The Perils of the Real Food Propaganda
Nearly five years ago I began learning about this thing called "traditional food" or "real food". Sadly, it was revolutionary for me.
Since that journey began, our boys (almost 5 and 3), have been with me every step of the way… eating butter and drinking raw milk, helping us cook eggs or make sauerkraut, and listening to me talk about the food we grow, make, and eat.
It sounds really quaint, but now that they’re old enough to openly express their own thoughts on food it has become a little, well, unpredictable. And since the way we eat is pretty much polar opposite to what many "experts" have been recommending for years, we tend to get some pretty funny looks.
When…
…you remove a couple of pieces of bacon from the Whole Foods breakfast bar and your four-year-old screams out "Is that bacon? I LIKE FATTY BACON!" while the no-fat oatmeal and fruit crowd look on in horror.
…your four-year-old is offered commercial soda and he asks "Is there sugar in it?" and when he finds out there is he says "No thanks, that’s not smart."
…your young sons help you in the kitchen and randomly scream out "And then we fry this stuff up in GOOD LARD!" Thankfully there is no low-fat crowd hanging out in our kitchen.
…you realize you’ve gone too far in explaining why we don’t eat a lot of sugar because your oldest son says "Yeah, sugar isn’t good for you." And then your two-year-old responds "Yeah, dat stuff will KILL YOU!"
So be careful what you teach them and feed them… it will come back around in one way or another.
Do you have any funny real food moments from your little ones?
Love it! My 4 year old daughter told her Grandma while spending the night…Well, breakfast was good but I also need a protein. She knows what she needs!
Recently, at a ballet class, a little girl was handing out graham crackers. I’ve made some from scratch before (and not looking exactly like those out of a package) – but, so long ago, my 4yo and 6yo did not remember. My 6yo asks, “What’s a graham cracker?” That brought some stares and eye rolls.
I’m pretty outspoken about what we eat and what we don’t. I get a lot of “you’re nuts” stares when I explain that would never buy milk at the commissary (we are US Military living abroad in Germany) b/c it’s ultra-pasteurized and shipped from the US. I buy either raw goat, raw cow or local organic, non-homogenized (but lightly pasteurized) milk. I also never buy eggs there b/c I can get bright orange free-range at the store next to my house. Many Americans live on the military installation and only shop at the commissary (American grocery store). When the US dollar is really weak, I’ll find myself going there for a few things – organic, grass fed ground beef (they actually have a tiny bit of that), free-range organic whole chickens from France, raw cheddar cheese, and Alaska wild salmon, organic frozen berries (pretty expensive on the economy), a some organic local produce that they sell from time to time. But, I stay away from almost everything else and get a lot of heat for buying local at farms, markets, etc. It’s just not want most ppl do and it feels wrong to them.
I was recently visiting an American friend and noticed her husband was making himself a sandwich with Wonder Bread. I had to bite my tongue. Really? We live in EUROPE. There is great, fresh bread on EVERY corner and he was eating Wonder Bread! What a waste of a European experience!
My kids, when seeing something a friend has that they want, will ask, “mom, can you make that?” They don’t quite grasp that everything can’t be made my hand and that some of that “food” is made in a factory.
When we are out and about, I cringe at the things parents are feeding their children. And, I do have a rule that my kids, when not home, can have whatever their friends are having. Well, they can’t have five juice boxes at a BBQ like their friends – but, if they want something we would NEVER eat at home, I don’t say anything anything anymore. This is partially b/c my husband thinks it’s rude, and partially b/c I don’t want my kids to ever feel pushed into Real Food. It is all they know at home and I know that they have much larger palates than most of their friends (Their favorite food is Indian, they’ve been known to embrace Vietnamese, they love German food, spicy food, seafood, etc.) and I’m certain they will grow into real food foodies like me (My husband is not, generally, interested in food. It’s not his thing. But, he is a beer snob, brewing his own beer – so they’ll get that from him – no Bud for them!). They haven’t been to a fast food restaurant in over a year, unlike most of their American friends.
