Chapter 11: The Next Generation
Recipe 11: The Marshmallow
and something a little more simple: Kid-Friendly Power Cookies
We do not inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children. This truth extends to our bodies, our habits, and our relationship with food. If a child grows up in a chronically stressed environment, they literally stop growing—not just emotionally, but physically. The developmental windows that open in childhood, if missed, can never be fully recovered. Just as a child who grows up without language will never speak with complete fluency, a child whose cellular development is compromised by poor nutrition and chronic stress may never achieve their full potential for health and vitality. This isn't meant to create guilt, but to illuminate possibility. Teaching children to crave health, to find joy in foods that truly nourish them, is perhaps the most important gift we can give. It's about creating taste memories and food traditions that will serve them for life, breaking generational patterns of poor health, and giving them the cellular resilience to thrive in an uncertain world.
Chapter 11: The Next Generation
Recipe 11: Kid-Friendly Power Cookies
"We do not inherit the earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children."
There Is No Blank Slate Anymore
Here's something that should stop you in your tracks: the average baby born in America today already carries over 200 known toxic chemicals in their umbilical cord blood. Before they take their first breath, before they eat their first meal, they're already carrying a chemical burden that didn't exist just three generations ago.
Nobody starts with a clean slate anymore. We're all beginning life with problems our great-grandparents never faced.
But here's the part that will blow your mind: we were all in our grandmother's bellies for four months. A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have, formed by around the fifth month of pregnancy. This means when your grandmother was pregnant with your mother, you were already there, as an egg inside your developing mother.
Every time a mother or grandmother has a surprise, her baby jumps too. Nutrients, stress hormones, everything. We are literally connected across generations in ways we're only beginning to understand.
This means we're not just affecting the children we're feeding today—we're influencing the next two generations with every pregnant woman. When a woman eats well during pregnancy, she's not just nourishing her baby, she's nourishing her future grandchildren. When she's exposed to toxins, those effects ripple forward through generations.
And the science gets even more staggering: epigenetics tells us that what we do has effects for at least 10 generations down. We can activate dormant genetic memories that have been forgotten for potentially 900-1,000 years. The choices we make today about food, stress, and environment can literally bring back ancestral strength or ancestral trauma that's been dormant for nearly a millennium.
Think about that for a moment. Your great-grandmother's womb was a pristine environment. Today's babies are swimming in a chemical soup that includes pesticides, plastics, heavy metals, and industrial compounds that didn't exist when their great-grandparents were born.
But we also have an unprecedented opportunity: we can use this same multigenerational connection to heal patterns that have been passed down, to activate genes for resilience and health that may have been dormant for centuries.
If we really thought about this—I mean really sat with the magnitude of our multigenerational responsibility—everything would change. Everything.
If We Put Kids First, Everything Would Transform
Imagine if children's health became our actual priority instead of just something we say matters. Not just their immediate safety, but their long-term vitality, their ability to reach their full genetic potential, their capacity to thrive in the world we're leaving them.
Our food system would be less toxic for all of us. Advertising would be less predatory, especially the marketing of plastics and fake foods and pharmaceuticals to developing brains. We can still have a capitalistic economy—we'd just think about our products more intentionally, designing for the whole planet to thrive instead of just quarterly profits.
We'd remove the plastics that are hormonal endocrine disruptors, shown to reduce penis size in boys and disrupt reproductive development in girls. We'd stop putting plastic playground equipment in parks where kids get second and third degree burns because the equipment reaches temperatures 30+ degrees hotter than the surrounding air when trees have been removed for "safety."
The irony is devastating: ER doctors report fewer broken bones in kids today, but more catastrophic falls, because children never learn their boundaries. We've created "safe" environments that are actually more dangerous—physically, developmentally, and chemically.
I've seen exactly one park that got this right: Maggie Daley Park in Chicago, where trees are thoughtfully integrated with beautifully designed play structures. Kids climb real trees alongside designed climbing features. They learn boundaries gradually instead of catastrophically. I've looked everywhere in California and can't find a single park designed with this kind of intention.
If we put children's health first, we'd design our communities differently. Cars parked further away, more walkable spaces, easier physical connection between neighbors, more beauty and less junk stuffed into every corner. We'd stop injecting non-biodegradable waste into the earth and start thinking generationally.
