Shining Example of Healthy Eating

I met a woman the other day who is a director of a pretty well-known daycare center in my area. We were talking about food and lunches, and it came up that she does not allow parents to send lunches (or any food) in with their kids unless there's a severe allergy issue.

Me: Oh, that wouldn't work for me as a parent.

Lady: Why, is your kid a picky eater?

Me: (thinks about it for a second) No, he's not a picky eater, I guess I'm just a picky parent.

Lady: Well, let me tell you about our menu before you make a judgment. You might feel better after you hear what kind of food we're talking about.

Me: OK! (thinking maybe I misjudged and that her center was similar to the organic/natural/green center a few towns over that I would love to send Charlie to but can't justify the additional commute time)

Lady: Last week we served chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, salisbury steak, pizza, and beef with cheesy mac. You know, like hamburger helper?

Me: (trying hard to maintain a neutral smile that doesn't show my disgust) Hmm, I don't think that would work for me.

Lady: Well, it follows the state recommendation, so it has to be good.

Me: I have to go.


It's one thing to offer a lunch program that conforms to state guidelines as an OPTION for parents. Our center offers the lunch program, we just choose not to participate. There are other parents who do. If that's what works for them, then that's what works for them. But to say that you give parents NO CHOICE in the matter whatsoever, that they HAVE to allow their kids to eat what's being served, is just ridiculous.

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

If you have kids, or are planning to have kids, or care about kids in any way, then you need to be watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Move over Alton Brown, I have a new culinary hero. Jamie stands for everything I believe in when it comes to food and healthy eating, especially in terms of what we're feeding our children.

Jamie is a BBC TV chef who I've watched regularly over the years. He transformed the school lunch program in the UK and now he's come over here to help with ours. The US series takes place in Huntington, West Virginia - the most overweight city in our country. It starts off with a visit to the elementary school where he finds a veritable horror show of processed crap and junk food, including flavored milk, pizzas of all imaginable variety, chicken nuggets, french fries, and the boxes and boxes of pre-cooked, chemical-filled "food" stacked in the freezer.

I still can't get over the fact that the people involved in the school lunch planning and preparation saw nothing wrong with what they were feeding their children - thought it was just fine to serve high-fat, high-sugar strawberry and chocolate flavored milk, sugary cereals for breakfast, breakfast PIZZA followed by more pizza for lunch, and an ingredient list 20+ items long on what was being called "chicken breast."

It saddens me to think that we're completely ok with feeding our kids this kind of garbage. It made me even sadder when he went into the first grade classroom and none of the kids knew what an eggplant was. Sadder still when they couldn't identify a tomato. How did we get to this point?

Then he did the "nugget demonstration" and I thought I was going to puke (if you don't have a weak stomach, you can watch the video here). What made it even worse is that the kids still wanted to eat the nugget after they saw what was in it!

I've now got a renewed commitment to making sure I'm feeding my child the best that I can. I wish I could just stick him in a food bubble.

Pregnancy and Vanity

As you probably gathered from my last post about my jeans, I'm over the moon excited that I'm fitting back into my old clothes again. I'm also very glad to not have any stretchmarks and to be see happy numbers smiling back at me from the scale. I always knew that I had some body image issues, but I'm surprised (and kind of disgusted) at how happy it makes me that I'm looking more like my old self again. I was so afraid that I would struggle to lose the pregnancy weight that I put on and so afraid that I would never look the same. I feel guilty in some ways for not embracing the idea of wearing my "battle scars" of pregnancy the way that some women are able to. I have never been more excited to get back into exercising and eating better.

I've never been one to fish for compliments and I don't take them very well at all, but I was in a wedding this past weekend and I really really enjoyed it when people told me they couldn't believe I had a 2 week old at home. Does that make me a bad person? I don't think it should, but for some reason I feel badly about it :(