Food Comedy...

I've expressed my opinions several times on how amazing it is that people are so removed from natural foods especially in light of the fact that we all eat three times a day... at least.  A couple of very funny, yet sad, comments have come home just in the past couple of days that I just had to write down.

First short story... Lindsay is in the lunch room at school talking to a group of teenage girls.  One girl talking about school lunches says, "hey!  You know those little green balls I remember they sometimes served us?"  Lindsay says with eyebrows lifted "you mean, PEAS?"  Other girl says, "Yeah!  Peas!  Do they still make them???" 

Hey!  When your food comes out of a box, bag, can or is served on a tray... who knew they actually GREW???

Second short story... Rick is sitting in a co-worker's classroom having a discussion while eating his lunch with several teenagers hanging out in the room.  He takes out his piece of fruit and bites into it.  "Hey!  What IS that thing?" asks teenager.  "It's an APPLE!" answers Rick.  "But it's so white inside" responds teenager.  "MacIntosh apples are white inside" Rick explains.

Third story... today Tristan went to the Doctor for his annual well check-up.  The doctor tells him he's very pleased that Tristan is lining up his height, weight and BMI straight down the exact middle of the charts in perfect proportion and his blood pressure is normal.  "I won't be saying that to many of the children I see today" the Doctor states with chagrin.  "Down the middle?  Is that good?"  Tristan asks?  "It's perfect" the Doctor answers.  Later as Tristan and I were discussing things Tristan says "I think it's because I eat carrots and apples and good stuff at lunch and all my friends throw that stuff away and eat chips and junk instead".  -Very telling!

Some of my first eyebrow raising food experiences with a child in public school was when she was questioned about what in the world was that "green thing" Haley was eating.  It was Kiwi and the lunch ladies inspected her lunch stating that "she didn't have enough to eat".  And during a "health" assembly discussing changes in the food pyramid in first grade, Lindsay was the only one in the whole gymnasium who recognized an "avacado" on sight and could give the answer.  Her teacher made sure to tell me about that.

And don't even get me started on "Ewww!  What IS that you're drinking?"  Well, it's called MILK!  And to the water bottle??? "How can you drink that stuff?"

What are we doing?  How have we gotten so far from the farm when a simple family garden or family outing to the farm can explain so much?  Why do we eat things so far from their natural state that they are really unrecognizable from their original form?  Has anyone shared the secret that fresh actually tastes better?  My husband refused to eat green beans for his whole life until I bought a whole big bag of fresh beans from the produce department.  I told him "it's a different animal altogether " when compared to its canned counterpart "and this is what we're having".  Prepared with lemon, garlic, salt and pepper he discovered a food he'd been missing out on.  Now he asks for seconds!!!  And what happened to good parenting... saying "no" sometimes and taking responsibility for feeding our children seriously as we take opportunities to teach them.  Plan meals together, prepare meals together, go to the store together and shop whole foods on the perimeter of the store letting a child choose between broccoli or cauliflower, red peppers or yellow peppers, grapes and watermelon or oranges and strawberries.  Let the child decide which is the best looking and the best smelling before they place it gently in the bag.  Let them cross it off your grocery list.  They'll eat those foods because they had a part in choosing them... or growing them even!  And if they choose not to partake then they'll be hungry.  At least for a little while they'll be hungry.  Or maybe they're not really hungry at all.  But  hungry children eat, eventually, when they get hungry.  They eat apples, bananas, carrots and YES!  Even Spinach!  They might. even. love them.