A tip about getting the extra serving of fatty fish in every week without breaking your budget: canned Alaskan salmon or canned sardines (with skin and bones) at lunch once a week. They are affordable and Alaska does a stellar job of sustaining its salmon population.
You have distorted what I said. No wonder you choose to post anonymously. For the record, I absolutely did control my children's behavior -- by teaching them how to behave. Choices are for things like games and videos, not poor quality food.
Like several other posters, what is MOST appalling to me about school lunches today are the throwaway (usually styrofoam) trays.
As a public-school student in 1970s and 1980s, I didn't eat school lunch in grade school because I was a picky eater and all they served was "puke on a plate," the traditional, usually hot lunch on a washable plastic tray. The only lunches most students seemed to enjoy were pizza (large, exceptionally-greasy rectangles topped with ground mystery meat) and tacos. Eerily, taco days were ALWAYS followed by "taco casserole" days, but one of my friends actually preferred the "taco casserole" to regular tacos. Aside from canned and overcooked gray beans, gray peas, iceberg lettuce (which provides water and fiber but zero nutritional value), and dehydrated carrot and celery sticks, I don't remember any vegetables on my friends' trays. Apples, oranges, and bananas were served fairly regularly.
My bag lunches weren't necessarily nutritious or low-fat, as I had a fondness for daily cheese sandwiches. When I started junior high, we had the option of a "cold lunch" line, so I finally ate school lunches. The cold-lunch line offered mostly sandwiches, fresh fruit, fruit juice, and milk. A few pre-made salads were usually available, but because they almost always contained chopped ham, I didn't eat them. At the time I still ate fish and liked tuna, but salads containing tuna instead of ham were a rarity. Never fond of too-sweet, too-sticky commercial peanut butter, I found that I loved USDA peanut butter and ate it most days. Again, not exactly low-fat.
Of note, our junior high did not offer any "optional" foods for cash sale except ice-cream treats. I would buy an ice-cream sandwich or creamsicle once or twice a month, but not regularly. From ages 9-14, I was usually slightly overweight due to nature AND nurture. Considering my own lack of a flat stomach, I had some sympathy for the class "fat girl," who was truly obese, until I sat near her one day and saw what I eventually learned was her regular lunch: not one but TWO ice-cream sandwiches! Although her family was lower middle class, not poor, I don't know how they afforded two ice cream sandwiches every day. Her mother was obese as well.
When I was in eighth grade, even before "Reagan, not ketchup, is a vegetable" came to occupy the White House, the school district added a third lunch option for its junior- and senior-high students: the infamous fry line, which included a fast-food-type sandwich atop a pile of fries. Almost immediately, 60-70% of the students started eating in the fry line daily; most of the rest of us ate cold lunch. Although I sometimes ate in the fry line, I couldn't imagine doing so every day. By the time I was in high school, the cold-lunch line had been expanded to include a salad bar.
I feel very sorry for children who depend on free and reduced-price school meals to prevent hunger: when I was young it was possible to eat a semi-nutritious school lunch, especially after the salad bar was added, and I don't know if most children have this option now. My nephews attend public elementary school in a Minneapolis suburb that is comfortable but not pretentious; prefabricated pizza and other kid-food stereotypes seem to dominate the menu. The worst lunch I heard them describe sounded like the nutritional equivalent of an airline snack box: a chocolate-chip muffin, a banana, and milk.
Although I am childfree by choice for multiple reasons, I know from my own experiences as a child and adolescent some things that may work to discourage unhealthy eating habits. Professionals in this area may disagree, but here goes:
1.) Don't give children junk food until they are old enough to ask for it. This includes ice cream and tastes of their own "first birthday" cakes. Aside from the fact that giving children junk food is not illegal, healthwise, it's the equivalent of giving Baby a beer or cigarette.
2.) Insist that children eat one serving of whole fruit or vegetables per meal, giving them ONE alternate option they are known to like: "If you don't want to finish your stir-fry, you have to eat carrot sticks."
3.) Don't teach children that there are some foods, such as spinach, that children "don't like." Similarly, don't teach children that there are unhealthy foods that they are "supposed" to like, such as fast food and packaged macaroni and cheese.
4.) If you let your children eat fast food or other junk food, set limits, such as "In our family. . ."
a.) "We only eat fries once every other week."
b.) "We only have soda at the movies."
c.) "We only have cake for birthdays."
d.) "We only have candy on holidays."
e.) "We only eat sugared cereal for snacks, not breakfast."
5.) When eating out, discourage children from ordering from the "children's menu," which often includes only junk food. Find a dinner on the regular menu that your child will like and split it with him/her, even if having enough food means ordering extra soup or salad. Also, don't let children order soda at restaurants. Say, "We don't let you drink soda with dinner at home, so we don't let you drink soda with dinner here."
