On Food

I often tease that when I was a kid, we used to eat dirt and sticks for most of our meals. I say this because we did not have a large supply of junk food at my house. I'm pretty sure the sources of our healthy eating were varied. I think my Mom's focus on healthy options for her kids was a backlash from being raised on junk food and burnt TV dinners. My Dad's input was from his interest in an overall healthy lifestyle, based on theories and practices in the east. My Dad has been a vegan since I was a child. Anyway, we ate together each and every night. We had a salad with almost every meal. My Mom cut up radishes on a daily basis to include them in our salads...who does that? We did not have junk food for snacks. When I was in middle school, my Mom started to regularly buy Teddy Grahams and pretzels. This was a huge deal. This is not to say that we did not enjoy treats from time to time. We drank Kool-Aid and ate ice cream. Nonetheless, we ate healthily.

As time went on, I definitely got away from these types of eating patterns. I'm not sure if it was college, a lack of time or a lack of creativity that led me to start eating like total crap. I do know that I continued eating processed and packaged foods until relatively recently. Don't get me wrong, I tried to encourage healthy eating in our home. I bought all kinds of produce. A lot of which went down the garbage disposal in favor of the likes of Pop Tarts and other pre-packaged goodness. I remember "cooking" dinner for Jason, Madda and I before Sawyer was born. I "cooked" chicken nuggets and french fries. We may have added baby carrots to the menu. Yuk. At this point, I don't even buy any of those things. Several months ago, one of Sawyer's friends was over and asked me if she could have some Trix. I told her I didn't have any and she responded by letting me know that I had them the last time that she visited. I had fed she and my daughter Trix as a snack. For me, this was a failure. I had become the mom who has junk food. I kind of wonder if that little girl was hoping for some grape pop to go with her Trix. Although I had started my rampage of improving our eating habits before this interaction, it brought back some images of some of the crap I have put into my body. Into my body- both pregnant and not. Confession: when I was pregnant with Sawyer, I think I ate dry Fruit Loops out of a cup for breakfast on most days. Often, I would wash them down with a package of un-toasted Pop Tarts. Certainly not the breakfast of champions for babies in utero. I am ashamed to admit that one Thanksgiving when Madeline was very ill with the flu, I purchased an all-in-one turkey casserole deal. The turkey came in a can and you mixed all the "ingredients" together for "Classic Turkey Dinner." Seriously. Poor Jason almost vomited on himself after taking one fateful bite. I think his nausea was followed by the shedding of a single tear. Over the loss of a real turkey dinner.

I really regret some of the things I have let my children consume. They are more than familiar with Pop Tarts, soda, chocolate milk, Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Puffs, TV dinners and candy of all sorts. They have never, ever tasted broccoli, brussel sprouts or lima beans. Neither of my girls drink milk. They don't like orange juice. They refuse to eat oatmeal. The foods that they agree to eat are so few that I struggle to find things to offer them. They eat more yogurt (Yoplait- also known as sugar with calcium) than I can hardly believe- simply because it is one of the only things they enjoy that contains necessary nutrients. I have created these monsters because of my own inability to let them go hungry. I have been too busy, frustrated or tired to have the fight over food. However, that fight has begun. Additionally, our kids do not do a very effective job of sitting at the table and eating. This is likely because I am a short order cook who allows them to eat the food of their choice at an earlier time than their father and I eat a "real dinner." Often, they do not have their parents eating with them and therefore are not properly socialized/instructed on family meals.

I may be a bit dramatic in my confessions of the diets I have allowed for my kids. They do eat a lot of produce and I have cleared the pantry of most things processed and junky. I have even converted my junk food junkie, super sweet tooth, DENTIST of a husband to some eating habits that I would not have even hoped for 5 years ago. I attribute a lot of this turnaround to the book, "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. It is an eye-opening read and really had a tremendous impact on me. Of course, other healthier choices in my life- emotionally, socially and physically have played their respective parts in my new-found love of healthy living. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to check out "In Defense of Food." You can say you read about it here first.