If I only had a clue…

For my kids, I have to keep it simple – keep meal time simple that is. Any food dish that requires more than 3 ingredients sends them running for the hills. Sugar, carbs and dairy products are their current poison of choice despite the years of efforts I spent attempting to train their bodies to prefer fruits and veges.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a vegetarian and I love meat. It just seemed that a few years focused on incorporating the all of the major food groups into every meal would give them an advantage in the health department as they grew up. Yet, I once again learn that if anything about parenting were simple then I could also expect world peace tomorrow.

In all seriousness, I wouldn’t let my 4-yr-old eat desserts until she was two. You might think this was mean, but she couldn’t miss what she didn’t know existed. And, I’d like one person to prove to me how feeding a baby or toddler sweets actually benefits them? At the same time, her father happily and secretly introduced her to ice cream, chocolate chip cookies and a variety of other sweets. Just goes to show, you can’t control everything.

And although I acknowledge that parenting is hard, it doesn’t stop me from wondering and judging other parents along the way. I’ve seen toddlers eating Doritos at the pediatrician office;   barely walking infants munching on French fries; and one of my all-time favorites…

        …a 3 year old – with several cavities – having just screamed his way through the last of his required fillings – eating a Snickers Bar on his way out of the dentist office.

I will never forget the look on my dentist’s face as she sat down and told me what was going on with the child before diving in to give me a deep root cleaning. To say I wasn’t a bit apprehensive considering her agitation level would be a lie.

And who could blame her? What are these parents thinking?

We are the fattest nation in the world.

We eat preserved, altered and otherwise toxic food every day of our lives.

In America, there is virtually no getting around it. You could shop at Whole Foods – but that’s not an option for a lot of us.

We could just try a bit harder – especially when it comes to our kids. Our canned and frozen foods are filled with unnatural toxic crap. I know because we eat a lot of canned foods and the challenge is finding those that have the least amount of bad stuff in them. Our meats are polluted. They are filled with, not just on the preservative side, but the food we give them is toxic and we jack them up with a variety of steroids and other drugs to help them grow “big and strong”. I know this and I still eat meat. I love meat.

Again, you just have to try and find the healthiest product you can. I’d love to buy “organic” meat but it’s ridiculously expensive. Even organic eggs are a bit out of hand n the cost side of things.

 Some of it’s about what you can afford and what you can’t. Some of it is about effort. Even Wal-Mart carries Annie’s – a fantastic company that develops organic food stuff for kids, including a fantastic Mac & Cheese. Costs more than Kraft but it’s not too much if you bulk up when they are on sale.

Wouldn’t it better for our kids, for their futures, if we spent a few more pennies on Annie’s and few less pennies on the infamous bag of fries?

Just keep it simple and you’d be surprised at what you can do. Just don’t give your child a Snickers bar as a reward for surviving his filling treatment. At least not while you are still at the dentist office….