By Avraham Binder, Certified Health Coach

A Personal Journey from Sickness to Health

Four years ago, at age 60, I was a walking medical disaster. I had; high blood pressure (my doctor wanted to put me on medication – I resisted), bone-on-bone arthritis in my knee so severe that I walked on crutches and my doctor insisted I needed knee replacement surgery, fatty liver disease, psoriasis since I was young, and I was carrying 35 extra pounds that seemed impossible to lose, no matter what I tried.

I was told this was just “getting older” – accept these conditions as normal parts of aging and rely on medications and surgeries to manage my declining health. But something inside me rebelled against that idea. Was this really what Hashem intended for us? To spend our later years sick, medicated, and in pain? I know, we see it all around us, but is this His intention for us?

Instead of accepting my fate, I dove deep into biochemistry and physiology, studying how Hashem makes the human body actually work. What I discovered changed everything – not just for me, but for my understanding of the health crisis facing our entire community.

After implementing what I learned through a ketogenic diet for eight months, and then transitioning to a carnivore way of eating, the results were nothing short of miraculous. The 35 pounds melted away. My blood pressure normalized completely – I check it daily and have no need of any blood pressure medications. My psoriasis disappeared entirely. My fatty liver healed. And instead of getting knee replacement surgery, I was dancing at my son’s wedding.

But as I celebrated my own health transformation, I began noticing something deeply troubling in our community. At simchas, in supermarkets, at shul – everywhere I looked, I saw Orthodox Jews struggling with the same health problems I had overcome. Worse yet, I saw our children being set up for these same health disasters.

This article is my attempt to share what I’ve learned, not to criticize our beautiful traditions, but to help save our community, our future – especially our precious children – from a health crisis that is entirely preventable and happening now.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Our Community’s Health

Let me be direct: the Orthodox Jewish community is facing a health epidemic that rivals or exceeds that of the general American population. Check any kehilla and you’ll see what I mean. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, and even childhood behavioral issues like ADHD are becoming increasingly common.

This isn’t about genetics. Our grandparents and great-grandparents who immigrated from Europe were generally lean and healthy, living long lives without the chronic diseases that plague us today. What changed wasn’t our DNA – it was our food.

The problem is particularly acute among our children. So many kids who should be bursting with energy are sluggish and overweight. Children who should have sharp, focused minds are struggling with attention problems. Young people who should be healthy and vibrant are already showing signs of insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction.

As painful as it is to acknowledge, we are raising a generation of children whose health trajectory is alarming. If we don’t make dramatic changes now, these children will face diabetes (Type 2 and Type 1 Diabetes), heart disease, autoimmune disorders, and even cancer at rates that would have been unthinkable just two generations ago.

How We’re Accidentally Slow Poisoning Our Children

The health crisis in our community stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of human nutrition, combined with cultural practices that, while well-intentioned, are literally toxic to our children’s developing bodies.

The Carbohydrate Crisis

Walk into any Orthodox Jewish home or school and you’ll see it everywhere: endless carbohydrates. Sugary cereals for breakfast. Sandwiches for lunch. Pizza and pasta for dinner. And that’s just the meals – in between, there are crackers, cookies, fruit snacks, juice boxes, and candy as rewards, and treats as expressions of love.

We’ve created a culture where feeding children carbohydrates is seen as nurturing, where saying “no” to a child’s request for sweets is considered mean, and where special occasions are celebrated almost exclusively with sugar-laden foods.

But here’s what most parents don’t understand: by constantly providing your child carbohydrates, you’re triggering a cascade of hormonal responses that is gradually damaging their health.

Understanding Insulin: The Master Hormone

To understand why carbohydrates are so harmful, we need to understand insulin – perhaps the most important hormone in the human body that most people know almost nothing about.

When your child (and you) eats carbohydrates – whether it’s challah, cereal, fruit juices, or candy – their blood sugar spikes. The body responds by releasing insulin, whose job is to quickly remove that sugar from the bloodstream and store it in cells. Our body keeps a very strict limit, high and low, of glucose to stay alive.

In small amounts, occasionally, this system works fine. But when children eat carbohydrates constantly throughout the day – which is exactly what we’re doing in our community – several devastating things happen:

First, insulin levels stay high constantly. Instead of insulin being released occasionally to handle a rare influx of sugar, it’s being pumped out all day, every day.

