I try to feed my kids healthy foods all the time. But I am going to be honest; there have been a few days here and there that I have fed them something completely off the wall and totally unhealthy. For example, one day a few months ago, my boys had pickles and donut sticks for breakfast. Now I know that this is very unhealthy, but I guess I was just feeling lazy that day. They asked for pickles and donuts, and I caved and said OK. Oops. At first, I didn’t know that there were “brain foods.” I didn’t realize that food had any effect on your brain and how it performed. I was tooling around on the internet the other day and came across a pretty interesting article on the Dr. Phil McGraw website. In regards to brain foods, it talks about how children need a balanced nutritional diet with lots of vitamins and minerals to help their brains function. They did a study in New York and found that if they took out all of the fake stuff (artificial colors and flavors, dyes and additives) out of the kids lunches that their IQ’s went up by 14 points! And that was only lunch! Can you imagine how smart our children would be if we took out almost all of the fake stuff in their diets?! So I think that when I go to the grocery store next time, I’m going to look a little closer at the labels and try to buy more brain foods for my boys. Things like oranges that are high in vitamin C and that will help improve their memory and performance. Eggs are also considered a brain food because they are high in choline which is a memory boosting vitamin; so I think that instead of Pop-Tarts of Froot Loops, maybe we will start having eggs for breakfast! I guess that means no more pickles and donut stick mornings….