Musings

So I've been thinking lately about food. Not because it's Lent, but the whole "Should I eat corn syrup? What's healthy? What should I give my kids to eat?" conundrum. I find myself wondering if there is some kind of balance out there...and this is what I have discovered:

1.) I don't care about high fructose corn syrup, in and of itself. I care about giving my family too much sugar in general (well, my kids at least. Dn. John and I would probably whither up and die without sweets).

2.) It irritates me that there are so many additives and preservatives in food. Food is SUPPOSED to eventually go bad, not live on forever.

3.) I would like to buy more non-pesticide treated (read: organic) foods, but they are so frapping expensive. If it's a choice between regular apples or no apples, I'm going with the regular apples.

My solution for the time being is to make good choices. I'll give Megan no-sugar added apple juice, and when she asks for a bowl of peas instead of M&M's for a treat (seriously, she did that this morning), I'll give her the peas. With Marina, I will endeavor to give her more "whole" foods --as in mushing up a banana for her instead of buying baby food bananas (which don't even smell like real bananas--it's revolting). But the biggest thing is that whenever possible, I want to make things from scratch so that I know and understand what is in the food I am putting in front of my family. One thing I have been doing for awhile now is making my own bread. I had a loaf that fell behind the fridge, was there for months, and DIDN'T MOLD. How horrifying is that? After the no-mold incident, I haven't been able to bring myself to buy bread (unless it's my Dad's--and I don't usually pay for it...). So I bake bread. And in all honesty, I'm a stay-at-home Mom, so I have time and it's not a big deal. Plus, it's delicious.

I guess the organic "craze" bugs me sometimes, because I know people who think I'm poisoning my kids because of what I buy (okay, maybe poisoning is too strong a word, but you get my drift), but I simply can't afford to pay the outrageous prices for organic food. Like I said, if it's cheap apples or no apples, we're going for the cheap apples.

So in any case, I want to make good choices. I also want to know what alien has replaced my daughter. What two year old picks peas over M&Ms?