Just watched the first episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (after following the links). I live about an hour from Huntington. I had never heard about this show before because I don't watch much tv. Very interesting--I am hooked. I want to see how it ends, how far he gets with his message.
I cook from scratch and am very vigilant about my family's foods. I really agree with this guy that the grab-and-go, nuke it, pre-packaged, artificial junk in a box thing is where the problem lies. There is very little "real" food in any of this stuff! The parents are serving it to their kids at home because they're either too lazy or too busy to cook a real meal and they get it at school too. Added salt, sugar, preservatives and hydrogenated oils make up the majority of the ingredients in these preprocessed foods (much less the pesticides, growth hormones and other chemical residues that aren't listed on the box).
It is really hard to control your kid's diets when they are away from home! You really have to be nasty about it, and then people just laugh at you, say you're being uptight and do it anyway.
My MIL is my biggest antagonist when it comes to training my toddler's tastebuds toward healthier choices. We see her every Tuesday and she always brings a couple grocery bags full of junk food with her (the whole grandma spoiling thing). There's certain things I don't buy for my family that she has taken upon herself to do so. She thinks she's helping out and saving us money by getting these things on sale and bringing them to us. Just last week I had another talk with her about nutrition and my daughter's snacks and tried as gently as possible to explain what kind of things I would like for her to bring
(because she's going to do it anyway) and what to not bother buying. I think I am going to have to try again and maybe even make her a list because last night she brought more junk!
Some things have the outward appearance of being healthy and that really throws her off! For example, yougurt covered raisins--which are very sugary and are coated with hydrogenated oil (to make it stick). Also juice has been a problem...how on earth can you explain to your MIL that juice isn't actually healthy! It's mostly sugar and the "vitamin C" it has is added because it has no nutritional value on its own. She thinks I'm crazy because I only give my daughter 4 oz of juice a day and I water that down 50/50. I don't give her soda, but my MIL does when I'm not looking. I don't want her drinking all that sugar. I'd rather she get her vitamin C from fresh fruit and veggies. I have told my MIL over and over that my toddler would rather have an apple than a cookie any day. Now is the time to train her eating habits and it really frustrates me that my MIL brings her all these "treats". Most of what she brings we just throw away and she is wasting her money. It is really hard to talk to her about it because she gets all hyper-sensitive and paranoid and it will really strain the relationship, but it already is because I am really getting aggravated with her.
((Can't you tell!
))
Hattie 
