One thing we expected to gain from our family's strict "100 Days of Real Food" pledge was a new perspective. And a new perspective we got. I am convinced that before we vowed to cut out all highly processed food - including white flour and sugar - I was going through life completely oblivious to what I was eating and feeding my family. Not only was I ignoring the ingredients on the packaged stuff I was buying, but the long list of refined grains, artificial additives and sweeteners wouldn't have meant anything to me anyway.
But more than halfway into our real food pledge things were different. Thanks to Michael Pollan, we now understood that most of what we used to eat - even pasta made from scratch with white flour - is considered to be junk. And after completely making over the way our family food shops, cooks and eats I cannot help but observe what food choices others continue to make in this processed food world that we live in. Call it nosey, call it judgmental, but regardless - I have a growing curiosity about what others are eating.
I am especially curious about what other parents are choosing to feed their children. If you hand your kid a bag of chips, sure they are going to eat it and probably enjoy every last bit. If you hand your kid some Pirate's Booty or Goldfish or Veggie Straws because for some reason - that you can't exactly explain - you think it's a "healthier" alternative I am sure they would eat that as well. But what if you went through the extra effort and sliced up a few pieces of their favorite organic fruit? Wouldn't they most likely dig right into that too?
It seems to me as though young children have to solely rely on their parents to make the right food choices for them. I know what my 3- and 5-year-old daughters like when it comes to produce, and I know they would enjoy a cold sliced apple with a little peanut butter just as much as a bag of chips - especially if they never even knew the chips were an alternative. So, as their mother, I am learning that it is my responsibility to buy and provide them with the right whole food choices even if it means it could be a little extra work.
The other night after dinner I let my daughter dig into a homemade freezie pop, which was basically frozen organic applesauce inside a colorful silicone mold. It was the perfect messy treat to eat outside on a hot summer day. Once we got outside not one, not two, but three little friends on our street came right over. Each child separately indicated they wanted to try "one" too - even though I'm sure they didn't even know what it was. So fortunately, I had exactly three extra homemade freezie pops ready to go, and I was happy to divvy them up. All of the kids sucked them down with pleasure, and the only thing they were eating was frozen organic applesauce! Yes, it took effort to order the freezie pop molds and make them in advance, but once all of that was taken care of these kids were thrilled to eat exactly what was offered to them. And these are the very same kids that I usually see walking up and down our street with artificially colored, high-fructose corn syrup filled, factory-made frozen treats from the grocery store. Because, of course, that's what was available.