Feeding The Cheungs: Guilt, the Final Chapter

Okay, all those other posts I wrote pretty much all in one sitting and I've only edited them here and there before posting them. But this one is harder. I've started it nineteen times and it's still not coming out right. I HATE THAT.

Part of what's trying to escape my brain is: when you become a mom, food becomes this... this thing. Phillip and I ate pretty much whatever we wanted before we had kids, but now I put a lot more thought into it. All the parenting magazines like to splash it across their covers: You are your child's nutritionist! Think about what you are putting into his system! It better be organic and local and made from animals who slept on rainbows and pooped sunshine!

And then you meet all these other moms, at the playground or in moms groups or in church or whatever and you notice what they feed their kids. What kinds of snacks, what kinds of lunches. If you are like me, you don't compare the kids, you compare yourself to the moms. And whenever I compared myself on the food front I quickly determined that I was FAILING MISERABLY. 

For one thing, I rarely buy anything organic. I used to buy organic milk, but then someone told me that it doesn't really matter if milk is organic and I stopped buying it. I have no idea if that's TRUE, but have you seen the price of organic milk? Perhaps I was looking for any excuse. I buy plain old Kraft mac and cheese, though Annie's is also nice. I don't buy organic produce, I don't buy organic dairy products, I don't buy organic kid snacks - it's just too expensive. 

But it's not just buying organic, it's BEING AWARE! There are a million trillion things to BE AWARE OF and I will probably be the last person in the world to read In Defense Of Food. I feel bad about it, because I LIKE to be aware, but I also feel like I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. I've got one kid who eats nothing but preservatives and one kid who subsists on yogurt and Laughing Cow cheese wedges and a husband who will never be a vegetarian EVER and those are the people I am responsible for feeding every single day. Top it off with trying to feed them HEALTHY things and I have my work cut out for me. 

This is only as guilt-inducing as I allow it to be, of course. When Jack was teeny and we were meeting with three different moms groups, it seemed like everyone was drinking the neurotic new mom kool aid. It seemed like we were competing to be the first to bring up The Next New Thing To Freak Out About, thereby establishing our cred on that subject. BPA in plastics, organics, who knew how to make the best and most creative baby food, keeping chickens in your backyard, vegan skincare products - OH THE DRAMA. It was so stressful, and I'm willing to concede that it was entirely my issue, I AM. But I had to escape and escape I did. 

Now I'm a few years into this kid thing, I've got two of them now and I'm EXPONENTIALLY more laid back. You have no idea how proud I am of this fact. I might not come off very laid back on this website and probably not in real life, but I know the difference between my inner monologues during Jack's first six months and Molly's first six months and it is significant. I am a much better and easier going mom this time around. Mostly I am easier on myself. 

But I still have guilt around food. I tell myself that if I loved my family more I would spend less money on clothes or going out to eat or seeing movies with my husband and buy organic produce. Or even just buy food at the nicer stores. I know the bread I buy isn't very good - hello, I lived in EUROPE, I know good bread! - but I'm too lazy and cheap to go to the stores with the good bread, or make a special trip to a bakery. I feel like I put so much effort into feeding my family - not spending a lot of money, making sure I cook dinner most nights, finding things the kids will eat - but it's still not healthy enough. 

And it's not just wanting to do what everyone else is doing, or following what's in fashion or whatever- I really WOULD like to buy local and pay more attention to the kind of meat I buy. I think this food stuff is real and important and I would like to do my part. I'm just... BUSY! And not willing to spend what it costs.

That's what started this whole, uh, MANIFESTO on grocery shopping in the first place. Sitting down to make my menu and my shopping list, and realizing that the good food was at that store, but I knew what my bill would be if I went to that store. 

And all of this is just to say: feeding your family is a tough job. THE END!

Comments

[Oana]

You think In Defense of Food was bad? You should try Eating Animals. I am still reeling from reading it.

