Of Fast Food and Mommy Bloggers, the Things That Make us Sane and Drive us Crazy

The February 2011 issue of Family Circle magazine states that 60% of kids eat fast food every day. It is a statistic in the sidebar of an article about a program that teaches kids how to grow and cook fresh, healthy meals.  The article didn’t refer to or explain the statistic so it’s not clear whether it’s the same 60% of kids eating fast food every day of their lives or that on any given day 60% of all kids eat fast food.  The former would be pretty tragic, but the latter isn’t all that good either.  No wonder we have a childhood obesity epidemic in our country.  If you are ever curious about the nutritional “value” of the fast food you eat, check out www.calorieking.com (it’s a fee-based diet website but you can look up nutritional values of tons of restaurant menu items, processed food items, and fresh foods without joining or paying).  It’s pretty shocking.  

I think we all try to provide the best foods for our families but sometimes it gets challenging, if not overwhelming.  Whether we have one child or several, whether we work or stay at home, as moms we are juggling so many balls that the Martha Stewart from scratch approach to cooking is simply not an option.  Through blogs, magazines, and TV shows we’re bombarded with examples of fabulous moms who cook beautiful healthy meals for their families and are seemingly perfect in all other arenas of life too.  Yes, we wish we could be like these moms; we buy their books and religiously follow their blogs. But I think we all secretly hate them for their perfection and for making us feel, well, not perfect.  A friend of mine recently mentioned she was thinking of “unliking” a mommy food blogger’s facebook page simply because she felt she could not keep up with this superwoman’s constant posts about the fantastic food her kids were eating.  It was a tongue in cheek remark but it was followed by a very interesting discussion about the reality of our hectic lives and the food we actually manage to serve our kids.  Yes, we’d all love to make our own panko breaded fish sticks (after making breadcrumbs from homemade bread, of course) but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for getting help from the freezer aisle once in a while.  After all, we’re just trying to stay sane!

Getting back to the fast food issue, I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times my two year old has eaten junk food in her life, and it’s just as often as I’ve eaten junk food in the last two years.  I’m not a junk food junkie, but that’s not to say I cook from scratch every day. I’m definitely a devotee of the semi-homemade/30-minute meal/quick fix etc. concepts. And I do on occasion serve chicken nuggets and frozen French fries, but I still try to make sure the products I buy are natural, free of antibiotics and preservatives, and generally have as few ingredients as possible.  What bugs me though is you still can’t escape the sugars, sodium and other additives when you do this, but making soup using frozen veggies and canned or boxed broth is still better than serving up canned soup or, God forbid picking up dinner at the drive through.  So, if we use the fast food statistic as a yardstick, I think I’m doing OK, and so probably are you. As convenient as the store bought prepared foods are, I am slowly cutting them out of rotation and replacing them with healthier homemade alternatives but I probably will never make my own fish sticks!

What about you?  How much help do you get from the store and how do you feel about it?

Giving Thanks and Holiday Feasts

I both love and hate this time of year. I love it for all the cooking shows and magazines full of fall and holiday recipes (that I drool over yet never make). I hate it because those same shows and magazines are a painful reminder that my husband and I are separated from our immediate families by a great big ocean and hours upon hours of travel that costs a bomb.  Oops, maybe I shouldn’t use the words “travel” and “bomb” in the same sentence… In any case, it’s around the holidays that I really miss family.  To be sure, my husband has extended family who are all very close to us and with whom we have spent recent Thanksgivings and Christmases.  We also have our share of friends that have become an extended family of sorts. But still, when you’re bombarded with ads showing happy families gathering around the table and children returning home from faraway places while coffee is brewing in the kitchen, you can’t help but feel a little empty.  I was recently talking about this very thing with a friend of mine who finds herself in a similar situation to ours. As a recent transplant to a new city not only does she miss her family and friends, but she feels extremely isolated because it seems everyone around her is gearing up for celebrating the Holidays with large family gatherings.  My take on this is that being separated from one’s family is actually more common than we all might think and that these cheesy holiday ads represent an ideal and not a norm. Families are scattered these days due to employment, deployment, or because they just don’t plain get along.  And not everyone can afford to travel even if they wanted to. 

Now that we are a family unit of our very own complete with our two year old little missy and less than 2 week old little guy I think it’s time to start thinking of establishing our own holiday traditions, especially when it comes to food.  With my Finnish background and my husband’s Irish heritage we have lots of dishes and traditions to draw upon.  I realize that my timing is not exactly on point with Thanksgiving a day away, but I have to start somewhere.  Thanksgiving was going to be a bit of a throwaway this year anyway as my son was due to be born a week later, and then decided to throw us a curveball by showing up a little early.  Not only that but with my gestational diabetes, I didn’t exactly feel like partaking in any feasts.  So, there is no turkey thawing in our fridge and no plans for oodles of the traditional side dishes.  But still, I feel the need to do something special.  Now, some of you may be gasping in horror that there will be no turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and biscuits in our household.  But really, is that necessary?  My husband doesn’t even like turkey, so what would be the point of making it, especially when you can’t seem to find any birds smaller than 20 pounds? 

This year, our menu will include a spiral ham, green bean casserole, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes of some sort.  Yeah, it’s pretty simple and not a lot of food but there are only three adults (with my mother here to help with the baby) and one very picky toddler, so why torture ourselves with loads of food to prepare and tons of leftovers?  And why put myself out cooking a feast when I am still recovering from giving birth and need to feed my baby every couple of hours?  Honestly, I’d rather spend that time bonding with my little man.  I am no Martha Stewart, so the ham is pre-cooked and just needs to be heated, the green bean casserole will be made with canned ingredients and the potatoes might, just might be a boxed mashed variety I have in my pantry (perhaps jazzed up a bit with cream cheese or something). The only fresh ingredient is the Brussels sprouts!  But the idea is to enjoy a nice meal with my family and contemplate the things for which we are thankful. Isn’t that what Thanksgiving is really about?  Oh, and since I do not have gestational diabetes anymore, there will be dessert; apple spice caramel cake (store bought).