Second, cells become resistant to insulin’s signals. Just like a person who lives next to train tracks eventually stops hearing the trains, cells that are constantly exposed to insulin start ignoring it. This is called insulin resistance, and it’s the root cause of most chronic diseases.

Third, high insulin blocks fat burning. When insulin levels are high, the body cannot burn stored fat for energy. This is why children eating high-carb diets are often hungry shortly after eating – their bodies can’t access their own stored energy, so they crave carbohydrates.

Fourth, insulin promotes inflammation throughout the body. Chronic inflammation is linked to virtually every disease we’re seeing in our community: diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, and even cancer.

The Seed Oil Disaster

While carbohydrates are causing hormonal chaos, there’s another villain in our food supply that’s equally destructive: industrial seed oils. These include vegetable oil, canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, and cottonseed oil – the oils used in virtually all processed foods and most restaurant cooking – as they are the cheapest oils to use.

These oils, which didn’t exist in human diets until the last century, are highly unstable and become rancid and oxidized when heated or exposed to light. When we consume them, they become incorporated into our cell membranes, making our cells dysfunctional.

Seed oils damage our mitochondria – the powerhouses of our cells responsible for producing energy. When mitochondria are damaged and their energy output is diminished, we feel tired, sluggish, and mentally foggy. Children consuming large amounts of seed oil often struggle with attention problems, mood swings, and low energy.

These oils also promote inflammation throughout the body and interfere with hormone production, including insulin sensitivity. They’re found in almost all processed foods, school lunches, and restaurant meals (think French fries and schnitzel) that our children consume regularly.

The Mitochondrial Connection

Your mitochondria are like tiny power plants inside every cell, responsible for producing the energy your body needs to function. Healthy mitochondria mean abundant energy, sharp mental focus, and robust physical health. Damaged mitochondria lead to fatigue, brain fog, and increased chance of disease.

Carbohydrates and seed oils are particularly damaging to mitochondria. High insulin levels impair mitochondrial function, while oxidized seed oils directly damage mitochondrial membranes. This explains why so many children in our community seem tired and unfocused despite getting adequate sleep.

When we feed our children a diet high in carbohydrates and seed oils, we’re literally poisoning their cellular energy production systems.

How Our Culture Makes the Problem Worse

Our beautiful Frum culture, with its emphasis on hospitality, celebration, and showing love through food, has unfortunately been hijacked by the modern processed food industry. Many of our most cherished traditions now revolve around foods that are actively harming our health.

The “Shabbos Party”

One of the most troubling “newer minhagim” is the children’s “Shabbos party” – events designed to make Shabbos exciting for children by providing unlimited candy, cookies, and sugary treats. While the intention is beautiful – helping children love Shabbos – the execution is devastating to their health.

These parties teach children to associate spirituality and joy with sugar consumption. They create powerful neural pathways linking the holiness of Shabbos with the dopamine (a reward hormone we create from pleasurable experiences) hit of processed sweets. Children learn that special occasions require sugar, that love is expressed through harmful foods, and that their cravings for carbohydrates should always be satisfied.

Food as Love, Food as Reward

Throughout our community, food has become the primary way we express love, celebrate achievements, and comfort children. Good behavior is rewarded with treats. Learning milestones are celebrated with cake. Sadness is soothed with cookies.

This creates children who are emotionally dependent on food, particularly sweet and starchy foods. They never learn to experience emotions without immediately reaching for carbohydrates to change how they feel.

The Abundance Mentality Gone Wrong

Our community’s hard-earned prosperity has led to an abundance of food that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. While we should be grateful for this blessing, we’ve allowed abundance to become excess, and excess to become normal.

Children in our community often have unlimited access to snacks, treats, and processed foods. Pantries overflow with crackers, cookies, and chips. Refrigerators are stocked with juice boxes (believe it or not, they have more sugar than soda!) and sweetened yogurts. Children learn to eat not when hungry, but whenever they want, whatever they want.

This constant availability of food, particularly carbohydrate-rich foods, keeps insulin levels elevated throughout the day, preventing the natural fasting periods that allow the body to heal and reset.

The Devastating Health Consequences We’re Creating

By feeding our children constant carbohydrates and seed oils, we’re setting them up for a lifetime of health problems that will manifest in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. The damage being done now often takes decades to become apparent, which is why many parents don’t see the connection between their child’s current diet and future health problems.