[Manda]

Agreed. Keeping us in fresh strawberries is hard work over here!

[Kate]

Feeding your family IS a tough job, but I'm sure you're doing just fine. Keeping your family on a budget is equally tough, so balancing the two can be stressful. Hang in there...we're in the same boat!

[Sarah in Ottawa]

You are doing an amazing job. Also - and I am wearing my Food Scientist hat here (and have back-ups from my best friend -- PhD in Nutrition - and two close friends who are both RDs and have either Master's or PhDs in public health) - no demonstrated health benefits from organic food. Environmental, some. Animal health (as in well being), yes. But benefits to the health of humans? Nada.

I like the environment, but I am not willing to pay triple for the same thing. I find that when I look at organic apples at this time of year, for example, they're coming from NZ or South America. The toll that transportation takes on the environment is not negligible, either!

Further to the amazing job you are doing: you are not feeding them pork rinds at every meal. You are offering them healthy options and are trying to introduce new things. You are also contending with one of the pickiest stages in a child's life: when we were hunter/gatherers, children of J&M's ages would start gathering food for themselves and anything unfamiliar could kill them. The pickiness makes sense evolutionarily!

[Becca]

THANK YOU Sarah in Ottowa! And Maggie!

I have also felt guilt about not buying organic this and that, but like you I am not willing (or able) to spend twice as much for the same product. I mean, we go through two gallons of milk a week! That would be more than twenty dollars more per month!

You are doing great!

[Dr. Maureen]

Oh, the guilt. THE GUILT. It's crushing sometimes.

But on the bread front, can I suggest you buy "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day"? (Too lazy to link it, but search Amazon.) IT'S REALLY ONLY FIVE MINUTES A DAY. OK, you have to be HOME for about 90 minutes on the day you bake the bread, but I swear I have gotten up and BAKED BREAD BEFORE BREAKFAST. It is THAT EASY.

Full disclosure: It's still not as easy as buying bread, and it's hard to make the bread the right size for sandwiches, so I haven't actually made any in a while. Oh, also because you need a big space in your fridge to store the dough, and sometimes fridge real estate is hard to come by. BUT. Buy the book. You can bake bread almost effortlessly and then feel smug smug smug and guilt free.

[Maggie]

EXCEPT, my dear Dr. Mo, I WOULD THEN EAT ALL THE BREAD. Perhaps there is a reason I am only buying kid-friendly sandwich bread...

[Ashley]

Feeding the family is a VERY tough job. My biggest guilt-inducing thing is vegetables. I don't feel like they're ever getting enough. And my husband totally complicates the issue by refusing to eat anything green...or anything that's been touched my anything green. It's impossible!

[Ashley]

Oops, that should have been "touched BY anything green".

[C @ Kid Things]

I think, as long as our kids aren't starving, we're doing a fine job. It's kind of another take on breast vs. bottle, when really what it comes down is what works best for YOU.

On that note, we don't buy much of anything organic, either.

[Holly]

I find I have the same guilt over what I feed Garrett and myself, and sometimes when we are sitting around discussing the merits of grass fed over corn fed ovr free range/organic/whatever I just have to say to myself, "Holly, let the yuppie douchebaggery madness come to an end!"

I do want to know and understand what I'm eating. I appreciate that about this whole Food Awareness Movement. But I personally think it is a slow process. Start doing one thing different today. Then when that becomes a habit, pick something else. In a couple of years you may find yourself eating a whole new diet and not even feeling like you made any sweeping changes. At least that is what I have found from my own experience.

But kids? They are a whole other issue, I'm sure. Don't be too hard on yourself, your mom-ness will not be defined by whether or not your kids eat only animals that "go night night on rainbows." That was hysterical btw, and I'm stealing that!

