simple.green.organic.happy.

Category: Food & Recipes

  • Don’t Tell My Kids Veggies are Junk Food. Thx.

    carrots are not junk food

    We tell lies when we are afraid…

    afraid of what we don’t know,
    afraid of what others will think,
    afraid of what will be found out about us.

    But every time we tell a lie,
    the thing that we fear grows stronger.

    ~Tad Williams

    Carrot growers are gearing up to lie to your kids. They’re spending something like $25 million dollars to package baby carrots like chips and sell them out of vending machines. They’re rebranding with awesomely misleading taglines like “the original cheez doodles.”

    EXCUSE ME???

    This infuriates me on so many different levels.

    Let’s start with this:

    “It’s not an anti-junk-food campaign,” says Jeff Dunn, Bolthouse Farms CEO and a former North America president at Coca-Cola. “It takes a page out of junk food’s playbook and applies it to baby carrots.”

    The only way I would find this even mildly acceptable is if it were a tongue-in-cheek mockery of the junk food industry. It’s not. It’s a presumption that your kids are aware of, in love with, and mindlessly swayed by junk food packaging.

    And that you, the parent, the wielder of the supermarket spending dollar, are a spineless tool who will happily go along with the lie and trick her little ad-lovin’ bots into eating veggies, by pretending they are a form of cheez doodles.

    Ad psychologist Carol Moog, who is clearly not on our side, feels that merely lying to our kids is not enough. Physical trickery is instrumental to the deception:

    …kids may be disappointed to find all the flashy ads are really just for carrots…they need to make carrots more fun — like, perhaps, putting an orange (but natural) dusting on carrots that mimics Cheetos.

    Ho.lee.carp.

    Are you serious?

    People, I am only going to say this once.

    Teach your kids to eat healthy foods because they are good for them.

    They will help them feel better. Look better. Live longer.

    Teach them that they don’t have to fall head over heels in love with every damn thing in the world for it to be worthwhile. Not everything needs to be sugarcoated or super cool or tricked out.

    Teach them that their own immediate gratification is not the be-all and end-all motivating factor for every decision.

    I don’t have the scientific basis at hand to back this up, but I’ve seen it cited a million times so I’m assuming it’s true: it takes ten tries for a person to develop a taste for any new food.

    Not a love for, please note. A taste for. As a for instance, I never really had mushrooms growing up. I didn’t like them the first time I tried them. For the next decade or so I just didn’t eat anything with mushrooms, because I didn’t like them.

    My husband loves mushrooms, and I grew used to picking mushrooms off of and out of things. Then I got lazy and just left them in. I got used to them. I still don’t love them, but I’d venture to say I’ve developed “a taste” for them- i.e., I can eat them without feeling compelled to spit them out.

    It works. I get the nutrients. No one said I had to marry them.

    When you say, “My kid doesn’t eat (whatever),” YOU ARE REINFORCING THAT NOTION.

    If all you serve your kids is chicken fingers, mac and cheese and PB&J, than THAT IS ALL THEY ARE EVER GOING TO WANT.

    If you only give them junk food as snacks and dessert, they will grow up thinking those are the only treats worth having. And why would they eat something they don’t like if they can have a treat instead?

    Please, I beg of you, do NOT let marketers undermine your authority as a parent. IT IS YOUR JOB to say, this is healthy, you need to eat it BECAUSE IT IS HEALTHY, and you can maybe have a treat later but NOT AS A REWARD FOR EATING SOMETHING HEALTHY. You eat healthy foods to stay healthy. That is its own reward. Eating well is not a trial to be endured to get at a TastyKake.

    Eat carrots because they are carrots. Because they have Vitamin A and beta-carotene and fiber. Not because, god help me, they are shaped like freaking cheez doodles, a “food” that can’t even spell its own name.

    And while I’m on the subject, buy real carrots and cut them up yourself. It’s way cheaper. (If you’re buying “baby-cut” carrots, that’s what you’re buying anyway- carrots that didn’t meet aesthetic standards and were whittled down to baby size. “Baby carrots” are actually bred for a higher sugar content, another case of catering to your kid’s sweet tooth. Both attempt to lengthen shelf life by dipping in a chlorine solution.)