Parents and many friends think I’m a freak or have “too much time on my hands” to do the research I do. But, I take great pride in the fact that processed food I grew up on, like most of American children do to this day, does not enter the mouth of my children very often and rarely, if ever, in my own home. When the kids ask what fruit is for dessert, I beam.
Keep up the good work!!
Ah yes, especially with junk-food-addicted Grandma. “No, thank you, Grandma. If I have ice cream again today, I’ll feel bad tomorrow.” and “Let’s go home and have Mom’s GRASSFED burgers instead!” are my two favorites.
Reminds me of when I was a kid. I was visiting family in the suburbs who took me to see “Bambi”. When the movie got to the part where the mother is killed I turned to my aunt and asked if we could have venison. Like any 5 year old I wasn’t nearly as quiet as I thought I was and you could actually hear everyone in the theater turn their heads in horror. To this day I still remember the looks we got leaving the theater and I still love venison.
Just last night I was talking to my 3 yr old twins about food. I asked them to list some healthy foods. First response? Bacon! Then my other girl said, “Ice cream and cookies, those are sometimes foods.” One day as we passed the mayo isle, I heard one of the girls say very loudly. “That is so bad for you… unless it is homemade!”
My boys have been known to tell other adults, “Soda is a grown up drink and it just isn’t acceptable for children.” Totally their wording too. Cracks me up every time. They love to point out the protein in our meals and remind me that they need healthy foods to grow strong like their daddy. They also insist on the “yummy milk from the cows.” We are lucky to be able to actually see the cows at the location where we pick up our milk, occasionally, we’ve seen them milked and them taken that same milk home with us.
Adorable! They are so uncensored! My kids are on GAPS, and I almost always eat GAPS food when they’re awake, but my husband often eats non GAPS food. My two year old points to it and yells, “that will make you sick!’ lol
Ha this is great! What next, kids saying how much they love cod liver oil? HE HE HE. 🙂
let your sons teach their peers! just explain to them that not everyone understands food the same way you do. explain that most people are confused about food because of advertising. advertisers don’t care if people are healthy, they only care if they sell product. teach them to be compassionate when they are sharing their knowledge and people react poorly. and of course if you’re there and they need back up just say “you know I’ve been doing a lot of research on sugar and it seems that many scientists have proven that it has many health detriments. we as a family decided not to eat it.
That is exactly like my boys (almost 5 & 3 too). My oldest with often say quite loudly in the milk section at the grocery store, “this is the milk that is bad for you, right mommy?” or in the meat section, “this is the bad meat that we don’t want to buy, right mommy?” Oh and the sugar thing, my kids are always noting which items have sugar in them and how it will make you sick and kill you. LOL
My daughter has been making their own bread (grinding it herself as well) for about 5 years – – she had to buy some bread last week (ran out). She bought the “good” bread, but when she served it to the kids the younger ones didn’t like it – can’t you make some good bread soon? this stuff tastes yucky! they’re officially ‘broke’. 🙂
Much to digest, thank you for this story.
Not sure which part of the country you are in, we are in the Napa County (wine region), CA.
The current issue of the magazine Edible had a wonderfully written article on GMOs.
For those who look in horror at fat and sugar would be more horrified by looking or trying to find products that are free of this, and the future of our food supply.
Finding your way in an information packed world is confusing and frustrating at best.
I also applaud you.
Thank you.
My son asks where the food at the store or in the restaurant came from….especially seafood. He wants to know it was wild caught and from our continent. We produce our other meats, so this is the one meat he sees me studying before I buy. He also asks if fruits and veggies are organic when someone offers him one. I haven’t told him to ask these questions, he just knows these things are important to me, so they are important to him.
At a church picnic, my children asked the griller if he would be making any lamb chops. Lol! At the same picnic, my daughter refused kook-aid because the sugar would lower her immune system… and she wanted to be healthy for her piano recital.
Yesterday while my husband was making a coconut milk smoothie with raw honey, my 3 year old boy says excitedly, “Will the lard melt?” He thought there was lard in it…there actually wasn’t, however if I really thought we needed more fat, I wouldn’t have hesitated to put it in the smoothie either!
