1.
Thinking about food this week, for many reasons. So if you are not interested in crunchy ~ real food ~ nutrition discussion, just mosey on down the bloggy road and check back later.
2.
I’ve been reading Mrs Q and the School Lunch Project for a little while now, and been meaning to share the link. I’m not the only one who’s been fascinated by the blog – it was picked up on the Yahoo! homepage this morning!
Mrs Q has been eating her school’s lunch and taking pictures, blogging her thoughts on how nutrition could be improved. Fascinating.
3.
Kudos to Michelle Obama on her speech to the Grocery Manufacturers Association. I’m glad she spoke out the way that she did; I’m not sure I agree that most of the blame for overweight children can be laid at the feet of the food industry, although they certainly contribute with their misleading labels.
I wish she would turn her attention to the way our own government contributes to the obesity epidemic. We spend billions subsidizing corn byproducts – high fructos corn syrup, caramel color, maltodextrin, food starch. GMO corn and soy are in almost every food processed food product you can buy at the grocery store, even in places that you wouldn’t *think* you’d find it, such as chicken nuggets, yogurt, and spaghetti sauce. The Farm Bill encourages the addition of these highly processed food products by making them artificially cheaper than real food.
4.
That’s why I think the Soda Tax is ludicrous. Tax dollars go to corn farmers, who make HFCS, which is made into sodas, and then taxpayers who subsidized HFCS have to pay a penalty tax, because the drink contains HFCS? Crazy.
5.
The hydrolyzed vegetable protein recall is expanding. It turns out the company knew there was salmonella contamination but just kept shipping product out. HVP is in tons of processed foods, so keep checking back so you can throw out contaminated products!
6.
Speaking of processed foods, yesterday I didn’t eat lunch. Husband bought me some Fritos which I shamelessly munched in the car as I did errands. Now, Fritos only have 3 ingredients, so they count as Real Food, right? RIGHT? Sigh. Well, it’s all about baby steps.
7.
All you Real Foodies out there – I would love to know how you handle situations when *you* may not be cooking. That is, what do leave for the kids to eat while the babysitter minds them, or if someone else happens to be doing the cooking for you at your house?
Most of the people who would need to fix food at my house while I’m not there (that sounds weird, but it does happen) don’t cook very often. These are situations when I *used* to order pizza or leave corn dogs and frozen french fries. But as we transition away from processed foods, I’m stumped for those occasions when I need some sort of convenience food. I’d love to hear your ideas!
See more Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary!
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Ewww. Those school lunches look awful. I didn’t dig into the blog and don’t think I want to.
I ate lunch at school all through my school years. While I don’t remember it all and it surely wasn’t the best food ever made, it didn’t come in paper containers or wrapped in plastic. There were “lunch ladies” who served it up cafeteria style, on plates. I don’t remember any of it ever being as unappetizing as what I saw on that blog.
In fact, I had some favorites that I was really irritated my mom & grandma couldn’t duplicate at home.
After seeing those pictures, I remember why I didn’t eat school lunches, and why my children don’t either. My son’s school, which doesn’t actually have a cafeteria, gets pizza, burgers, etc. delivered and parents volunteer to work in the kitchen. While the school is wonderful, the lunch food is horrible and the majority of children do not eat it. The 6th-8th grade students are actually trying to make a petition to give to Sister for better lunches next year…and better hair nets. Those are the top priorities with my son and his friends right now, it seems.
With the statistics of this being the only meal for many kids, it does not make sense at all for the meals to be so unhealthy and unappealing.
I liked the link for Michelle Obama’s speech as well. I’ve been woefully ignorant on current or even semi-current events lately.
I was looking for lunch boxes online last night, and there aren’t any! I wonder how many kids actually do bring their lunches. When I was a kid (ahem, not THAT long ago) plastic lunch boxes with a thermos were standard issue. Amazon and eBay had hardly any! Do they not make them any more?
I love the bento boxes for lunch, but they’re costly and well, we eat in.
I’m not a “real foodie” yet, but I do have some thoughts on both the School Lunch Project blog, and “real” quick meals for the babysitter to make.
The pre-wrapped, premade stuff they serve in Mrs. Q’s lunch room must not be quite as bad as it looks, but she does comment that most of the students eat very little of it. That’s the real shame. We all know that food can be made healthy and good. But it takes effort, and money. Sorely lacking there.
As for fast easy meals, can’t you pull out something premade from the freezer? A pan of home made lasanga, and a “salad bar” should not be too much for a teenager or hubby to handle.
I think all you can get nowadays are the insulated lunch kits that zip up. The old style lunch boxes are not insulated to keep sandwiches cool from growing bacteria over the several hours before kids get to eat them. (Although we used those kinds of lunch boxes and survived) I think they are not readily available anymore, and the ones that are around are ‘vintage’ and expensive.
