Time for a New Plan

We try to eat healthy foods. We grocery shop, we garden, we buy veggies, we cook – or at least try to cook dinner every night. But, between two working parents, a child in preschool and our attempts to get to the gym three or four times a week, we sometimes find it easier to psuedo-cook so Robbie can eat at a decent hour.

Psuedo cooking is what I call it when we warm something up that’s essentially a highly processed food product: chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs, mac & cheese, or the ever-popular PBJ. I’m not proud of it, but it has seemed “necessary” on particularly busy nights.

Since last June when Toby and I started trying to eat and live healthier, the overall standard has improved, but not enough. We’ve cut HFCS from our groceries but it’s still finding it’s way in via preschool, family, holidays and neighbors. We cook more…but we’ve been guilty of making him separate meals just so he’ll eat without a fight.

Today I found a blog written by a teacher. In it, she catalogs what’s for lunch at her school every day. She eats it and reports her thoughts on it’s nutritional content and flavor. What I saw horrified me.

This is nothing like the school lunch I grew up with. It wasn’t perfect then, but now…. it’s largely made up of Icees, Sunchips, Chocolate Milk, Burgers, Pizza, and other garbage we fight to keep out of our house.

Most creepy of all, everything is sealed in tiny containers just like frozen dinners at the grocery store, which is telling. These meals are not being cooked in school kitchens at all. It’s being made in factories and shipped frozen, then reheated.

Sound familiar? That’s how fast food is made. That’s how airplane food is made. Yet we’re feeding it to our kids twice a day for twelve years and telling them McDonalds should be a rare treat.

After reading this, I thought to myself…if Robbie were in first grade with a brown bag and all his friends were eating school lunch, would he be content or jealous? I didn’t have to debate with myself for long. I know he’d want the junk.

He’ll be in first grade in just two years and his favorite foods right now are hamburgers and nuggets. He won’t eat lettuce, period.

I’ve got some ’splainin to do.

How have you involved your kids in food preparation? Meal planning? How have you taught them about good nutrition without demonizing certain foods? How do you get a four year old boy to even try lettuce?

Here is the school lunch blog. It’s not appetizing.
Here is a video you have to watch if you have kids. It’s 20 minutes long, but very compelling.