This helps all of us: cleaner water, cleaner air, better food education, healthcare systems focused on prevention instead of profit, employment policies that consider lifetime wellbeing instead of quarterly extraction.
We'd give parents space to have lives outside of work, passions and projects that create happier humans overall. Because depleted, stressed parents can't raise thriving children.
So many changes become possible when we put children's health first. It's not just about individual families making better choices—it's about reorganizing society around what actually matters.
Why Caring for Kids Is Actually Selfish (And That's Okay)
Here's something that might sound harsh but is absolutely true: caring for the next generation is one of the most selfish things you can do. Whether you have children or not, these kids will be the ones taking care of us when we can no longer take care of ourselves.
They'll be our doctors, our nurses, our caregivers. They'll be running the companies, making the policies, creating the world we'll age in. Their health—physical, mental, emotional—directly impacts the quality of life we'll have in our later years.
But here's the beautiful part: we're not just selfish. We're altruistic on top of survival of the fittest. We'll jump in front of a bus to protect people we don't know, especially children. It's written into our DNA to care for the young, to ensure the survival of our species.
So when you choose to feed a child real food, you're acting on both levels—the deeply selfish desire to create a world where you'll be well cared for, and the altruistic impulse to give every child the best possible chance at health and happiness.
Both motivations are valid. Both are necessary. Both are human.
Start Where You Are (No Blame Allowed)
Before we go any further, let's be absolutely clear about something: this information is not about blame. Not blame for how you were raised, not blame for choices you made before you knew better, not blame for the packaged food in your pantry right now or the fast food your kids ate last week.
You cannot blame yourself for things you had no idea about. The fact that you're reading this right now means you're exactly where you need to be, knowing exactly what you need to know, at exactly the right time.
Whether you're pregnant with your first child, parenting teenagers, thinking about grandchildren you haven't met yet, or caring for any children whose lives you can touch—this moment, right now, is your moment to begin.
Here's something that brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it: we'll spend weeks researching the safest car seat, reading crash test ratings, comparing features, making sure we have the absolute best protection for that precious little body. We'll spend $300 on a car seat without blinking.
But we'll spend more time choosing that car seat than we do thinking about the nutrients that child needs to actually form the body that will sit in it.
We obsess over protecting them from a car accident that may never happen, while feeding them substances that are guaranteed to damage their developing systems every single day. We research cribs and strollers and baby monitors, but we don't research what's in the food that's building their bones, their brains, their immune systems.
This isn't about blame—this is about awakening. Most of us had no idea. I certainly didn't when I was first figuring this out. But once you know, you can't unknow. And that's when everything changes.
Raising Kids with Intention
Walk into any restaurant with a "kids menu" and you'll see the same beige palette everywhere—chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, pizza, french fries, grilled cheese. All processed. All designed to be immediately appealing to children who haven't had a chance to develop real taste preferences.
But kids in Thailand eat spicy curry. Toddlers in Greece devour olives and fresh fish. Children in Mexico enjoy complex salsas and varied vegetables. The idea that children "won't eat" real food is a myth created by a culture that decided to feed kids food-like substances instead of actual food.
When we raise kids with intention, we make conscious choices about what we normalize. We decide what their taste buds will expect, what their bodies will crave, what their relationship with food will become.
The Window That Never Opens Again
Here's what I learned that changed everything about how I think about feeding kids: if a child grows up in a chronically stressed environment, they literally stop growing—not just emotionally, but physically. The developmental windows that open in childhood, if missed, can never be fully recovered.
Just as a child who grows up without language will never speak with complete fluency, a child whose cellular development is compromised by poor nutrition and chronic stress may never achieve their full potential for health and vitality.
This isn't meant to create guilt—it's meant to illuminate possibility. We have this incredible window of influence where every meal becomes an opportunity to build strong bodies, sharp minds, and healthy relationships with food that will serve them for life.