[Elizabeth]

Yes. Yes. Just yes.
I myself had to step off that crazy merry go round of "the best car seat, the only organic milk, no canned food, we're all going to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeee."
because I also could not afford it, and it was crazy making, because there was ALWAYS MORE. I was NEVER DOING ENOUGH. Add that to the gluten free food ($$$$) and it was TOO MUCH.
So now I try to choose my battles, make smart choices where I can, and sigh dramatically when I buy the $5 hot dogs instead of the $1 hot dogs.

This was a very very interesting post.

[HereWeGoAJen]

I think food takes up most of my thoughts now. I figured out that between all of us, I average making about four meals per day and cleaning up after five. (Matt makes himself breakfast, but doesn't clean it up (which I am fine with) but he does it in between breakfast and lunch time. And then wants a pre-dinner dinner or a post-dinner dinner and ARGH.)

[Jess]

I think you're doing a great job. Conventional milk notwithstanding, you know? I can understand the guilt but ultimately it's just a waste of energy, really. We try to eat reasonably healthy foods and buy some organic produce but I also eat Oreos, and I'm totally OK with that.

[Lisa]

I don't stress about organic versus regular food. Nutritionally, I doubt there is enough difference to fret about. The important thing, for me, is finding something that the kid will eat consistently to keep her going and throw in some fruits and veggies that I KNOW she'll eat so we aren't wasting food all the time. We limit the sugar and emphasize the milk. If I'm going to stress about something, it will be the quality of the meat. I don't stress about milk, eggs or produce. The end.

[Elsha]

About the milk thing? Check your milk label, it will probably say somewhere that it's from cows who don't get any growth hormone. Even the wal-mart brand cheap stuff.

As for buying organic, don't even get me started. The merits of organic are pretty much non-existent, and the FDA hasn't defined what constitutes something being "organic" so there are HUGE variations in what an "organic" label actually means.

[Jessica]

I live in Iowa, am the daughter of a farmer, and the wife of a commodities (corn/soybean) broker. You should get my family started on organics! And my husband thinks raising/selling grass-fed beef should be a crime - as almost all Iowa farm boys do:)

[Kate P]

Jeez, all I have to worry about is feeding a cat, so I applaud all you moms!!! I have food allergies so I worry that if(when) I do have a family, will I be buying double or just forcing my non-allergy stuff on them, or what?

[Ellen W]

I too have spent time worrying about what I feed my family after reading Michael Pollan. I've also enjoyed The Dinner Diaries by Betsy Block and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver. I get crazy ideas of making cheese and canning and then come back to reality. I do bake most of our "sweets" and am trying to bake more bread this year.

I would love to buy more organic but like you and other posters can't stomach paying double for certain items. I live in Montana where our farmers' market only runs for 3 1/2 months and aside from Costco (which does have some organic stuff at reasonable prices) and Wal-mart, there is Albertson's and some IGAs. Being a locovore here is much more difficult than in California or parts of the eastern seaboard.

Plus I have a fairly picky husband and 4 yr old, so fixing healthy meals they will enjoy can be a challenge. My bottom line is that my kids eat fruits and veggies every day and drink low-fat milk and water. My 4 yr old doesn't even care for juice and the baby is still on the breast. As my husbands likes to remind me, there are plenty of other things to worry about :).

[Lindsay]

For me there are two issues: 1)the stuff going into my body, 2)the treatment of the animals/food factory workers. I am not that concerned about ingesting the garbage, but the treatment of the workers/animals is wrong. It's sad that it's the job of the working family to fight this atrociousness by paying double for food, instead of the gov't shutting down the horrible companies. Of course the cost of food would go up then.... and of course I'm sure I have a ton of clothing that was made in less than desirable conditions too... It's a complicated world, obvs. I am trying to just do the best I can and on different days that means different degrees of action and I have to be ok with that. My last comment and forgive that I am only loosely on topic here but I have lost complete faith in the government. They are pretty much owned by big business as far as I can tell, and it's every man for himself as far as The People go. Most depressing comment ever, I know. -oh one more thing....I think organic food does taste better in a lot of cases. there are lots of reasons well explained in the comments and by you as to why to not buy organic, but certainly there are some non yuppy, non pretentious reasons to buy organic too.

