NPR.org » Weekly Standard: Kid Tested, Not FDA Approved.
I’m sitting in the Atlanta airport, and I remembered this link I’d emailed to myself. It’s really great and all that the Obama administration is trying to establish guidelines so crap cereal won’t have cartoon characters on their boxes. I’d just like to point out, though, that these cereals are an allowable food item in child care centers that are reimbursed for such purchases by the government. Maybe that’s something the administration should be working on as well… Just saying.
I just read this post at Becoming Sarah, and it struck a chord with me.
I can relate to the hesitancy toward letting people see just how uptight I am about food. It all started with a college course on food and American culture. And not being able to unknow the things I began to learn. I’ve definitely not come as far as I would like to be (Ben & Jerry’s is a major weakness, for example), but I’d say I’m much more strict than the average Joe about what food I put in my body.
Let me tell you, it’s only gotten worse since Sadie was born. Let me tell you some other things:
It is exhausting being this uptight. Exhausting both physically and emotionally. I stay up late or work early in the morning doing crazy things like making homemade granola AND granola bars. I worry all the time about whether I’m doing enough. I made strawberry jam, but I can’t seem to get around to making other jams or trying to can other things (pickles, sauerkraut, beans, tomatoes). I wish I could get into the swing of making homemade bread (I can’t even stand how long the list of ingredients on our preferred bread’s package). I made yogurt for a while, but then my local source of milk vanished. And I never could get that routine enough, either.
It is a constant, uphill battle keeping crap out of Sadie’s hands and mouth. And not because she’s a toddler. Because she’s surrounded by it nearly every time we leave the house. I can’t keep her from it, and I know a lot of people (maybe most) would say this is where I’m WAY too uptight, but I wish I could. I wish we could afford to send her to a school where only healthy, real foods were offered. I wish I could change the minds of family members who are okay with kids having soda and candy and other non-foods regularly. But I can’t. As Sarah mentions in her post, food is SUCH a touchy subject. Food + kids is volatile.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Just venting, I guess. I know: I’m too hard on myself, too hard on others, too hard on the world. But I CAN’T just let it go. In a country where elementary students have high blood pressure and diabetes at alarming rates, what we don’t know CLEARLY IS hurting us. It’s hurting our children.
Some people find the Virgin Mary on their toast or Jesus on a water-stained wall.
Me? I find Harry Potter’s scar in my cantaloupe.
A happy birthday, indeed, was had by miss Sadie Diane. We are all wiped out (and still awake, cripes!), so here are just a few phone snapshots for now
Principles of Healthy Diets.
This is really fascinating stuff. I’ve been thinking more and more lately about my diet (and Trevor’s and Sadie’s), and while I think we are generally doing really well, I think there’s still room for improvement. I’ve become increasingly bothered by my cravings for sugary foods (I’m not even sure if “cravings” is a strong enough word), and I wonder if some of it might have to do with my overall nutrition. Another thing that has recently occurred to me is that, while I felt like I fed myself decently during my pregnancy with Sadie, I’d like to be in an even better place nutritionally whenever I become pregnant again.
So, I think I’m going to make this a challenge for myself. As the primary meal-preparer in the house, this will obviously affect our entire family. Maybe I’ll tackle one of the guidelines a week (of those we don’t already follow). I think the biggest challenges will be that I really do rely on the online meal planner I use (though I think the recipes are mostly adaptable to this kind of eating, I may just have to get creative), this will likely cost more money than we’re already spending on groceries, and I know I’ll have to cut out a lot of the “convenience” snacks we’ve been using for Sadie (while the graham cracker sticks and bunny crackers are natural/organic/etc., they’re still way processed and contain white flour and sugar) and replace them with snacks I’ll have to make myself.
I’m a Monday-starter for projects, so I think I’ll get going next week. The first guideline (“Eat whole, unprocessed foods.” ) is a bit too general. So I’ll start with number two, “Eat beef, lamb, game, organ meats, poultry and eggs from pasture-fed animals.” Obviously we eat the eggs our chickens lay, so that’s a gimme. But we don’t eat game pasture-fed meat every week. In fact, sometimes we’ll go quite a while without cooking meat at all. But we might eat meat while dining out–and we can pretty much guarantee that’s not healthy meat.