The Engineering Approach to Kid Nutrition
As an engineer, I like to break complex problems down into simple systems. Here's what we're really doing when we feed our kids:
Input: Food choices we make daily Process: How their developing bodies use those nutrients Output: The adults they become
Every cell in your child's body is being built from the food you provide. But here's the mind-blowing part: the quality of that food is literally programming their genes for how those cells will function for the rest of their lives.
This is called epigenetics—how our environment affects genetic expression. Two children with identical DNA can have completely different health outcomes based on how they're nourished during their critical developmental years.
If your child receives optimal nutrition during their formative years, you can actually activate genes for:
Enhanced immune function
Better stress resilience
Improved cognitive development
Stronger bone and muscle formation
More efficient metabolism
Poor nutrition during these same years can activate genes associated with diabetes, heart disease, mental health struggles, and autoimmune conditions.
The everyday choices we make about food are literally sculpting our children's biological destiny.
My Beautiful Birth Story (That Started in the Kitchen)
I need to tell you about my childbirth experiences, because they perfectly illustrate how preparing your body with real food creates ripple effects you never expect.
I had two completely natural births that were so smooth, the medical staff kept asking what I'd done differently. One doctor said our family should be on a billboard. But here's the thing—it wasn't luck. It was the years of eating real food that prepared my body for one of the most physically demanding experiences possible.
I was grateful beyond words that I'd cleaned up my diet in the years before having children. My body was strong, my hormones were balanced, my inflammation was low. I recovered quickly, had abundant milk supply, and felt energized rather than depleted.
This is what optimal nutrition can do—it prepares your body not just to survive major life events, but to thrive through them. And that preparation starts long before pregnancy, with every meal you choose.
Recipe 11: Kid-Friendly Power Cookies (Two Ways)
These aren't just cookies—they're proof that food kids love can also be food that builds strong bodies and sharp minds. They're my answer to the question "But what can I give my kids that they'll actually eat?"
Version 1: Grain-Free Power Cookies
The Power Base:
2 cups coconut flour
1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds)
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/4 cup chia seeds
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Version 2: Gluten-Free Flour Power Cookies
The Power Base:
2 1/2 cups 1:1 gluten-free flour blend
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/4 cup chia seeds
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (if not in your flour blend)
The Natural Sweetness (For Both Versions):
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted (or sunflower seed butter for Version 2)
2 pasture-raised eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
The Fun Mix-Ins (Let Kids Choose!):
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (70% cacao or higher)
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds
1/4 cup dried fruit (no sugar added)
The Cookie Magic: Preheat oven to 350°F. Let children measure and mix the dry ingredients—this is where the learning happens. They're counting scoops, feeling different textures, observing how ingredients combine.
Mix wet ingredients separately, then combine. Here's the best part: let each child create their own mix-in combination. Some might want all chocolate chips, others might prefer coconut and dried fruit. This choice-making builds ownership and excitement.
Drop spoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes until edges are golden. The coconut flour version will be more dense and cake-like, while the 1:1 flour version behaves more like traditional cookies.
These cookies satisfy in a way that processed treats never can—they provide steady energy without crashes, nutrients along with sweetness, and the satisfaction that comes from creating something together.
Breaking the Manipulation Cycle
Here's something that made me furious when I figured it out: the food industry has spent billions studying our children's brains to figure out how to make them addicted to food-like substances.
They've created flavor combinations that hijack neural pathways, textures that feel immediately rewarding, and packaging that triggers the reward centers in developing brains. They've turned childhood into a testing ground for addiction.
When I see "kid-friendly" marketed foods, I see manipulation disguised as convenience. Bright colors, cartoon characters, prizes inside—all designed to make children want things that will undermine their health for decades.
But here's our power: we can choose not to participate. We can teach our kids what real food tastes like before their taste buds get hijacked. We can create positive associations with foods that actually serve their bodies.
Food as Love vs. Food as Control
One of the most important things I learned as a parent is the difference between using food to truly nourish versus using it to manipulate or control.
