Today started rocky. Aidan woke up saying, "I had a dream I had a million 'cinnabons' in my mouth." Patrick spurred on by this fantasy announced, "I hate Fresh Mouth. It's boring." I was grumpy, too. I felt overwhelmed by food. Excuse the melodramatic moment, but I was mixing homemade pancake batter with corn meal, whole wheat flour, egg whites, the works, and I couldn't help but think to myself, why are we in this predicament? Why has food become so weird? Did we really allow food marketing and food politics to affect fundemental food. Our primal sustenance? Do we have to embark on a food challenge to avoid junk? Nobody deserves this.
I did the dishes and decided we needed a change of scenery. We went to the Science Museum of Virgina for the first time, and we were smacked with serendipity. We hit an exhibit about the mysteries and ills of processed food. It was super. There was a kiosk where you could compare the ingredients between homemade and processed food: the difference of ingredients between an apple and a Nutrigrain apple bar or between sweetened oatmeal packets and real oats. Some of the ingredients were linked to definitions and warnings about their negative effects like cancer and tumors and alternative uses in, oh say, plastics. The kids were beautifully grossed out. They loved the diner-style spinning food pyramid, too, that showed them how much of each type of food they should be eating. It was the perfect teachable moment.
Menu
Breakfast: Homemade pancakes from an old Jane Fonda cookbook (don't laugh), apples and OJ with fish oil.
Breakfast: Homemade pancakes from an old Jane Fonda cookbook (don't laugh), apples and OJ with fish oil.
Lunch: PB and bread, pita and hummus, carrots, grapes, organic milk.
Snack: Toasted bread, almonds, pretzels, cookies and OJ. We were starving from our adventure.
Dinner: Homemade pizza with spinach, onions and salad. The kids ate a bite of the spinach pizza and opted for plain. Little by little. They ate their lettuce.
Nugget o' the Day: "There's stuff in our food that they use for plastic?" - Aidan reading some of the other uses of chemical food preservatives
4 comments:
Please just make the boy some "cinnabuns"! You can make them with your whole wheat dough, nuts, cinnamon, sugar, butter etc. They will be completely "fresh mouth" compatible. I can't handle seeing my pee pee nephew stave anymore!
-concerned Aunt Carolyn
Don't worry, no one's starving! And we may just conquer the homemade cinnamon roll tonight! :-)
That museum sounds awesome - I want to plan a vacation just to go visit.
Post a Comment