    Don’t tell lies. Don’t let marketers tell your kids lies. Ask yourself what you are afraid of.

    Is it being a hardass parent? Toughen up, sister. Parent like IT’S YOUR JOB to raise your kids to make the right choices in life. Because guess what? It is.

    ** For the record, those “Deceptively Delicious” cookbooks that encourage trickery and sneakery make me mad too.**

  • Obesity & Denial: It’s the American Way

    There are some people who,

    if they don’t already know, you can’t tell ’em.

    Yogi Berra

    This week I “learned:”

    Many Americans have skewed perceptions when it comes to their weight, often believing they are thinner than they really are, even when the scales are shouting otherwise, a new poll finds.

    ~USA Today

    30% of those who were overweight thought their weight was normal. 70% of those who were obese thought they were just overweight. The article goes on to point out that people are less likely to seek help and more likely to leave medical issues untreated if they aren’t aware they have a problem.

    Why don’t people realize they’re overweight? Maybe because their pants size hasn’t changed:

    via The Style Blog

    (It’s not just men’s clothing, either. Last time I shopped at Banana Republic the woman told me with a perfectly straight face that they haven’t changed their sizing. Which is such absolute bull, because the size 6 I was trying on was a little big. I wore a size 6 ten years and 25 pounds ago– at Banana Republic.)

    ———————————————————————-

    Also on my radar this week- the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) recently conducted a study that looked at fast food meals heavily marketed towards kids. I “learned” the worst is the McDonald’s Mighty Kids Meal (Double Cheeseburger, French fries, and chocolate milk), weighing in at 840 calories and 37 grams of fat.

    ———————————————————————

    I took The Dogness to the vet this morning. While they whisked him away for some tests, I read the poster on the back of the door. I learned that a  dog is a healthy weight if his waist curves in towards his haunches and you can easily feel his ribs. Underweight if the curve is pronounced and you can see his ribs. Overweight if the waistline is undefined and you have to make an effort to feel the ribs. Obese if the waistline rounds out and the ribs are hard to find, under a layer of fat. The Dogness is looking a little, ahem, sturdy, but you can find the ribs by poking in a bit. The vet advised a little more playtime and a few less table scraps.

    I’m not comparing dogs to people or anything, but it struck me that the principles were the same. I’m just throwing it into the mix because it made things so much simpler in my mind- I’m not trying to achieve a certain weight or a certain dress size, because then the focus is on numbers. I should work out and eat better until I lean out the fat that sits on my midsection- until my weight curves in and my ribs aren’t obscured- everything else will follow.

    —————————————————————-

    I learned this a while ago, but it seems relevant: belly fat, specifically, puts you at greater risk for diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and dementia.

    —————————————————————-

    Another random old fact: my daughter is in the lowest 5 percentile for weight. And every time the nurse reminds me that the table is skewed, that the “average” 6 year old is probably too heavy anyway. Is this medical fact or is the nurse trying to reassure me? I don’t know. I just thought I’d mention it.

    —————————————————————

    What’s the takeaway here? Nothing we don’t already know: America is overweight and in denial; clothing suppliers use vanity sizing; marketing to kids is evil; my dog is a lazy bum and needs more exercise; I should play outside more and eat fewer table scraps.

    What’s my point? My point, I think, is this:

    These companies have no problem lying to us and manipulating our kids. On some level we are aware that it happens. What is really sad is the moment when we buy in and start lying to ourselves.

    When people discovered that the cigarette companies were marketing to kids, they were outraged. And it was good. The marketing changed, and Philip Morris has to sponsor smoking cessation campaigns. AND, the attitude of the American public changed. You can’t smoke anywhere now, and when you do, people shake their heads in disappointment or give you dirty looks. People sure as hell don’t give kids cigarettes anymore.

    Soooo… if we know that McDonald’s is bad for our kids, shouldn’t we quit buying it for them? And shouldn’t we hold fast food chains accountable for the targeted marketing they do, and health problems they help cause?