Food as genuine love:
Offering variety and letting children choose what appeals to them
Modeling eating the same foods we're offering them
Focusing on how food makes us feel rather than rules about "good" and "bad"
Creating pleasant experiences around eating
Trusting children's hunger and fullness cues
Teaching cooking skills so they can eventually care for themselves
Food as manipulation:
Using dessert as a bribe to get children to eat vegetables
Withholding food as punishment or offering it as reward
Forcing children to "clean their plates" regardless of hunger cues
Labeling foods as "good" or "bad" in ways that create guilt and shame
Using food to soothe emotions instead of addressing underlying feelings
These patterns teach children that food is about power and control rather than nourishment and care. They learn to eat based on external rules rather than internal signals, setting them up for a lifetime of confused relationships with both food and their bodies.
The Magic of Cooking Together
There's something almost alchemical that happens when a family cooks together. The kitchen becomes a laboratory where children learn that food comes from ingredients, not packages. They discover that cooking is creative, that they can influence how things taste, that preparing food for people you love is one of life's fundamental pleasures.
When your three-year-old helps wash vegetables, they're learning that food grows in the earth. When your six-year-old helps measure ingredients for these cookies, they're developing number sense and following sequences. When your ten-year-old helps plan the week's meals, they're learning to think ahead and consider others' needs.
But beyond these practical skills, they're absorbing something deeper: that food matters enough to spend time on, that eating together is important enough to prioritize, that they are capable of contributing to the family's wellbeing.
Supporting New Mothers: The Foundation of Everything
Before we can nourish the next generation, we need to nourish the mothers who are literally building those children from their own bodies. A well-nourished mother creates the optimal environment for healthy development, while a depleted mother passes on nutritional deficiencies and stress patterns.
Remember that bone broth from Chapter 1? It becomes even more powerful when we understand its role in supporting new mothers. Instead of bringing flowers to new mothers, bring a pot of homemade bone broth. It's medicine they can sip while nursing, nutrition they can absorb without effort.
Ocean Wisdom Congee for New Mothers
The Healing Base:
1 cup jasmine rice
8-10 cups bone broth
1 piece kombu seaweed (about 4 inches)
1 tablespoon dried wakame, soaked and chopped
1 sheet nori, torn into pieces
The Restoring Additions:
1-inch piece fresh ginger, sliced thin
2 green onions, chopped
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon tamari
1 soft-boiled egg per serving
Toasted sesame seeds
Cook rice in broth with kombu for 1.5-2 hours until completely broken down into creamy porridge. Add wakame and ginger in the last 10 minutes. Serve topped with nori, green onions, sesame oil, and a runny egg.
This congee can be made in large batches and reheated throughout the week, providing consistent nourishment when new mothers have little energy for cooking.
The Davis Experiment: Trusting Children's Wisdom
Here's a study that should change how we think about feeding kids: In the 1920s, pediatrician Clara Davis observed 15 children for six years, offering them 34 whole, natural foods and letting them eat whatever they wanted, however much they wanted.
The children created 15 completely different eating patterns. One child ate mostly meat for months. Another consumed large quantities of orange juice. But here's what happened: all the children thrived. They grew normally and were remarkably free of common childhood diseases.
The crucial detail: this worked only because Davis had pre-selected the foods. Every option was whole, natural, and nutritious. The children's bodies could make wise choices because they weren't being offered engineered substances designed to hijack their neural pathways.
This is our template: when everything available is real food, children's natural preferences will guide them toward what their bodies need.
Age-Appropriate Strategies That Actually Work
Babies and Toddlers (6 months - 3 years):
Start with single ingredients so they can taste individual flavors
Offer what you're eating, adapted for their stage
Let them explore food with their hands—messiness is learning
Trust their appetite fluctuations
Young Children (3-7 years):
Involve them in age-appropriate food preparation
Visit farmers markets and gardens
Create rituals around meals that make them special
Let them help make these power cookies, choosing their own mix-ins
Older Children (8-12 years):
Teach actual cooking skills for simple meal preparation
Involve them in grocery shopping and ingredient reading
Help them notice how different foods make them feel
Give them more responsibility for food choices within your framework
Teenagers (13+ years):
Respect their growing independence while maintaining family food culture
Help them understand connections between food and their goals
Teach them to cook meals they can prepare independently
Include them in deeper conversations about food and health
When Kids Resist (And They Will)
It's natural for children to go through phases of food resistance. This is often normal development rather than a problem to be solved. Instead of turning meals into battlegrounds:
Continue offering variety without pressure
Include at least one food you know they'll eat at each meal
Involve them in food preparation (like making these cookies together)
Model adventurous eating ourselves
Stay calm and avoid making food refusal into a power struggle
Remember that it can take many exposures before children accept new foods
Most importantly, separate your children's eating from your identity as a parent. Their food choices don't reflect on your worth—they reflect their developmental stage and individual preferences.
