Thinking Out of the Box: One Mom's Guide to Healthy Eating

Boys will be boys. Or so she thought. When her 7-year-old twin boys were toddlers, Kim Gerber thought they were just being themselves. Then she stumbled upon research establishing a link between the consumption of processed food and behavioral problems in children.

“I noticed sudden signs of hyperactivity, similar to a sugar peak followed by a crash,” says the mom of two, who started Out of the Box Food, a resource Web site for parents.

Children’s nutrition advocate

She prefers to be called a children’s nutrition advocate. “I am not a nutritionist,” says Gerber who has a Master’s Degree in education and a teaching credential.

However, Gerber is diligent about doing her homework, dutifully researching topics for her weekly Web site posts ranging from alternative recipes for store-bought snacks to school lunches.

“I just want to come up with good, well-researched content week after week,” says the California native, who realized that there are parents like her who are perennially stuck in a “kid food conundrum.”

Since June 2010, when it went live, the ad-free Web site has had over 72,000 hits. “I love the fact that I was able to combine four of my passions: cooking, nutrition, writing and children, in one place” she states.

Smart choices

Gerber goes through three steps when faced with a processed food dilemma. First, she deconstructs "the box" or the item in question. “I break down the ingredients as much as I can,” she explains. She recently tackled the Quaker Chewy Chocolate Chip granola bars on her site.

Secondly, she looks for fresh alternatives from scratch. For the same granola bars, she found more natural alternatives for the granola, semi-sweet chocolate chips and the brown rice crisp.

Finally, she makes the item herself. “It doesn’t have to be time-consuming,” Gerber says of the 20-minute recipe she came up with. “Not everything has to be from scratch.”

“We just have to be aware and read labels religiously,” she says of her “real food over fake food” choices.

Poor choices

Gerber is also vigilant about unnatural and unnecessary ingredients such as food dyes. Four of the most commonly-used food dyes – red 40, blue 1, yellow 5 and yellow 6 have been linked to cancer, hyperactivity and allergic reactions.

Think “yellow” in macaroni and cheese or the “blue” coloring in blueberry waffles. These synthetic chemicals are reportedly also prevalent in sodas, candies, snack foods and sugary cereals, but have no nutritional qualities.

Gerber is also wary of tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a form of butane or lighter fluid, which made news recently when some advocates discovered it in a popular food chain’s chicken nuggets.

Then there’s carrageenan, a seaweed extract used as a thickener and emulsifier. “I could go on and on with these food ingredients to watch out for,” says Gerber, who routinely refers to A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Alternatives by Ruth Winter for her research.

One thing at a time

As an advocate for children, Gerber has spoken in front of several moms’ groups recently and is looking forward to similar engagements. A possible book and some Web site enhancements may also be in the works, but she was quite mum about time lines and specifics.

Said Gerber: “I am constantly just looking for ways to reach more people."