We were checking out in the grocery store and my daughter look at the food the woman in front of us was putting on the conveyer. “Mommy she has cookies, those are junk”. She doesn’t bother asking for junk anymore when we’re at the store. But I’m still fighting the battle at friends houses and my neighbor is always giving her junk, the worst of the worst. That’s the problem with exposing young kids in the first place to this stuff, they know what they’re “missing”. At least I can start right with my son. Good for your boys for being so smart.
Yes, my 5yo says that he loves his CLO (natural strawberry flavored) and rubs his belly at the same time. My 81yo grandma accused me of brainwashing because my 8 & 9 yo old sons refused orange pop and doughnuts from a bag. They even refused to watch tv as we were on an electronics break. It took quite a while for me to help her understand that “treats” are things that are good for you and that I have trouble purchasing like organic strawberries, raspberries or grass-fed beef hot dogs. It is an amazing tribute to the food industry that we think of a ‘treat’ as something that is completely bad for us and has so many cancer-causing ingredients. And we lap them up like, well, candy. Well, not us, but you know what I mean.
We have a new family next door. When they moved in, I sent over a loaf of pumpkin bread made with home sprouted flour to welcome them. So two weeks later they had us over for lunch and it was microwaved hotdogs, white buns, white cake from a mix, canned frosting, Doritos and canned “punch”. I was trying so hard to be non-chalant and not look horrified. Then during lunch we found out that the previous evening the husband had been in the E/R where he was monitored for a suspected heart attack, which fortunately turned out to be a wake-up call/flase alarm.
The next day, my nine year climbed the lilac bush and yelled over the fence at him, “Do you know that cholesterol is critical to both the rigid structure and the semi-permeable nature of the cell membrane?! Did you know that people with obestity, metabolic syndrome and cardiac conditions don’t need LOW fat diets but RIGHT fat diets?! And another thing, did you know that saturated fats are critical to an infant’s neurological development, just so you know! Did you know that my mom has pamphlets from the “Price People”? They’re in her purse, I can get one!” He yelled for like twenty minutes and the neighbor NEVER looked up once! I was too embaressed to intervene.
The whole time the guy was intently staring and the ground like, “Hey kid, I’m just raking my yard, just raking. I am raking and not making eye contact, trying not to encourage you…” His wife did ask about “the Price People” and I did give them the link to the fabulous “Healthy 4 Life” booklet but have yet to hear back from them. It is a lot to wrap your head around and is sooo different from the “diet dictocrats”.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Hey, why are you having soda? You should go drink water instead! (from my 4 year to our pastor!)
Just the other night we had fingerling potatoes. They were a colorful variety and I thought my kids would have fun with red and purple and white potatoes. When I served them they looked horrified at their plates. After a while one of my girls asked me, pointing at the purple fingerling potato, “Is this dog poop”. I wanted to fall off my chair laughing. Yes we do eat some strange things, but dog poop? I do have to admit that purple fingerling potatoes do look like dog poop… I couldn’t laugh though because she is pretty sensitive. Once I explained to them what it was they all did laugh a little…. but they didn’t eat the purple potatoes. 🙂
My daughter still won’t eat my homemade cheese (my son devours it, however). But I love hearing this one: “more deer heart, please!”
I think we all have some sort of “horror story” from our kids… My only ONLY problem with it is that as a Christian, we are also trying to teach our children the kindness, compassion, etc. etc. of the Lord. Sometimes, this causes issues…
“Moma, why does she have all that icky food in her cart? Doesn’t she know it will make her sick? Does she WANT God to help her learn from being sick?”
“Moma, doesn’t God tell us our bodies are a temple? WHY does he have THAT for his body then?”
Although my biggest red-face moment has to be the “Grandfather, Moma says you eat food that isn’t healthy, and that’s why you and Grandmother are fat.”
*cough*, *sigh*
And yet, we continue to teach, talk and learn. May God bless us all. 🙂
i Loovve this! I know my kids have said some things about food, but I just can’t remember them right now. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’ve taught my littles to simply say “No thank you” and only elaborate when it’s requested of them. Anything else will almost always come across as judgmental.
