instead of a main dish you know like two or three ounces and fill the plate with a lot of vegetables the book talks about all of these things in terms of how to get the right portions and how to plan your meals better um so I hope um carbs should be the least yeah yeah there's no reason to uh you know uproot good quality carbs from the diet now when I say a good quality carb an example of that to me would be a sweet potato what about chicken we can put only in the oven it's better in the oven it's like baked roasted steamed as long as it's not really deep fried you know breaded and fried I think that there are other ways to do it you know you know what I'm saying boiled um and the skin out yeah yeah preferably yeah remove the skin you'll cut out maybe 50 of the fat just by taking the skin off you see what I mean okay um I enjoyed coming tonight and giving this talk I hope it was helpful to you I know it's there's a lot more we could probably say