The Inheritance We Create
We talk about leaving financial inheritance for our children, but what about biological inheritance? What about giving them strong bones that develop fully, teeth that grow straight, brains that fire clearly, immune systems that know the difference between friend and foe?
This inheritance isn't written in a will—it's written in the cells you're building today. Both parents contribute to this genetic foundation. Traditional cultures knew this and prepared both men and women for parenthood, understanding that the health of both parents would determine the strength of their lineage.
The full sperm production cycle takes about 74 days. For eggs, it takes 90-120 days for a primordial follicle to mature. This means both parents should start optimizing their health at least three months before trying to conceive.
We've somehow reduced pregnancy preparation to prenatal vitamins for women, ignoring the crucial months before conception when both parents can optimize their cellular health.
Starting Where You Are (No Guilt Allowed)
If you're feeling overwhelmed reading about critical windows and lifelong impacts, take a breath. You are exactly where you need to be, knowing exactly what you need to know, at exactly the right time.
Whether you're pregnant with your first child, parenting teenagers, thinking about grandchildren you haven't met yet, or caring for any children whose lives you can touch—this moment, right now, is your moment to begin.
This week: Make these power cookies together. Let children choose their mix-ins and help with age-appropriate tasks.
This month: Establish one family food tradition, like making these cookies every Sunday or having everyone help prepare one meal together.
This season: Take children to a farmers market. Let them choose ingredients for next week's cookies.
This year: Teach children to prepare one complete meal independently, building on the confidence they gain from successful cookie-making.
The Ripple Effect That Changes Everything
When we raise children who have healthy relationships with food, we're not just improving their individual health outcomes—we're changing the trajectory of future generations. These children will become adults who:
Choose partners who support their health rather than undermine it
Create their own families with strong food cultures
Resist food industry marketing because they know what real satisfaction feels like
Pass down cooking skills and nutritional wisdom to their own children
Demand better food systems because they won't accept processed substitutes
Every child we reach, every family dinner we prioritize, every cooking lesson we offer creates ripples that extend far beyond what we can see or measure.
Vote with Your Fork (And Teach Them To Do the Same)
Every time you choose real food over engineered addiction, you're reclaiming power from an industry that has turned human vulnerability into a business model. When you teach your children to make these same choices, you're giving them the tools to resist manipulation for the rest of their lives.
Your children will carry forward whatever you give them—not just the nutrients in their cells, but the understanding that they matter enough to feed well, that food can be both nourishing and delicious, that eating together strengthens the bonds that hold families and communities together.
The Sacred Act of Feeding
When we understand that feeding our children is one of the most powerful ways we can influence their health, happiness, and future success, every meal becomes sacred. Not in a stressful, pressure-filled way, but in a way that honors the magnitude of what we're doing.
We're not just filling little bellies—we're building little bodies and minds. We're creating memories and traditions. We're teaching lessons about love, care, and what it means to be human.
These power cookies, mixed by small hands and eaten with joy, become more than just a snack. They become proof that healthy food can be delicious, that children can be trusted with choices, that cooking together strengthens bonds, and that the next generation can grow up with a completely different relationship with food than we might have had.
The window of influence we have with children is brief and precious. Every positive food experience, every cooking lesson, every family meal where they feel heard and valued builds the foundation for a lifetime of healthy choices.
This is how we change the world: one cookie, one child, one family at a time.
This isn't about perfection—it's about intention. It's about understanding that the time we have to influence these critical windows is brief and precious, and that the choices we make during these years will echo through generations.
You don't need to be a perfect cook or have a perfect kitchen or create perfect meals. You just need to bring love, intention, and real food to the table. Your children will carry this forward into their own families, creating ripples of health that extend far beyond what you can see or measure.
Welcome to the most important work you'll ever do. Welcome to changing the world, one meal at a time.