    Where is the outrage?

    Tap tap tap… is this thing on?

  • Visions of Sugar Plums

    sugar plums and blackberries in colander

    While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads…

    Ever had a preconceived notion totally blown out of the water? Like, a word that you’ve only seen written, never heard spoken– and then you hear someone use it and you realize you’ve been pronouncing it wrong all these years. Panic sets in as you wonder if you’ve ever mispronounced it in conversation with that really pretentious grammar and spelling snob you know.

    Or, just some idea that you formed as a kid and never had challenged for any reason. When it comes up in conversation you breezily add your two cents, and then are stunned to find that you completely made this factoid up. (My most recent one: for some reason I always thought holy water was bottled somewhere sacred and shipped, if you please, to my church; or that maybe the priests blessed a new batch every day. Turns out it’s just regular tap water that passes under a crucifix.)

    Not too long ago I updated one of my in-laws with all the interesting details of my best friend’s life– she’s had a baby and whatnot. I don’t see this in-law very often and so I always give her the latest deets. This last time, she listened politely to all the goings-on, and then informed me that SHE HAS NEVER MET THE FRIEND IN QUESTION. I’ve been telling her- for YEARS!- all about a person she doesn’t even know.

    Anyway, today at the farmer’s market they had sugar plums. And I blurted out without thinking, “I thought sugar plums were candy!”

    Am I alone here?

    I thought they were literally candied plums. Like dried apricots, but with a sugar coating.

    Turns out, I was partially right. I found this recipe for sugar plums on a site called use real butter (LOVE that name, and the photography is total food porn). They are a concoction of orange peel, dates, toasted almonds, and dried apricots, chopped and mixed with nutmeg, cinnamon, and honey, and then rolled into balls and dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

    YES, I KNOW. It sounds heavenly and the author says it smells heavenly when you’re making it, and I can’t wait for fall when the weather turns cooler so I can have that spicy decadence wafting through the house along with some pumpkin pie and mulled cider, and I am making myself hungry.

    Ahem. Pulling myself together.

    Other sources indicate that the sugar plums mentioned in “Twas the Night Before Christmas” were sugar coated coriander. This does not sound delicious to me, but I’m not 100% on what coriander really is.

    Sugar plums are also plums: little guys, maybe the size of a large globe grape, and holy toledo are they sweet and delicious. I bet they’re even better cold, but I can’t say for sure, since we ate through them ALL in the space of about four minutes. You know how when you bite into a perfectly ripened plum, the flesh at the outside is all red and juicy and runs down your chin? Well, these are COMPLETELY FORMED of that lovely red flesh, and they are small enough to be popped into your mouth and sucked on like hard candy (you have to spit out the stone).

    This fruit’s sugar at harvest ranges from 18% to 25%, and it has been said “the rays of the sun have been captured and stored beneath the flesh of this singular fruit to only be set free when tasted.”

    You better believe it, sweetheart. I’m just glad we didn’t make it to the market earlier, as we would have returned to buy their whole supply and that would definitely have done bad things to our budget.

    We also bought blackberries, as you can see in the photo, and they were GIANT blackberries and therefore of no use to anyone in terms of giving perspective to the size of sugar plums.

    The blackberries were also incredibly sweet and gone within minutes, but since I know what a blackberry is I don’t have anything interesting to add here. No, wait: you could read this post I wrote for Eco Child’s Play last year about how they dropped the word blackberry from the Oxford English dictionary but added the word BlackBerry. (Sadly, when ECP changed blog networks and transferred the articles, they were unable to transfer the author’s names with each post, but I swear I wrote it. You can see my name in the comments and everything. Sigh. That was months of article writing for nothing.)

    Bringing it all back home:

    Did you know what a sugar plum was? Ever make an embarrassing verbal gaffe? What’s a coriander like? Are there any other lesser known fruits that I need to try?

    Local Peeps: sugar plums are available for the picking at Linvilla Orchards! I’d expect them to be at their peak for another week or two, tops. Their PYO hours are from 9am-6pm, but always call ahead first.