6.) Finally, my mother had one method that worked fairly well with me. If I saw something I wanted in the grocery store, my mother would often say, "You wouldn't really like that," and explain why: for example, those pretty prepackaged marshmallow cookies were covered with coconut, which I hated. Usually this tactic worked, but not always. For example, my mother was wrong about Pop Tarts!
Dear Catherine,
I'm so sorry that other people's food choices appall you. According to available literature, allowing a child the occasional tater tot or slice of pizza will not make them bipolar or turn them into drug seeking zombies in the future. Pleasure is an important aspect of life including eating. A high quality diet can accommodate occasional indulgences for healthy children.
Do you really control your child's behavior? Perhaps you should see a counselor....
I was not surprised by the school lunches, but I was taken aback (okay, appalled) by the mindsets of many of the parents. I noticed two disturbing themes connecting many of the reported experiences.
1)The writer (parent)using "my child loves this" as an excuse for allowing them to eat poor quality food;
2) Parents with no clue as to what constitutes a healthy meal (obviously as they were extolling the "virtues" of at least Pizza and Tater Tots).
Parents, your children remain with you for 18+ years because they need your assistance. Stop complaining that your child is drinking chocolate milk and instead, tell her/him s/he is not allowed this product. When s/he inevitably tests the boundary, a consequence has to be in place. Consistency is the key. This applies to other things you don't want your child to eat. Consider that if you have no ability now to control your child's behaviors, what is life going to be like when this child is a teenager? Parenting is not a popularity contest. Your child does not have to like you all the time. S/he will always love you but also knows if you are the type of parent who needs the approval of your children and will play this for all it's worth. If you parent based upon how your children regard you it's time for some help and support. For the sake of your children, see a counselor.
More than anything, please teach your children that the primary purpose of food is to keep us alive, healthy, and strong. Food is medicine. While we can remain alive for quite a while on the inadequate diets so prevalent in the U.S. today, we don't remain healthy for long. Many of those children diagnosed as "hyperactive or bipolar" are merely poorly nourished. If this sounds implausible, try completely altering your child's diet for 2 weeks (please look to websites like this for guidance. Do not assume your sense of nutritious food is intact. We are bombarded with the lies of the large food corporations to the point that we cease to know good from bad).
Walk your talk. If you're trying to sell the concept of healthy food to your child, eat this way yourself. It doesn't matter if you and/or your children LOVE fried fish, pizza,tater tots, etc. What matters is whether these are nutritious. As your children grow older some of them will experiment with alcohol and/or drugs. They may really like this. Does this mean you won't take any action to stop this("but she loves cocaine soooo much!")? It's not about how much they like something, it's about nutrition.
A year and a half ago, I tried a month-long locavore "experiment" in which I tried to eat (and drink) at least 80% locally. Needless to say, about ten days into the experiment -- craving sticky rice and mangoes -- I had the thought "why the hell am I doing this?" This, of course, got me thinking about what my impact on an economy is as a single consumer (or the head of a household). It also got me thinking about what it means to be a "local business" and whether or not it is important to me to support those local businesses over, say, a larger corporation or a business located in another part of the country. It also got me thinking about taste and whether or not the best flavors really were local or if that was all in my head. The experiment probably raised more questions than I had at the beginning.
Which is all to say that I don't have answers about what it means to be "local" and whether or not it even matters in any real sense whether or not something is "local."
If there is, in fact, a food revolution going on in this country, it is still in its infancy. We're still developing a shared vocabulary that we need before we can even begin to talk ideology.
Thus, the questions I raised in my earlier post. My intention (which I clearly didn't convey) were to look at the word "local" not necessarily at Crispin specifically.
It's time for happy hour. Maybe this discussion will continue here or in some other format, place, or post?
Lisa - I haven't used my duck eggs yet, so thank you for the tip about scrambling vs hard-boiled! Please do try this vinaigrette. It's quite delicious!
Greg - Charmer! 8-D
Kris - I've had hard-boiled quail eggs in dishes and they're so tasty! I'd also like to know if anyone is familiar with cooking them this way, i.e. how long, are they a painstaking to peel afterwards . . . As for duck eggs, I will be experimenting with the ones I picked up at the Minneapolis Famers' Market (Blue Gentian Farm).
Nice post, Rhena. A tip
Nice post, Rhena.
A tip about getting the extra serving of fatty fish in every week without breaking your budget: canned Alaskan salmon or canned sardines (with skin and bones) at lunch once a week. They are affordable and Alaska does a stellar job of sustaining its salmon population.
