I have very little control over what my kids eat when they are away from me — friends houses, grandparent’s houses, the days they buy their lunch at school, school parties, the trading of snacks.

I don’t worry about that though (other than continually telling my parents no Cheetos), because it’s out of my control. I’m only concerned about the things I can control, and that means the food I feed them.

What do we buy? Lots of fruits and vegetables – both fresh and frozen. A few things in cans that don’t leech the bad stuff out. Soups in the boxes but I think I may scale that back some until I see some more research. Kashi has some really good frozen meals if you’re looking for convenience. There are a few other brands of frozen meals with good stuff in them you’ll find near the Kashi in the freezer section, too.

For meals we do tacos and burritos, chinese stir-fry, fake beef tips and whole grain rice with a few vegetable dishes on the side. There are several fake chicken items the girls like a lot, so we do them with various vegetable side dishes, too. We make chili with lots of veggies in it, and (of course) spaghetti with chunks of garlic and tomato and onion and all kinds of good stuff. We buy frozen eggplant slices, and use leftover spaghetti sauce and lots of good cheese on it for a Parmesan egglant dish that can be ready in less than five minutes. We also buy these really good eggplant fries (in the frozen section) that can be used as actual “fries” for a side dish or can be put into stir fry or used with a tomato based sauce and lots of cheese for a different kind of eggplant parmesan. I make a lasagna where the middle layer is eggplant instead of lasagna noodles.

For snacks the girls have grapes and apples and peaches and plums and cherries and strawberries and clementines and baby carrots and cherry tomatoes and all kinds of things like that – depending on what is in season. They also have organic yogurt and lots of cheeses they can snack on. We have frozen waffles with no HFCS or other things we’d rather avoid — Kashi makes some, but we buy a brand that’s still got really good stuff in it and is a good bit cheaper than the Kashi. If you can find a place in town that stocks foods made by an Amish or Mennonite community you can find lots of really good stuff – pickles and jams and jellies and applesauce and apple butter and spaghetti sauces and all kinds of condiment type goods. We buy eggs from free range chickens. Dairy wise, besides our cheeses we also have kefir, organic milk, sour cream, creamed cheese. I haven’t found a good source of organic cheese, so most of our cheeses are not organic.

We have organic ice cream (with sugar, not hfcs) for the girls, and there is some sherbet we sometimes get that’s got actual fruit chunks in it and no hfcs. One of the organic dairies does a fudgecycle type thing that we get in the summer. We’ve got peanut butter to go with the Amish jams and jellies, and we buy good whole grain bread with no HFCS. We have a variety of nuts, though RK is the only one who can handle the wasabi almonds he likes so much. He gets wasabi flavored dried peas to snack on, too – and I can’t kiss him even an hour after he’s eaten them without it setting my mouth on fire – those things are brutal. My favorite nuts are the salt and pepper flavored pistachios, though I have to fight GG for them, they are sooo good. We keep various whole grain crackers and flatbreads on hand – the girls like them a lot, especially with hummus, or with cheese. GG is on a soft goat cheese kick at the moment.

None of us have any problems with food. We aren’t neurotic about it. Yes, we read ingredients — but come on! If you’re putting it into your body, shouldn’t you know what’s in it?

Of the food subjects I’ve covered in this series, the only thing we eat zero of is artificial sweeteners of any kind. Everything else makes it into our diets here and there, I just try to minimize them where I can. I can handle a little MSG occasionally, and I know the girls are getting it when they buy their lunch at school. They also get it at my parent’s house with the stupid Cheetos. I’m careful of canned goods, but I know the things they eat at school are coming from a can and have hfcs in them, and probably some form of free glutamate, too. Most days they carry their lunch, thank goodness. As I said when I talked about High Fructose Corn Syrup, it’s virtually impossible to totally eliminate it these days, but that’s not my plan. My plan is to limit it as much as possible on a daily basis.