[janey]

I come from a long line of farmers who ate meat and potatoes at almost every meal, and my grandma still cooks with heavy cream. Oh, the grandparents are in their 90's! My grandpa really can tell the difference between a store bought chicken and a home grown one, but they just snicker at the idea of organic. I also think store bought fruit tastes like cardboard compared to fresh from the farm, but I take what I can get. What I think my grandparents got right was that home cooking is usually healthier than eating processed foods and eating a wide variety of foods is good, too. I try to feed my own peanuts a "colorful" plate, meaning that if we eat mac-and-cheese, it's with a side of berries or greens. BTW, spaghetti sauce is made from vegetables! How wonderful is that! I loved your posts this week. Thanks!

[Raven]

Oh I buy organic...mostly...I also buy gluten free...mostly...I am cutting a lot of meat out of my diet too because my stomach seems to be in a constantly state of revolt and I don't know what I can even eat anymore but a lot of the organic stuff I did for the kid. You know what that got me? Him complaining at me that it's my fault he's shorter than all his friends! That they are all hulking masses of growth hormone injected kids and he's all skinny and short because I FEED HIM TOO WELL.

You can't win for losing! So now he insists that he doesn't get organic milk and he wants to check other labels to make sure what he's eating isn't organic. Isn't that some shit?

*sigh*

[Jessica]

I could have TOTALLY written this blog. I check out what the other kids in my son's class eat for lunch (Sometimes I sneak in there when they're putting out lunches when my class is doing something without me).
And I am completely baffled by the kids who eat broccoli (like BY ITSELF) and all kinds of healthy stuff.
My son would pretty much eat pancakes for 3 meals a day.
The organic stuff (at least the non-perishable stuff) goes bad so fast without all those pesky preservatives. I feel like I'm throwing money in the trash.
I can't get them to eat veggies. Or cheese. Or meat.
Pb&J, yogurt, applesauce, chocolate milk..
And I almost felt like I had to defend myself by writing that I only put a squirt of syrup in the milk...

*sigh*
I don't judge other moms, so I guess they probably aren't judging me. But why do I feel like I'm failing my kids when they won't stand in the same room with something green and healthy?

[Charlotte]

I commit the terrible sin of just buying what tastes good. Newman-O's > Oreos, Annie's < Kraft. Though I do grocery store circuits, know who has what for how much and generally get my meat from the butcher, bread from the bakery, my milk usually comes in glass bottles, I'm mulling a CSA share, it has a large amount to do with my own comfort. It's not really a political Alice Waters/Michael Pollan issue, so much as I am a selfish, selfish person who cares about food miles but not enough to stop buying Chilean strawberries and Austrian jam. I feel like this is an area where doing your best and trying to make your best better is enough.

[Shelby]

This is honestly one of my biggest concerns about having kids - having to come up with healthy (ish?) stuff every single meal of every single day.

[Rachel]

I know this is an older post and you probably don't want to think about this anymore, but I stumbled upon your blog this morning and felt the compulsion to share. I grew up in a home of no food. No, my parents weren't poor and we didn't live on government cheese. My parents lived under the guilt of the latest health craze. At one point, I remember packing my lunch and including pickled asparagus spears, a few slices of cheese and oatmeal cookies. I vowed never to let my kids grow up in a house surrounded by food items that weren't really food. So, I always have sandwich fixings on hand (PB&J or meat and cheese), there is always fruit in the basket on the counter, berries and yogurt, granola, I make breakfast every morning and dinner is planned (and yes, eating out is a plan.) The fad-diets that still plague my parent's house make trips to grandma's and grandpa's house include a stop at the store. So, in summary, I just want to say that while I know I have certain scruples, those scruples never interfere with my feeding my family.