This looks really good, I
This looks really good, I can't wait to have a go!
Anonymous, You have
Anonymous,
You have distorted what I said. No wonder you choose to post anonymously. For the record, I absolutely did control my children's behavior -- by teaching them how to behave. Choices are for things like games and videos, not poor quality food.
Like several other posters,
Like several other posters, what is MOST appalling to me about school lunches today are the throwaway (usually styrofoam) trays.
As a public-school student in 1970s and 1980s, I didn't eat school lunch in grade school because I was a picky eater and all they served was "puke on a plate," the traditional, usually hot lunch on a washable plastic tray. The only lunches most students seemed to enjoy were pizza (large, exceptionally-greasy rectangles topped with ground mystery meat) and tacos. Eerily, taco days were ALWAYS followed by "taco casserole" days, but one of my friends actually preferred the "taco casserole" to regular tacos. Aside from canned and overcooked gray beans, gray peas, iceberg lettuce (which provides water and fiber but zero nutritional value), and dehydrated carrot and celery sticks, I don't remember any vegetables on my friends' trays. Apples, oranges, and bananas were served fairly regularly.
My bag lunches weren't necessarily nutritious or low-fat, as I had a fondness for daily cheese sandwiches. When I started junior high, we had the option of a "cold lunch" line, so I finally ate school lunches. The cold-lunch line offered mostly sandwiches, fresh fruit, fruit juice, and milk. A few pre-made salads were usually available, but because they almost always contained chopped ham, I didn't eat them. At the time I still ate fish and liked tuna, but salads containing tuna instead of ham were a rarity. Never fond of too-sweet, too-sticky commercial peanut butter, I found that I loved USDA peanut butter and ate it most days. Again, not exactly low-fat.
Of note, our junior high did not offer any "optional" foods for cash sale except ice-cream treats. I would buy an ice-cream sandwich or creamsicle once or twice a month, but not regularly. From ages 9-14, I was usually slightly overweight due to nature AND nurture. Considering my own lack of a flat stomach, I had some sympathy for the class "fat girl," who was truly obese, until I sat near her one day and saw what I eventually learned was her regular lunch: not one but TWO ice-cream sandwiches! Although her family was lower middle class, not poor, I don't know how they afforded two ice cream sandwiches every day. Her mother was obese as well.
When I was in eighth grade, even before "Reagan, not ketchup, is a vegetable" came to occupy the White House, the school district added a third lunch option for its junior- and senior-high students: the infamous fry line, which included a fast-food-type sandwich atop a pile of fries. Almost immediately, 60-70% of the students started eating in the fry line daily; most of the rest of us ate cold lunch. Although I sometimes ate in the fry line, I couldn't imagine doing so every day. By the time I was in high school, the cold-lunch line had been expanded to include a salad bar.
I feel very sorry for children who depend on free and reduced-price school meals to prevent hunger: when I was young it was possible to eat a semi-nutritious school lunch, especially after the salad bar was added, and I don't know if most children have this option now. My nephews attend public elementary school in a Minneapolis suburb that is comfortable but not pretentious; prefabricated pizza and other kid-food stereotypes seem to dominate the menu. The worst lunch I heard them describe sounded like the nutritional equivalent of an airline snack box: a chocolate-chip muffin, a banana, and milk.
Although I am childfree by choice for multiple reasons, I know from my own experiences as a child and adolescent some things that may work to discourage unhealthy eating habits. Professionals in this area may disagree, but here goes:
1.) Don't give children junk food until they are old enough to ask for it. This includes ice cream and tastes of their own "first birthday" cakes. Aside from the fact that giving children junk food is not illegal, healthwise, it's the equivalent of giving Baby a beer or cigarette.
2.) Insist that children eat one serving of whole fruit or vegetables per meal, giving them ONE alternate option they are known to like: "If you don't want to finish your stir-fry, you have to eat carrot sticks."
3.) Don't teach children that there are some foods, such as spinach, that children "don't like." Similarly, don't teach children that there are unhealthy foods that they are "supposed" to like, such as fast food and packaged macaroni and cheese.
4.) If you let your children eat fast food or other junk food, set limits, such as "In our family. . ."
a.) "We only eat fries once every other week."
b.) "We only have soda at the movies."
c.) "We only have cake for birthdays."
d.) "We only have candy on holidays."
e.) "We only eat sugared cereal for snacks, not breakfast."
5.) When eating out, discourage children from ordering from the "children's menu," which often includes only junk food. Find a dinner on the regular menu that your child will like and split it with him/her, even if having enough food means ordering extra soup or salad. Also, don't let children order soda at restaurants. Say, "We don't let you drink soda with dinner at home, so we don't let you drink soda with dinner here."