Metabolic Dysfunction

Children raised on high-carbohydrate diets develop insulin resistance at increasingly young ages. This shows up initially as difficulty maintaining stable energy levels, frequent hunger, and cravings for sweets and starches.

As insulin resistance worsens, it progresses to metabolic syndrome – a cluster of conditions including abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and abnormal cholesterol levels. Eventually, this leads to type 2 diabetes, which is now being diagnosed in teenagers and even pre-teens.

Neurological Problems

The brain is particularly vulnerable to the effects of poor nutrition. High insulin levels and chronic inflammation affect neurotransmitter production and brain function, leading to:

• ADHD and attention problems
• Anxiety and depression
• Brain fog and poor memory
• Mood swings and behavioral issues
• Learning difficulties

Many of the behavioral and attention problems we’re seeing in our children are actually nutritional problems masquerading as neurological disorders.

Autoimmune Disease

Chronic inflammation from a poor diet is a major trigger for autoimmune diseases, where the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues. Conditions like Type 1 diabetes, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and various skin conditions are becoming increasingly common in our community.

Future Fertility Problems

Insulin resistance and chronic inflammation interfere with hormone production and reproductive health. Young women raised on high-carbohydrate diets often develop PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), which can make it difficult to conceive children later in life.

Cancer Risk

While cancer in children is thankfully rare, the dietary patterns we’re establishing now increase cancer risk later in life. Cancer cells preferentially use glucose for fuel, and chronic inflammation creates an environment where cancer can develop and spread.

The Food Addiction We’re Creating

Perhaps the most insidious aspect of feeding our children constant carbohydrates is that it creates genuine physiological addiction. Sugar and refined carbohydrates activate the same reward pathways in the brain as addictive drugs, releasing dopamine and creating cravings for more.

Children who grow up on high-carb diets develop tolerance, needing increasing amounts of sweet and starchy foods to feel satisfied. They experience withdrawal symptoms when these foods are removed – irritability, mood swings, and intense cravings.

This food addiction becomes incredibly difficult to overcome in adulthood. Adults who were raised on constant carbohydrates often find it nearly impossible to change their eating habits, even when faced with serious health consequences.

We are literally addicting our children to the foods that are making them sick.

What Our Children Actually Need to Thrive

Human beings, including children, are designed to thrive on a diet of animal foods – meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. This might sound extreme to parents who’ve been told that children need fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, but the scientific evidence is clear: children can get every nutrient they need from animal foods alone.

The Power of Animal Foods

Animal foods provide:

• Complete proteins containing all essential amino acids needed for growth and development;
• Healthy fats which are crucial for brain development and hormone production;
• Bioavailable vitamins and minerals in forms the body can easily absorb and use; and
• There are no carbohydrates spiking insulin and promoting inflammation.

Children eating primarily animal foods have stable energy throughout the day, better focus and attention, fewer behavioral problems, and optimal physical development.

Why Plants Aren’t Necessary (But OK As a Side Dish)

While this contradicts everything we’ve been taught, children do not need fruits, vegetables, or grains to be healthy. In fact, many plant foods contain anti-nutrients, fiber, and compounds that can interfere with nutrient absorption and promote inflammation.

The nutrients found in plants are either:

• Also available in animal foods in more bioavailable forms
• Not essential for human health
• Produced by the human body when needed

The Meat Based Solution

A diet consisting primarily of animal foods provides optimal nutrition for children while eliminating the foods causing metabolic dysfunction. Cooked low carbohydrate vegetables can be a side dish for taste.

Children eating meat based, typically experience:

• Stable energy throughout the day
• Improved focus and attention
• Better sleep
• Fewer behavioral problems
• Optimal growth and development
• Resolution of digestive issues
• Clearer skin

Making the Transition: Practical Steps for Families

I understand that completely changing your family’s diet feels overwhelming, especially when it goes against everything we’ve been taught. But the health of our children depends on making these changes, and the sooner we start, the more damage we can prevent.

Start with Breakfast

The most important change you can make is eliminating the high-carbohydrate breakfast that starts most children’s days with blood sugar and insulin spikes. Instead of carb laden cereal, bagels, or toast, give your children:

• Eggs cooked in butter
• Half an avocado on the eggs or cooked in the eggs
• Full-fat dairy like whole milk or cheese (on or cooked in the eggs)

This protein and fat-rich breakfast will make them feel full, provide stable energy, and eliminate the mid-morning hunger and behavioral problems that often follow carbohydrate-heavy meals.