Dellaina – I think that’s the best way to go. If you feed them well and tell them why these foods are good for them when they ask then there really isn’t much more you can (or should) do.
The big stacks of soda by the grocery store entrance (especially at Superbowl and March Madness time) always induce my 3 & 4 year old boys to yell, “EWW SODA!!”
Luckily both sets of grandparents eat somewhat healthy (whole food, but low-fat) and still find the boys’ “real food” talk amusing.
My son told our next door neighbor (adult) that if he kept drinking soda, the acid would burn a hole in his stomach. He was 3 at the time. LOL!
Oh my goodness- this cracked me up! Thanks for the laugh.
Our baby, Bracken, is almost 8 months old. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of those comments in our future. 🙂
Love, Taryn
These, from my 4 year old son (obviously, all very loudly…he’s 4…):
“Wow, that lady sure has a lot of junk in her cart!”
“He has cigarettes AND fast food – that’s a lot of poor choices for one person.”
(and then, the confrontational…)
[to the lady who picks up a chocolate bar in the checkout line] “You shouldn’t eat that. It will make your pancreas cry.” [and then the lady puts the chocolate bar back on the shelf…]
Ahem.
We’ve had to have several conversations about how we can’t tell other people what to do, but we learn enough to make good decisions for ourselves, to be good stewards of what God has given us.
BTW, I did share a few of these stories (posted by other people) with my husband, and he was comforted that there are other women as crazy as me out there. …anybody want to get together for a playdate? 🙂
Ahhhh…. I’m just chuckling at this. I recently overheard my 5 year old lecturing my 82 year old grandma about the dangers of eating grains. Too funny.
I love articles like these because it is vital to highlight the sociological aspects of ‘real food.’ I have plenty of good and bad observations, but I believe kids are a godsend when it comes to unsuppressed communication. The manner we show compassion is not and should not be the same. If a comment comes out with hurtful intent (from either side) it’s more a reflection of the child situational demeanor than the comment itself. I think it’s better to provide SAD eaters a reference which will help construct the reality of what it is they’re eating and why. It happens in the other direction ALL the time. Everyone’s responsible for their own feelings. Let kids be kids. Good or bad, they will pick up their parent’s nature without effort, so we (Real Food moms) should just relax and continue doing what it is we’re doing without reserve.
Hey, I would love a little help here for someone who is in the opposite boat.
We are not what you would call complete traditional eaters- but we are much more than most people and I am no low fat fan. We also eat Gluten, Corn and my daughter eats dairy free at this point (we haven’t tried raw yet due to the cost and I have not finding a way to keep it from souring after the 1st day).
Anyway- my daughter (who we adopted when she was 4) came with food issues- she was “hungry” all the time. We were able to tone it down but she still has issues, she asks about eating a lot and sneaks food if it is not out of sight or reach. Mind you, we don’t really have real “junk food” in the house- but we do have “snack food” that tends to be healthier but not food you should be eating more than a small portion- and that is what she takes as well as some of my husbands food with “flour wheat” in it, as she calls it.
The other day we were in the store at she looks up longingly at the junk food aisle and says “i used to be able to eat all that stuff….and now I can’t”.
We do talk a lot about our bodies and how we need to be healthy and those foods are not good for us. And she “knows the drill” but would rather not have anything to do with it.
Her latest kick are those new Kool Aids that turn your tongue super, blue, yellow or whatever.. I can’t imagine how much food dye there is in those. She just stares at the ads.
And for those who don’t homeschool- how do you handle the crazy amount of junk served at school- store bought cupcakes and 3 inches of bright blue frosting.. otter pops, McDonalds, candy, ding dongs.. and it goes on. And all this with a child who is suppose to be gluten, corn and dairy free (due to trying to control behavior issues) and who will shove a ding dong in her mouth the first time no one is looking- it’s crazy how fast that suck can go down.. 🙁 Just so you know I do my best to replace everything- down to making ice cream sandwiches and bringing them to school for her.
