I used to be a normal mom when I ate processed food.  My kids drank drinks from pouches and ate foods from boxes.  Everything was gummy and brightly colored.  Now, that I have switched my family to healthy real food, I am the odd woman out.  Don’t worry……..I still love you my friends, but I hear you whispering.  “A little sugar never hurt anyone.”  “This is the food I grew up with and I turned out OK.”  “Come on…..they are only kids once.”

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I like to have fun with my kids like the rest of you moms out there.  I just don’t think in a society where childhood obesity and food-related illnesses are so prevalent that I want to add my children to those statistics.  When did things change?  When did feeding your kids healthy foods become a bad thing?  I just don’t get it!

I have my children in after-school care until I can pick them up after work.  The program is run by the local YMCA which proudly preaches healthy living.  Certainly, they will have healthy after-school snacks, right?  Ummm………..sort of.  Even the YMCA is hedging their bets.  They serve 2 snacks.  Per my daughter, “They give us one healthy snack and one not so healthy snack.”  I don’t get it!  How are we supposed to be creating healthy eating habits to last a lifetime when processed foods are constantly offered to us?

 

Prior to my eyes being opened to real food, I know my kids did not know the difference between healthy fresh foods and unhealthy processed foods.  To them, it was just food.  Their taste buds were trained to want high levels of sugar, salt, and fat.  How the heck is a green bean supposed to compete with that?

Why is it that my children worry about how their friends are going to react to snacks they bring to their school parties and after-school activities?  Why is it that they are made to feel that eating healthy food is not the norm and somehow a bad thing?  Even when they are complimented by the lunch helpers for the school lunch they bring, they are made to feel different.

It just all seems so strange to me that healthy is not the norm.  What are we thinking?  What are we doing to our bodies?  Why are we surprised when the doctor prescribes a medication to us for a food-related disease?

Why am I ranting about this now?  That is simple.  I would like to see change.  Real food change.  I would like to see all parents spoil the heck out of their children………..with healthy real food.  I propose we mothers give our children permission to be healthy.  Let’s quit making them feel strange or different if they want to eat healthy food.  Let’s make sure they know the difference between healthy real food and unhealthy processed foods.  Do your kids know what a treat is?  I know that my children expected treats so often that they were no longer treats.  What fun is that?  It is so much more fun now that we eat healthy real food on a regular basis and eat occasional treats.  Ahh………..it’s a treat again!

Are you with me?  Or………do you just think I am crazy?  When do you think food changed for kids?  I don’t remember growing up with all of these treats on a regular basis.  I never thought my mother was a health nut, but she did cook most of our meals on a regular basis.  When did cooking at home become so uncool?

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