I am by no means a foodie. I don’t do much scratch cooking. I try to keep my kids food healthy choices and I never fry anything, ever. The only oil in my house is olive oil for salads. None for cooking. I don’t buy packaged cookies and Little Debbies. I don’t keep ice cream or candy.
I do make pancakes from scratch but that is about it. Most everything else is frozen, canned, boxed, etc. But that doesn’t make them bad for you. You can make smart choices from the packaged foods that are available.
As far as food for my kids when I am not around…Unfortunately…I ama lways around! LOL Nobody ever keeps my kids. I don’t have extended family here since I am from Texas and not originally from Mississippi. My dad did follow me here and moved here to be near my kids but he is 70 and I don’t ever leave my kids with him…rarely anyway. I have never hired a babysitter, ever. Even with my 24 yr old, nobody ever kept him for me. I did that ONE TIME when he was a toddler and had a real bad experience with some real weird ppl so it made my mind up for me that you can’t really trust ANYBODY with your kids, but yourself and your parents in some cases.
But I wanted to comment because I always enjoy reading your blog. You still have quite a few brain cells firing to have so many rug rats sucking your life force out of you.
I am a big fan of frozen vegetables – we eat those almost every night! I agree that canned/boxed/frozen food can be healthful, if it contains actual food and not fillers, corn syrup, food starches, BHT, and so on like so many processed foods do. I also think that moderation is the key – a Little Debbie once in a while isn’t bad, but a several times a week will cause problems.
When we lived in SC (for two years) we were in the same boat. We had NO ONE to watch the kids, even in the event of an emergency. My FIL was able to keep them for a couple of hours when I had Mr X (husband didn’t stay with me at the hospital – he was there for the birth, then had to go home and take care of everyone) and when I had to take X to the hospital overnight. I am so thankful to have several people here that I trust to care for my kids!
ROFL on the rugrats, Peggy!
Wow! With all of the Spring cleaning and changing of computers going on here, I did not even know about the food recall. Thanks so much for letting me know about that. I am much relieved to report that we had absolutely nothing on that list (I didn’t think we would since we are real foodies here, too, but it is good to know).
When I am going to be out for awhile and someone else needs to do the cooking, our main choices are usually the soup, salad, and sandwich routine. When it comes to snacks, we usually have something healthy that I baked up plus fruit and veggies. The children know what they are allowed to have and what is being saved for another meal (and if they do not, an older sibling always seems to!).
ANOTHER DUMB COMMENT FROM LISA’S POSTERS:
“I try to keep my kids food healthy choices and I never fry anything, ever. The only oil in my house is olive oil for salads. None for cooking. I don’t buy packaged cookies and Little Debbies. I don’t keep ice cream or candy.
I do make pancakes from scratch but that is about it. Most everything else is frozen, canned, boxed, etc. But that doesn’t make them bad for you. You can make smart choices from the packaged foods that are available.”
-PEGGY
You are delusional, Peggy. Better do some food research. Real butter (in moderation), real food – not packaged crap – is best for people.
The reason you have no “oil” in your house is because you don’t cook from scratch! What do you think is in the canned and frozen crap you give your family? Unless, you are buying VERY high-end packaged food (not the stuff sold in grocery stores) from specialty food companies, it is crap. Even brands like Healthy Choice are not good as a staple in someone’s diet.
Cook something!!! Real butter, in moderation, isn’t bad. It is the fake stuff that’s horrible. Or just stick with olive oil or do 1/2 butter, 1/2 olive oil.
By the way, Lisa, why is your husband so fat? There is no way he got that fat just eating the meals you post here. He has to be eating a TON of stuff (and not just lunch at work) that the kids are not. That’s probably where all the food money went, to Mr. Fatty Pants. When your family was eating like rice at every meal, he must have been sucking all the food money down because there is no way he was eating just those meals, plus a lunch out. He is way too fat for that. Good luck to him on the Atkins, Mr. Fatty Pants needs it!!
Would love to hear more about his Atkins diet. Post something!!!
Like you, I make almost everything from scratch. So when someone else has to handle lunch or dinner, I usually point to leftovers first(there are almost always leftovers at my house)or a loaf of my home made spelt bread with butter and honey on it, or tuna salad with pickles and red bell pepper on the side(kid favorite), or eggs – easy to fry up and my boys have been known to eat five eggs in one sitting. And of course there are the ubiquitous bananas. I usually make sure to specify something because my kids have dairy, wheat, citrus, tomato, and peanut butter allergies between them, and it leaves other people (including my cooking-challenged husband)very confused.
Old post, I know, but I wanted to tell you that when I make our favorite casseroles, I double the recipe and then freeze the extra in foil in the pan we’ll be baking it in. When it’s solid, I pull it out and wrap it better. I’m never away at dinner time, but if I won’t have time to cook for some reason, it’s an easy meal to pull out. Spaghetti is also very easy for non-cooks to make.
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