My Opinion Monday: What To Worry About? The Food They Eat, Their Relationship With Food Or Your Own Motivations?
I don’t think I’d even glanced in the organic section of the produce department before my son was born. When he started eating solid foods I continued to buy fruits and vegetables from the regular produce section, only occasionally feeling a little twinge that perhaps I should be drifting over to the other side. And now that he’s three and eating everything in sight, I find myself buying more and more from that other rarified realm.
I’m not sure what’s changed. Have I been more bombarded with frightening messages about our food supply in the past couple of years or have I come to really realize how much my son’s health depends on what I expose him to?
Or am I just worried about being considered a good parent?
I have friends who are hyper-vigilant about the food that enters their homes AND about the food that enters their kids. One friend won’t allow her father to babysit for fear that he might dole out an unsanctioned treat (she mentioned this to me as my son was attacking a pack of Cinderella Gummy Snacks. I’m not sure if her look of disdain was for the sugary snack or for the pink sparkly wrapper in my boy’s chubby fingers). Another friend always brings her own food to play-dates and seems to make sure that her child doesn’t take from the communal plate of fruits and veggies on the table.
I try not to feel judged for my more ambivalent approach to the organics movement.
I usually succeed.
And sometimes, I even feel superior.
I tell myself that my son will have a healthy relationship with the foods around him. He will not panic wondering if the spinach in the restaurant has been rinsed down with Veggie Wash and he’ll sit at friends’ dinner tables and eat and talk and laugh without asking which section of the grocery store the food came from. He will understand about moderation and about making choices. He will not be afraid of food. He will not become an adult with orthorexia. (Had you heard of this disorder? I hadn’t but I’m pretty sure I know someone who has it. Frightening.)
That’s what I tell myself but I don’t think it’s the whole story.
The other day when J and I were loading the trunk with groceries he grabbed for an apple. An unorganic, unpeeled, unwashed apple. Egads! It’s the end of the world!!! Or not. I knew I shouldn’t let him have it until we’d gotten home and rinsed it (minimally). But I just shrugged and handed it to him.
What was going through my head?
“Oh geez. Well, easier to just let him have it. I don’t want to fight right now.”
What did I tell my friend the next day when repeating this story?
“I was so happy he was reaching for an apple of all things. I wasn’t about to dissuade him from wanting such a healthy snack.”
This makes me wonder if my sense of superiority, my claims about wanting my son to have a healthy mindset about food, are just easy excuses so I don’t have to do as much work, so I don’t have to fight as many battles, so I can just focus on getting us all a well-balanced diet without also having to worry about all the pesticides and weird hormones.
And so, instead of worrying about the food he eats or about his future food mindset, I’m now worrying about my own motivations. Yes, here I find myself at the root of parenthood where, if you’re not already worrying about something, try harder. You’ll find something.
What do you worry about most? Making sure you and your family are pesticide-free, have a well-balanced diet, have a good relationship with food or that you stay sane?
The root of parenting… Oh my – so true.
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My experience of this is a little different. I have some long term health issues that a) were most certainly exacerbated by the hormone laden milk and meat I ate as a kid, and b) are controlled entirely by diet now that I’m an adult. So when I had my first daughter, there was really no question in my mind that she wouldn’t be eating conventional meat and milk. I’ve never had to struggle with the issue of whether I’m being too controlling or not (and I do sympathize with that struggle, in other areas of parenting) because with my health history and the things I have personally experienced, I simply know this is the right decision for our family. But in terms of the vegetables and fruits, , it was only when they were infants that I strictly controlled the stuff and made sure it was always organic. Since toddlerhood, I’ve taken a more relaxed approach. A lot of what we eat is organic because of the CSA and the garden, but not everything by a long stretch. And when we’re out and about, the only rule I have is no meat. Anything else is fair game. I want my kids to learn to control their own appetites and develop their own tastes.
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Dani, your perspective is interesting to me. By talking about a concrete illness you’ve made me realize that I actually *am* very controlling with my son’s food when I perceive there to be a concrete health risk. I hadn’t thought of it before but the fact that I still cut his grapes in quarters and won’t let him eat a whole one even if a 3-year-old sitting next to him is doing so, is similar to restricting a kids’ food due to the other potential harms it could cause. And really, there is effort in cutting up all those grapes (I just did a batch for a class of 24 kids, yikes!). So maybe I’m not lazy with respect to these issues. Maybe I just somehow don’t believe deep down that pesticides and hormones are that dangerous. I’m not saying that they aren’t dangerous I’m just saying that some part of my psyche hasn’t been convinced. If I was convinced, as you are, I would put in more effort, much as I do to prevent choking on grapes.
I’m so trying to just let my daughter love food. We eat largely healthily in our house but there are treats. Her daddy and granddad love sweets. Her diet isn’t made out of them but a bit of dessert is great.