Eliminate Snacking

Constant snacking keeps insulin levels elevated throughout the day. Children who eat and fill up on nutrient-dense meals of animal foods can easily go 4-5 hours between meals without hunger.

Remove all processed snack foods from your home. When children say they’re hungry between meals, offer them water first – often thirst masquerades as hunger. If that doesn’t work, try a quick burger (without the bun).

Transform Shabbos and Holidays

This is perhaps the most challenging aspect, as it requires rethinking some of our most cherished traditions. But consider this: is it more important to honor Shabbos with particular foods that harm our children’s health, or to find new ways to make Shabbos special that doesn’t involve sugar?

Instead of candy-filled Shabbos parties, consider:

• Special activities and games
• Beautiful presentations of healthy foods (make your own meat boards)
• New books or small gifts
• Extra time for family bonding

For Shabbos meals, focus on high-quality meats, and fish, with cooked (in avocado or coconut oil) fresh vegetables on the side. Make the presentation beautiful and special without relying on carbohydrate-heavy sides.

Handle School and Social Situations

School environments and social situations, where other children are eating processed foods, present ongoing challenges. Work with your child’s school to provide appropriate lunches (preferably send them to school with lunch from home). Prepare your children for social situations by explaining why your family eats differently.

Remember that your child’s health is more important than fitting in or avoiding difficult conversations. It may take a few months, but see how your children react to feeling better, having more energy and more clarity of thought for learning.

Addressing Common Concerns and Objections

“But Children Need Carbohydrates for Energy”

This is perhaps the most common misconception. Children’s bodies can produce all the glucose they need through a process called gluconeogenesis – from the proteins and fats they are eating. They don’t need to consume carbohydrates to have energy – in fact, they’ll have more stable energy without them. Think of it like this – if you put twigs on a fire it flames up quickly and burns out quickly. That’s carbohydrates. If you put a log on the fire, it keeps burning slowly and steady for a long time. That’s their (and your) body burning fat instead of carbohydrates.

“What About Fiber?”

Fiber is not essential for human health. Children eating animal-based diets typically have excellent digestive health without added fiber. Fiber can actually block the absorption of important nutrients.

“This Is Too Extreme”

What’s extreme is the current epidemic of childhood obesity, diabetes, and behavioral problems. What’s extreme is watching our children develop diseases that were once rare. A diet of natural, whole foods is not extreme – it’s normal.

“What Will People Think?”

The health of your children is more important than social approval. As more families make these changes, it will become normalized in our community.

The Urgency of Action

Every day we delay making these changes is another day of damage to our children’s developing bodies. The neurological, metabolic, and hormonal disruption caused by poor diet is happening right now, even in children who appear healthy on the outside.

The food addiction we’re creating becomes stronger and harder to break with each passing month. The insulin resistance we’re promoting becomes more entrenched. The inflammation we’re causing does more damage.

But the flip side is equally true – every day we feed our children properly is a day of healing. Children’s bodies are remarkably resilient and can recover quickly from metabolic damage when given the right nutrition.

A Vision for Our Community’s Future

Imagine an Orthodox community where:

• Children have stable energy and sharp focus throughout the day
• ADHD, anxiety, and behavioral problems are rare
• Obesity is virtually unknown
• Teenagers don’t develop diabetes or metabolic syndrome
• Young adults enter marriage healthy and fertile
• Our future talmidei chachamim have the physical and brain health to support their learning

This isn’t a fantasy – it’s entirely achievable if we have the courage to change how we feed our children.

The Choice Before Us

We stand at a crossroads. We can continue down the current path, prioritizing short-term convenience and social acceptance while watching our children develop preventable diseases, or we can have the courage to make difficult changes that will transform their health and their futures.

This isn’t about being perfect or never allowing children to enjoy food. It’s about recognizing that what we currently consider normal eating is actually pathological, and that we have the power to change course.

The science is clear. The evidence is overwhelming. The only question remaining is whether we have the strength to make the changes necessary to save them from the health crisis we’ve created.

Our ancestors sacrificed everything to give us the opportunity to live as observant Jews in freedom and prosperity. Now it’s our turn to sacrifice – to give up the convenient processed foods and social acceptance that come with feeding our children the same harmful diet as the rest of society.

The future of our community depends on the choices we make today. Our children are counting on us to have the wisdom and courage to choose their health over our habits.

The time for action is now. Our children’s lives depend on it.