I Feel Guilty About the Food I’ve Been Giving My Family

25 May 2018 33 Comments

by Jo Price in Positive Energy Tags: , , , , ,

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A week ago, I would have done backflips to get my paws on the naughtylicious crepe in the pic above. My kids would have been right there with me, too. Now a few short days later, it actually does not look that appealing to me. Even though it has only been a few days, no  one in the world is more stunned about this change in approach than I.

But my kids aren’t riding the low carb / no sugar train with me. They continue to eat the prepackaged sugar-ridden everythings that have adorned the shelves of our fridge and pantry for years.

So over the last week, I have started to include a few better options along with their standard selections (a.k.a. the normal crapola). I’m doing this gradually to avoid being met with miniature yet effective torches and pitchforks.

The part that makes me feel extremely
guilty is that whenever I have offered healthy additions, they have gobbled those up, too. No complaints (other than the squash dry heaving incident). No significant gripes. They have just eaten them and asked for more. I didn’t even have to push.

I’m not telling you that my kids are raising their voices to the angels in praise for kale. No one in my house is going to have that religious experience. But baked chicken, almond flour pancakes, avocado chocolate mousse (sounds gross but it’s actually fantastic), and other grilled veggies are being polished off as they lift their plates and ask for more.

They have been getting chicken nuggets when they would have been just as happy with baked chicken. And they would have been exponentially healthier for it. For years.

It’s one of those heavy “feel like a terrible mom” kind of moments. I wasn’t intentionally cheating them of nutrition. I simply didn’t try many alternatives.

It’s spilt almond milk at this point, but it does make me feel sad. All I can do is do better tomorrow. And the day after that. But the day after that I plan to regress so additional better days will have to follow that one.

For me, true self-improvement initiatives are always coupled with epiphanies about the positive changes I can implement as I continue along my human journey. I can handle that it takes me years to stumble into some of these epiphanies. My only wish is that my children’s well-being is not left hanging in the balance in the meantime.

Oh well. A little better each day will turn into lots of wonderful in the long-run. I just have to keep trying. ❤️

 

Day 4 – Tech Challenge – Out to Lunch

01 Jul 2017 13 Comments

by Jo Price in Positive Energy Tags: , , , , ,

If you are going to be on your phone throughout your meal, you might as well tell everyone with you to sit like this (because that’s how it feels to them).

We went to dinner during tech turn off time. This wasn’t much of a challenge for us, but it seemed like the challenge might be a worthy idea for at least a quarter of other restaurant patrons. It was the same sad scene that we could have found at any restaurant.  There were tables full of people on hot dates with their tablets and phones. 

What’s the point of going out with each other? Maybe someone really dislikes cooking and clean up, but why bother bringing anyone with you? These moments matter.   It’s worth taking a few minutes to savor the food and the company.  Another tech break for the win. This tech turn off gig is starting to turn into a habit. 

Just Because You Say That Doesn’t Make It True

11 Jun 2017 7 Comments

by Jo Price in Positive Energy Tags: , , , , ,

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Flavor interpretation is highly subjective but my own taste buds would like to say this – Dutch Chocolate My @#&!

It feels to me like the only way that this could correctly be labeled as having a Dutch chocolate flavor is if they meant that it tastes like it has a hint of chocolate, and the rest is comprised of actual Dutch people.  And based on the taste, I’m guessing that it’s specifically Dutch feet.

I continue to try so hard to break my carboholism and sugar cravings.  However the bulk of the alternatives are highly unappealing to a Kraft Mac N Cheese connoisseur such as myself.  My eating preferences are so low rent that I am genuinely dismayed when I discover that we have selected a restaurant with a kid menu offering fancy macaroni.  Did we ask for truffle oil and homemade pasta?  No!  Bring out the box mac with the yellowy orange salt we have referred to as cheese since the dawn of time!!!  That rule does not apply to Red Robin or Luby’s.  We salute your mac.  High five to you!

It’s gotten to the point where I am hovering inches over my kids’ steaming plates of carby goodness so I can vacuum in the steam as I try desperately to chew the smells.  I then hand them their food sadly.  They take their plates from me with quizzical looks and eyebrows raised.  Then, just to spite me, they eat the food!  Okay it’s not spite.  They are just eating. But it feels spitey because I’m so damn hungry, and I’m totally salivating watching them gulp their food down as my own fork hovers immobile over my vegetables.  Can’t.  Eat.  Salad.