6.) Finally, my mother had one method that worked fairly well with me. If I saw something I wanted in the grocery store, my mother would often say, "You wouldn't really like that," and explain why: for example, those pretty prepackaged marshmallow cookies were covered with coconut, which I hated. Usually this tactic worked, but not always. For example, my mother was wrong about Pop Tarts!
Dear Catherine, I'm so sorry
Dear Catherine,
I'm so sorry that other people's food choices appall you. According to available literature, allowing a child the occasional tater tot or slice of pizza will not make them bipolar or turn them into drug seeking zombies in the future. Pleasure is an important aspect of life including eating. A high quality diet can accommodate occasional indulgences for healthy children.
Do you really control your child's behavior? Perhaps you should see a counselor....
I was not surprised by the
I was not surprised by the school lunches, but I was taken aback (okay, appalled) by the mindsets of many of the parents. I noticed two disturbing themes connecting many of the reported experiences.
1)The writer (parent)using "my child loves this" as an excuse for allowing them to eat poor quality food;
2) Parents with no clue as to what constitutes a healthy meal (obviously as they were extolling the "virtues" of at least Pizza and Tater Tots).
Parents, your children remain with you for 18+ years because they need your assistance. Stop complaining that your child is drinking chocolate milk and instead, tell her/him s/he is not allowed this product. When s/he inevitably tests the boundary, a consequence has to be in place. Consistency is the key. This applies to other things you don't want your child to eat. Consider that if you have no ability now to control your child's behaviors, what is life going to be like when this child is a teenager? Parenting is not a popularity contest. Your child does not have to like you all the time. S/he will always love you but also knows if you are the type of parent who needs the approval of your children and will play this for all it's worth. If you parent based upon how your children regard you it's time for some help and support. For the sake of your children, see a counselor.
More than anything, please teach your children that the primary purpose of food is to keep us alive, healthy, and strong. Food is medicine. While we can remain alive for quite a while on the inadequate diets so prevalent in the U.S. today, we don't remain healthy for long. Many of those children diagnosed as "hyperactive or bipolar" are merely poorly nourished. If this sounds implausible, try completely altering your child's diet for 2 weeks (please look to websites like this for guidance. Do not assume your sense of nutritious food is intact. We are bombarded with the lies of the large food corporations to the point that we cease to know good from bad).
Walk your talk. If you're trying to sell the concept of healthy food to your child, eat this way yourself. It doesn't matter if you and/or your children LOVE fried fish, pizza,tater tots, etc. What matters is whether these are nutritious. As your children grow older some of them will experiment with alcohol and/or drugs. They may really like this. Does this mean you won't take any action to stop this("but she loves cocaine soooo much!")? It's not about how much they like something, it's about nutrition.
Please continue to educate yourself on nutrition.
A year and a half ago, I
A year and a half ago, I tried a month-long locavore "experiment" in which I tried to eat (and drink) at least 80% locally. Needless to say, about ten days into the experiment -- craving sticky rice and mangoes -- I had the thought "why the hell am I doing this?" This, of course, got me thinking about what my impact on an economy is as a single consumer (or the head of a household). It also got me thinking about what it means to be a "local business" and whether or not it is important to me to support those local businesses over, say, a larger corporation or a business located in another part of the country. It also got me thinking about taste and whether or not the best flavors really were local or if that was all in my head. The experiment probably raised more questions than I had at the beginning.
Which is all to say that I don't have answers about what it means to be "local" and whether or not it even matters in any real sense whether or not something is "local."
If there is, in fact, a food revolution going on in this country, it is still in its infancy. We're still developing a shared vocabulary that we need before we can even begin to talk ideology.
Thus, the questions I raised in my earlier post. My intention (which I clearly didn't convey) were to look at the word "local" not necessarily at Crispin specifically.
It's time for happy hour. Maybe this discussion will continue here or in some other format, place, or post?
Lisa - I haven't used my duck
Lisa - I haven't used my duck eggs yet, so thank you for the tip about scrambling vs hard-boiled! Please do try this vinaigrette. It's quite delicious!
Greg - Charmer! 8-D
Kris - I've had hard-boiled quail eggs in dishes and they're so tasty! I'd also like to know if anyone is familiar with cooking them this way, i.e. how long, are they a painstaking to peel afterwards . . . As for duck eggs, I will be experimenting with the ones I picked up at the Minneapolis Famers' Market (Blue Gentian Farm).
I love eating snacks
I love eating snacks especially during a soccer game. I've just bought my Arsenal Tickets and I'm looking forward to the game.
Very well said, Cider Joe.
Very well said, Cider Joe. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, for your great products, and for your commitment to both quality and community.
-Lee