I’m surprised by the amount of times she just wants the totally healthy choices. In the grocery store she goes wild for boiled eggs or often eats an entire container of raspberries (no. I don’t wash them before she dives in).
I’m more worried about her thinking of some foods as ‘bad’ and in some warped way thinking that she has somehow been bad by eating them.
Speaking of which-I’m going to try a new recipe for chocolate souffle :)
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It’s so true. I really want J to have a healthy relationship with food. I even wanted to try to avoid using food as a reward. But alas, he gets gummy treats if he has “nice hands” at the Y and he gets a few gummy bears after successful potty attempts.
Can’t wait to hear about your chocolate souffle!
As always, I find your Monday musings very compelling. My position is that too much information is probably driving us crazy and might be more dangerous that some of the issues that worry us. Seriously, your handing over the apple was probably the healthiest move of all.
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Thanks Tom! For both the compliment to my musings and for thinking the apple thing was alright. I agree that too much info is the problem. Also, as I think I’ve said before, there’s so much conflicting info out there too. More than enough to drive anyone nuts. No wonder people are obsessing over it to the point where it’s becoming a disorder.
While a healthy diet is very important, I believe stressing ourselves out about every bite can be quite unhealthy.
Eat real food (keep to the outer perimeter of the supermarket), and stick to the 80/20 rule: do the best you can, and if you are eating healthy 80 percent of the time, you are doing okay!
By the way, with the increasing cost of food, not many of us can afford all organic anymore, unfortunately.
I know what you mean. There are so many things to consider when you’re grocery shopping. I try to get the items from the dirty dozen in their organic form. But even then it’s often hard to justify the price difference. I find my local organic co-op is a pretty good deal. However, I’ve put my subscription on hold because I was finding it hard with the impending move, tiredness from pregnancy, start of school year and just busy life stuff generally to use things up appropriately.
I like the 80/20 rule! Great way to think about it. Thanks!
Great post. I think I’ll be more conscious of the food that my (future) child eats, but like you would be happy that my child is picking up a healthy snack sans the full fruit wash. Everyone must pick and chose their own battles. :)
Choosing our battles is key with most things, I suppose. It’s funny, I keep thinking about what you were saying the other day about the foods you grew up eating. Our parents’ generation had a different set of concerns than ours but it probably boiled down to the same kinds of choices and different people did it differently, just as different people make different decisions today.
Good article. When we grew up on the farm, our bedtime snacks were bowls of fresh farm cream with thick slices of homemade bread. Fresh butter slathered on everything, and milk straight from the milking bucket into our mouths. Lots of fresh veggies from the garden in the summer and for the winter they were either home canned or frozen (after our parents could afford a freezer). I do remember though, my mom putting different dusts on the cabbage, potato, broccoli, etc.) plants to keep the bugs and worms off. As my children grew up, there was never a thought to pesticides, we had a big garden for fresh veggies (used the same dust as my parents). Now however, as we are older I do worry about grocery store items and summer market items as well. In order to grow any kind of crops, pesticides have to be used or the insects take over. I do make sure produce is washed, but don’t think that the chemicals wash off that easily. I worry more about the sources of water that all these growers use to water their crops. You can’t beat yourself up about it. Eat everything in moderation, and get your children out doors so they can exercise. Being active is the key.
That’s my opinion.
I don’t think it’s true that pesticides are required to make sure the insects don’t take over. My little crops in Toronto were completely pesticide-free, as were most of the crops through most of human history. And of course, anything that says “organic” on it in Canada and the US has to be grown without the use of any synthetic or chemical pesticides (read here: Organic Food Wikipedia). It can be done, obviously. It just takes a different type of knowledge to do it, and maybe more work (I really don’t know).
As to washing, there are good commercial products out there that claim to remove more of the chemicals than water. Just have to be careful that the wash itself doesn’t contain even more chemicals. My neighbour swears by one that claims to be chemical-free and safe. I can find out about it for you if you want.
Water source is an interesting point. There are so many ways that our food can be contaminated. I guess that’s why my apple incident with J has made me wonder so much.
I’m not sure if getting exercise has been shown to help people deal with the effects of pesticides and hormones in their food. Although, of course, being in good shape is always helpful so it can’t hurt, right?
Thanks for the comment!
It’s got to be somewhere in the middle – there will ALWAYS be that next thing to worry about (you said it best – if you’re not worried, look harder).
There’s a Venn diagram out there for this one too: where does pesticide-free, well-balanced, and sanity-encouraging food meet?
(But often at my house it’s “that’s easier, and I don’t want to do more work”)
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Venn diagrams are awesome. I should always just start drawing one in my mind whenever I find myself wrestling with this kind of thing.
Does it bother you that you choose the “it’s easier” option sometimes? It bothers me but I’m trying to figure out if it should or not. Sometimes we need to take the easy way. We need to be able to give ourselves permission to do so. I think that’s what I find hard. I choose the easy way but feel guilt about it.