I am kind of at a loss here.. my husband supports our healthy eating but he also feels like maybe we should just let her eat all the school junk- as long as she is not getting it at home. I totally disagree..
any help?
jen
Jen – Honestly, I am not sure how to deal with the negative influences at school. I suppose the only way to do it would be to pack her treats and snacks that she can eat within her guidelines so that she can feel like she’s at least not missing out. How old is your daughter? She might understand that by eating certain foods she can fell better, do more, have more energy, etc. So emphasize what she can eat rather than what she can’t. She has probably already felt the consequences of eating those foods that she is sensitive to so she has to physically know there is a reaction. Again, though, it is difficult when they are young.
Edit-
Gluten and Corn FREE
jen
On my son’s birthday I needed something small and round to make eyes for some fondant pigs I made to go on top of cupcakes. The only thing we could find that was the right size were mini m&ms. I figured since it was a special occasion (and each cupcake would only have 2 eyes) we could get them. We asked our 3 year old if he wanted a couple of them. He said, “Do they have yucky dyes in them?” I couldn’t do anything but hug him. I still love that comment! 🙂
We were at a big picnic and the insects were doing their usual pesky business when my ten-year-old son loudly proclaimed, “You know how to have a bug-free picnic?” Many looked on in curiosity thinking he was telling a joke. He hollers out, “Get the food from McDonald’s. Nobody wants to eat THAT junk!” Since this wasn’t exactly a gathering for Weston Price foodies, I got many and askance gaze shot my way over the rims of Mountain Dew cans. . .
I get the old propaganda thrown back in my face. I grew up on skim milk and my children drink it by the gallon. I have switched to whole milk in all my baking but now I am trying to get my kids to switch their drinking habits. My three year old calls whole milk “blood milk” because it has the red cap. And my seven year old daughter said, “But mom, you said that would make us fat if we drank too much.” Sigh….my old mis-informed words coming back to haunt me!
I see my comment is still “awaiting moderation” two days later. Was it too straight forward to make the cut? It was wonderful advice that was given to me at one time, but truth like that isn’t always received well. I apologize if I offended you. Please delete it without fear of hurt feelings on my part.
Dellaina – Not too straight forward at all and something we try to teach our little ones as well. I just haven’t been “around” enough to approve the 42 comments awaiting moderation. Thanks for you thoughts!
As a child my mother would buy white bread for us to feed to the ducks at the park. She told us that it wasn’t good for people to eat only for animals. My sister and I took this literally and pretty much thought white bread was the equivalent of dog food. When we were at a potluck of some kind white bread was being served so we ran screaming and shocked over to our mother that people were eating animal bread.
So endearing! Your boys would be welcome in our kitchen anytime, and we might even pass the test for them.
It is amazing how eating real foods fills you, nourishes you and sustains you.
I look forward to teaching our children as well.
Oh I love all the comments, kids, ya gotta luv em.
While digging plants up that someone was giving away, they offered my grandson, who is 2 some water. Next thing I know I hear him screaming bloody murder. Thinking the dog got a bit wild I ran with my heart racing to find out. They had given him, (shock!) 7-Up and when he sipped it he freaked out. I didn’t try to explain at all. They had no idea, they just thought he was frightened of the dog. He loves my homegrown beets the most, just wish he’d not be in a hurry to pick them and eat them.
These stories bring back great memories of my own four kids.
I think the family realized that things were seriously being absorbed by the littles when my then 3 year old niece wandered up to my now-husband than-boyfriend who was eating an avocado and announced, with all the seriousness and gravitas that only a tiny tot with huge blue eyes and an earnest expression can muster, “Good. You are eating AvaCAdos. That’s good. They have…” stare to the ceiling, stare to the floor, collect thoughts… “Monounsaturamated fats in them. VERY good for your heart.” Waggled stern finger at now gobsmacked (and completely unused to, at the time, precocious small children) man “NO more refined sugars! Bad! Eat the cado!”
He had to be taken into the house and given a drink to recover from the shock. But that (and all the following – but that was the kickstart) is what he claims is responsible for the fact he now wants us to start our own family. He thinks the experiment could be quite good fun if kids can turn out like that!
Soooo funny, Shannon. I can relate. =)