The War on Food

Okay, this image just cracks me up! At least they were saying “Plant more beans” instead of “Kill more cows!”

Like pretty much EVERYONE, I love food. Sometimes I feel like in the quest to make healthy choices, I’m fighting an uphill battle. I’ve been a vegetarian for a very long time. I’ve heard all the jokes (same ones over and over from my brother especially). I’m in my 30s, so I’ve had time to watch the world evolve from thinking vegetarians are total freak shows to seeing that there might be some wisdom to the choice.

I’ve never been in the vegan club or the raw club or even the vegetarian club. I cheat occasionally (although I’d call that rarely now) and I haven’t felt the pangs of self-righteousness over my dietary choices since I was in my late teens or early twenties. I knew even before I had kids what many of my ideals were with children and their relationship with food.

Here are the principals I try to follow with the kids:

1. Inspire healthy choices. In other words, live it. Make it yummy. Don’t nag, berate, belittle or guilt. (Challenging!)

2. Don’t use food as a bribe or withhold food as a punishment. (This should be a no-brainer, but I see people doing this every single day).

3. Never force a child to eat a particular food or to finish their plate (but do keep presenting foods over and over again).

4. Give children total food freedom, when they’re ready.

AH….That was the sticky part…”when they’re ready.” When would that be? I figured it would be at about 7. Instead, with my eldest, it was about 4. I relaxed the reins. She, being 4 and mostly exposed to what I had exposed her to, mostly chose foods that made me beam with pride. I had done SUCH A GREAT JOB!!!

Then came 5 and 6 and 7 and the outside world. (uh oh)

Truthfully, my daughter still makes great choices and I still beam with pride…even when she’s stuffing a piece of cow cheese pizza in her face while saying, “No thanks. I don’t eat pepperoni. I’m vegan.” (How funny is that?!) But I’ll be honest, it isn’t like it was before when she only had what I chose for her to have.

More complications arose when my younger children, who I hadn’t deemed able to choose, wanted what their sister had, even though they weren't at my predetermined age of consciousness. What now?

Basically, I’m learning to relax. The most difficult part of it for me is SHUTTING THE HELL UP. I have to fight the urge at a party not to say things like, “Honey, that probably has partially hydrogenated oils in it” or "Ewww, gellllll-a-tinnnnn." Who wants to hear that? How lame!

Nagging is so passé.

It still slips out. I’m getting much better at it. I love what the Disease Proof blog says about feeding kids without nagging (recommended!). It's pretty unschooly, too, and so that resonates with me quite a bit.

In a nutshell, I’m trying to provide tons of yummy stuff, keep piles of healthy snacks on me wherever we go and shut up about the rest.

Toodles!