So I pay two thousand dollars (twenty) for a scoop of powder (it’s a big canister but still very pricey in my world), and that scoop tastes like feet (or what I imagine feet would taste like as I have yet to taste them personally).

The grand point I am trying to convey is this. This powder is el stinko grande and that bums me out.

I’m really really hungry, and I adore good naughty food – even the non-boxed non-preservative variety.  For now I may have to resort to cracking open a box of mac for the kids just so I can eat the smells again.  Perhaps I could hold a spoonful of steamy carby mac under my nose as I eat my veggies, and they will taste less like unhappiness.  I don’t know about that, but I am certain that I need to change my ways before my kids are old enough to figure out how to call the special home to take me away.

I would love any tips you can share if you have faced this food dilemma and defeated it.  If you were born a veggie fan, believe that tofu should be part of your daily meals, or include spectacular salads on your “Foods I Crave” list, I’m not asking you.  Don’t.  Even.  Try.  We still have the love, but you can’t possibly comprehend my anti-veg stance.  I was born this way.  I am a dyed in the wool carboholic.

So what do I do now?

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***MoJo***

Salads – Even Calories Don’t Want Any Part of Them

04 Jun 2017 6 Comments

by Jo Price in Positive Energy Tags: , , , , , ,

No veggies were harmed in the making of this photo, but that was only because nobody wanted to eat them.

Here’s the thing about salads – it seems to me that they suck. Nobody walks into Cupcake Corner and orders a Kale-nilla. Never. Yes I can appreciate a bowl of lettuce, tomato, egg, bacon, etc., but once you have all that together, you’re basically consuming a loose sandwich minus the bread.

I so dream of being the girl in the veggie section of the grocery store spinning around joyfully with arms extended as “The Hills Are Alive” plays over the loud speaker. Those people do exist.  I know some of them quite well.  Heidi – I’m talking to you.  (As much as I resent this woman’s sincere love of all things healthy, she looks fantastic – damn those fresh veggies – and she’s a darling and an amazing person – double damn – I can’t help but totally adore her!)

No need to schedule an intervention with the local garden co-op.  We are big fans of fruit. Those grow in the ground, too, so stick THAT in your organic quinoa.  Also I have sometimes been known to grow vegetables of my own just for fun.  Sadly that joy is gone as it now appears that one who grows these things is actually supposed to eat them as well.  Bleh – vile weeds!

However there is one thing that surpasses fresh veggies on my personal “Items I Utterly Disdain” list.  No. It’s not heart disease, but good guess anyway.  It’s something sinister and insipid and terrifyingly worse. That’s right. It’s the photo someone just took of you that you wished you never saw.  You know.  The one where you look pregnant​ when in fact your oven has been bunless for years.  The one that made you wrench the phone from their hands so you could delete it before anyone else saw it even  though those same people are seeing the real live you and already know what you look like. Ugh.

And that leaves me here.  Spending my hard-earned money and buying vegetables.  And these aren’t the kind of vegetables we normally get – the ones that hang out untouched in the fridge for so long that they actually sprout a whole new generation of vegetables before finding their standard final destination in the circular file. I will actually have to eat these new veggies.

There will be no arms out spinning in the store.  I refuse to be excited about my no calorie lettuce wedge with other no calorie vegetables and carbless joyless dressing.  Nevertheless I must make this move now.  I can no longer withstand the ever-present threat of an updated family photo that might be posted online or even worse – in an actual home until the end of time.  It looks like I’m going to have to call that vegaholic friend of mine for tips, and maybe while I attempt to change my body, I will also find a way to change my mind.

NOT!  Don’t even dream it fresh veggies.  You will never compete with my love for basically every other kind of food (including your beloved fried brethren).  But I guess you are going to be joining us more more often, so I’ll just have to deal.

This post is dedicated to all of you who enjoyed chips and queso today.  And it is now also un-dedicated to you same chips and queso people because now I want chips and queso but all I have is a damn salad.

***MoJo***

 

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