The girls pig out on candy after Halloween and after Valentines Day. We don’t bother looking at ingredients, I tell them it’s a special occasion and to go for it. GG usually wants an ice cream cake for her birthday and we get what she wants without trying to be healthy about it. A few times a year we buy a big bag of the small variety potato chip bags for the girls to pack in their lunches. No one feels deprived. Everything in moderation, yes? I don’t worry about the horrible things they are eating at the school Christmas party because I know they get enough healthy food the rest of the time so their bodies can deal with and then heal the damage done by the toxins they are eating. The problem comes when you eat those things daily and your body is working full time trying to deal with those toxins. Something that will hurt you after eating it three or four times in a row generally doesn’t make it through our legal vetting processes, but something that won’t hurt you unless you eat it every other day for a month? Yeah, that can (and does) easily get through the FDA and EPA and all of the other alphabet agencies. And once they start putting those chemicals in everything, so people are eating them daily with almost every meal and snack, it’s a disaster. We eat them as the exception rather than the rule.

Just about every city has a food market these days that specializes in only stocking healthy items. Take a trip through and pay attention to name brands and ingredients. Some of the things you’ll see can be bought on Amazon for a lot less than the specialty stores price them, though you’ll have to buy more of it at a time. Buy a bottle (or box, or whatever) while you’re there and if it works for you then look around and find a less expensive way to buy it. Many times you’ll discover that your regular grocery also carries that item but it’s on the bottom shelf and you never noticed it. We don’t go to the specialty store very often, but when we do, we stock up on frozen items and condiments and that sort of thing. Oh, and bulk goods – that’s where we get our bulk nuts, and where I buy shea butter in bulk. I buy my soap there, too. They also have really good cheeses. If you’re having trouble finding things like ranch dressing with no hfcs or msg, this is where you’ll find it.

I don’t have time this morning to point to specific items we get, but I’ll try to do that this weekend where I can. Many of the brands we buy are local, and if I tell you what they are then you’ll have a good idea of where we live. Plus, unless you happen live close to me, it won’t do you much good. Same with the natural foods grocery store we sometimes go to. But, I’ll try to do some research to figure out which brands are sold nationwide so I can share those with you. Honestly, most of the really good stuff is made by small companies who don’t have a big footprint, so I don’t think you’re going to find a comprehensive list of “what to buy”, you’re just going to have to figure out what is available to you in your area. It takes a little legwork on the front end, but once you do the initial research it doesn’t take anymore time than just regular grocery shopping. I go to the produce market one day and get everything I can, and RK goes to the grocery store the next day while I take TT to dance class and he gets what I couldn’t get at the produce market. About once every six to eight weeks we stop by the natural foods grocery store on the way home from Chinese class on the weekend – and, bonus, they have a vegan deli and we buy something in there to take home and eat. Oh, man, they had these ratatouille burgers once that I could easily become addicted to. You never know what they’ll have – we got some vegan Chinese dumplings when we went the weekend before CNY this year and they were mouthwateringly good. The girls love it when we go there.

I’ve posted this before, but you can check out the various organic dairy brands here: cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html

I am only bringing up the truly toxic stuff in this series, there are tons of things out there that are a little bad that I’m not mentioning. I am nowhere near over the top – there are people who are, and who are neurotic about it. We aren’t. I focus on what we can eat, and not on what we should not eat. You can’t do that when you are doing a series about what to avoid, so I suppose this has seemed a bit more negative. But in our day to day life, it’s just not the case.

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Previous posts in this series:

• Pollution in China (prequel to the series, sort of)
• High Fructose Corn Syrup – why it is bad
• Avoiding Toxins – Non Stick Pans
• Avoiding Toxins – Petroleum Products in lotions and make-up
• Avoiding Toxins – Flame Resistant Pajamas
• Avoiding Toxins – Fingernail Polish
• Avoiding Toxins – Sunscreen
• Avoiding Toxins – Bisphenol-A (BPA) in canned goods and other products
• Avoiding Toxins – Examining a Make-Up Label
• Avoiding Toxins –MSG and it’s evil twins
• Avoiding Toxins – Aspartame
• Avoiding Toxins – Keeping Perspective

This entry was posted on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 8:47 am and is filed under Nutritions Toxins and Allergens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.