So the change for week #1 is to prepare and eat our chickens’ eggs at least three times a week (we go in and out of this pattern anyway), to prepare and eat at least two meals with game or pasture-fed animal meats, to entirely quit eating meat from unknown sources (of course, I’m not going to MAKE Trevor do this one, but hopefully he’ll consider it), and to quit feeding Sadie the lunchmeat I’ve been feeding her (it is free of additives and preservatives, but it’s a far cry from what I should be feeding her).
Potential roadblocks for this first challenge–getting sick of eggs; the cost of adding pastured meats to our grocery list (this is usually more of a treat); the temptation provided by things like Purple Cow’s chicken salad sandwich or my Aunt Margie’s pot roast; my inability to prepare our dinner while caring for Sadie–I almost always have to fix her a quick dinner (mostly steamed veggies, cheese, fruit, etc.) and then do the more labor-intensive cooking after she’s asleep; and the common problem of not having any meat left over from our previous night’s meal to give to Sadie, which led me to the lunch meat in the first place.
Otherwise, this should be plenty of fun. We enjoy eating meat. We like good meat.
I miss you so much, Sadie; this is a cauldron cake. Sleep tight, baby.
I miss you so much, Sadie; I’m eating baked beans with breakfast this morning.
Wowza. I’m glad it’s Friday. This has definitely been one of those weeks where, if it’s not one thing, it’s something else. I don’t like being a Master Complainer, but I need to get this off my chest.
This week we’ve:
BUT! We’ve had some good, too:
Oh, how I hope this Friday and weekend go better than the rest of this week.
Does the fact that Sadie talks to and kisses (okay, I might have encouraged that one) the baby on her yogurt cup make her totally awesome or a little bit crazy? She doesn’t even bother learning the sign or word “yogurt;” we’ve just learned that whenever she’s eating and suddenly demands BABY! It’s time to get out some yogurt.
Oh, and Sadie has totally learned to say “cheese!” for the camera n
(In other news.) After quite a bit of a break, I’m back to my workout routine. I just did 91 push ups, and tomorrow morning I’m redrafting my C25k program. This time, I’ve got a friend joining me. It’ll be fun telling her to run and walk like I’m the boss. Too bad it’ll be my phone running my ass to begin with!
Let me begin by making this disclaimer: I know that I am not overweight. I have a healthy BMI, and the vast majority of the foods I consume are very healthy. Having said that, however, I will admit that I have a very unhealthy body image. And seeing this photo of myself has kind of put me over the edge. I wanted to cry and gag at the same time.
I'm posting this here as a motivation to myself. I want to look better by the next time I take a picture like this with Sadie.
I know, it’s probably not nearly as bad as I think it is. And I realize I’m being a total drama queen about it. But THIS is not how I want to look. Not even close. This makes me want to avoid being in pictures of Sadie, and that is a horrible way to live. I’ve tried working on thinking about my body differently, and it’s just not working. I don’t think I can trick myself into feeling good about my body unless I do something to get my body into a shape I’m happy with. And feeling good about my body is really important to me, because I want to be a good role model for Sadie. (This seems pretty convoluted, I’m sure… I want her to feel good about her body no matter what, so I have to change how my body looks in order to feel good about my own body–gah!)
At any rate, it’s time to make some changes. Changes in what I eat and my lack of activity. Cutting back on desserts is my main issue. And getting my butt into action is going to be hard. Which is why I’m being a little cliche and putting this down here. Self-discipline isn’t one of my strong suits. So here we go.
Starting today, Monday June 28, I will begin the One Hundred Push Ups challenge. I’m going to start out doing push ups on my knees, and once I complete this challenge, I’ll redo it the “regular” way. I’m completely grossed out with my arms, so this should help. It should also help me from getting so worn out holding a rapidly-growing Sadie. There’s also a sit ups challenge, and I might consider adding this at some point. My belly was a problem area before I got pregnant, so you can just imagine how I feel about it now.
I am also starting to use the Lose it! app on my iPhone. This is also going to be pretty tough. I’m not exactly sure my current weight, but I’m setting the goal right now of losing eight pounds, at one pound per week. I think this program will help me identify the foods I could relatively easily cut out–or at least drastically reduce the portions sizes.
Anyway, I’m planning on creating a page to track this, though I’m not exactly sure how that’ll work. I’ve got one friend from work participating in the One Hundred Push Ups already–anybody else want to join in on one or both of these?
