So…we watched the much-hyped Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution this past Friday. It got me really thinking about how I feed my kids. Thinking for THREE days. THINKING AND THINKING AND THINKING. Because since I’ve watched the show, I’ve monitored feedback on blogs and twitter and have come to the realization that this is a VERY touchy subject.
For me.
Let’s begin with the facts: Our family is mildly healthy. We rarely eat fast food, and when when we do we rarely choose fried options. When we do go fried it’s inevitably the Chik-fil-A chicken sandwich because OH MY GOD. They’re just impossible to resist. We tend to eat healthy without really trying. Partly because MrZ and I both grew up understanding healthy food choices. Partly because we just prefer the taste of grilled over fried. Mostly because we want to try our best to be as healthy as possible. We don’t own a fry cooker of any type and we don’t keep sweets around the house. In general: Mildly Healthy.
THAT SAID – Our daughter is the most unhealthy eater on the planet. Well, that’s not necessarily true. There are a lot of typical unhealthy foods she hates: Chocolate, cake, chips (she’ll eat plain chips) and popcorn. BUT – she is such a picky eater that the few things she does eat? AWFUL. Chicken fries. Chicken nuggets. Turkey and cheese sandwiches on white bread WITH MAYONNAISE. Plain potato chips. Sausage (she picks sausage off pizza and eats the sausage patty out of a biscuit.) And everything is better when she dips it in ranch. Now – in her very small defense – she loves oatmeal and sometimes yogurt. That’s it. The only healthy stuff besides the occasional bite of fruit she eats. Maybe unhealthy isn’t a strong enough word.
I’m embarrassed just talking about this. Because there are a lot of people who would scoff at what I let my child eat. My husband is one of those people.
Now…my Dad never forced me to eat anything. But he also never really kept anything too bad around the house, so even if I had my choice it was never as toxic as what NikkiZ eats. Still – he let me turn down stuff whenever I wanted. I hated anything with tomato sauces: Pizza, spaghetti, soups. I wouldn’t ever eat ANY of it. When I discovered you could order pizza without the tomato sauce? I DIED, I was so happy. Yet…as I got older…I wanted to try new things. I’ve been taking foods of my black list since I was 18. Besides spaghetti, pizza and soups I’ve learned to love green olives, guacamole, eggplant and sushi. I’ve been trying and loving new foods since I had LilZ. Now, there are still healthy foods I hate: Lettuce, Creamed Corn and Vinaigrette dressings. But periodically I’ll give it a try in case it’s changed.
My point: No one ever forced me to eat anything, yet I became a healthy and adventurous eater as an adult.
This is the sliver of evidence I hold onto when arguing my case with letting NIkkiZ eat Chicken Fries while the rest of us are eating homemade vegetarian lasagna.
This drives my husband CRAZY. He thinks I shouldn’t give her an option. While we watched that show Friday night we argued about it because I get very defensive. It’s very VERY hard having a picky eater. Every time Dooce wrote about Leta eating refried beans for breakfast, I wanted to hug her and thank her for giving up like I did. Because, if you have a child who fights tooth and nail every time you put ANYTHING in front of them (EVEN CAKE) you might one day…give up. That’s what I did. I decided it wasn’t worth the stress or the pain anymore. I just fixed her one of her staple meals while the rest of the family ate something new and most often: DELICIOUS. I’ve seen AndyZ eat homemade guacamole from a bowl with a spoon. LilZ orders the salad whenever we go out to eat. My other two kids? PERFECT EATERS. NikkiZ? I just gave up.
So…I told MrZ we’d try it his way for a few weeks. I get VERY bitter/grumpy/angry about these type of decisions that end up affecting my life more since I’m at home with the kids. I fight them almost as much as NikkiZ fights eating vegetables. It took a lot of swallowing of my pride and my ego to allow this experiment to proceed. But – thanks to Jamie Oliver – I at least did that much.
NikkiZ fought dinner tonight and ended up eating nothing. MrZ says she goes to bed hungry. NikkiZ says, “I’m NOT hungry.” Because she is made from two of the most stubborn parents on the planet and she will NOT give in that easy. It will take much more than just one skipped meal to make her give up her Chicken Fries.
*sigh*
It’s going to be a long few weeks. But here is the conclusion I’ve come to. There is a range on the spectrum of Feeding Our Children. (Just like with ALL parenting issues.) At the crappy end of the spectrum there’s Huntington, West Virginia: Where Jamie Oliver is because it is our nation’s “Unhealthiest City.” On the other end of the spectrum is the family that eats all organic foods and never a drop of soda. I am currently probably somewhere right in the middle. THAT IS NOT A BAD PLACE TO BE. We don’t have to give up our over-processed fattening foods for the sake of our sanity. We just need to make them the exception, not the rule. I recognize I should, at least with NikkiZ, scoot further from the Huntington end of the spectrum. I recognize that and that’s why I’m trying it MrZ’s way for a few weeks. (Weeks that will probably KILL ME.) But – I’m never going to be the person who refuses the chicken nuggets FOREVER. AND EVER. BECAUSE THEY ARE AWFUL.
They are awful…I know that. But I am also lazy. And I suffer from anxiety attacks CAUSED MY MY DAUGHTER REFUSING TO EAT. Those two things will keep me from ever being the perfect nutritionist for my stubborn and picky daughter. If after a few weeks my sanity is on the line and my daughter is still not eating? I’m going back to my way. And I’ll just seek solace in the bowl of oatmeal she eats every morning because HELLO…I’ll take what I can get.