Yesterday as I perused the local mega mart (insert generic, overly large store name here) looking for frozen peas for a dish I am making this week, I was overcome by irritation at the lack of frozen vegetables in my supermarket. Where there once was over half an aisle of various frozen veggies (though, sadly, at this particular grocery store, none were ever organic), there is now little more than what fits behind three glass doors worth.
As I searched for peas, I walked by frozen french fries and other potato products and over an aisle and a half of pre-prepared, frozen meals and this does not include pizza or breakfast stuff. Long gone are the droves of stay at home mommies (and even daddies) who lovingly cook for their offspring. Gone are the days when children learned to make food from their parents instead of a high school class where "cooking" equals taking pre-cut cookies and placing them on a baking sheet and putting them in the oven for eight to ten minutes. Aisles upon aisles of frozen items, pizzas, microwaveable meals, breakfast "foods", desserts, breads. Its even hard now to find frozen vegetables that don't come in a microwave ready, "steamer package". (For more info on why you shouldn't expect anything nutritious to come from a microwave, see here)
I live a busy life. I have seven kids who, all but the littlest, are in school and involved in after school activities. I spend the majority of my week running kids to school or from school or sitting at a dance studio or at voice lessons or running errands or helping kids with homework. I am lucky right now to be staying at home with my kids. Its very tough financially to do this, but necessary because of my breast cancer-for more info see my other blog. Despite being a stay at home mom, I don't have tons of free time to make meals and yet my kids eat pre-processed and fast foods type foods probably twice a month at most. I make use of crockpots and soups/stews that take little time to prepare. I make meal plans for the week so I know what I'm doing ahead of time and I change my mind at the last minute if it turns out I'll only have 30 minutes to cook. Between taking kids to school and picking them up, I am usually only home for about 4 1/2 hours max during the week and dinner has to be ready for me to take at least part of it with me when I get kids from school since some of them go immediately to after-school activities (dance mostly). Our food has to hold up to being kept hot for awhile. It has to travel fairly well.
I manage to cook healthily and almost completely from scratch, for nine people (plus a little because leftovers are great the next day) on very limited time, an extremely limited budget and with a toddler at my feet or on my hip. It is completely worth the inconvenience to make sure my and my family's health are priority.
Apparently not all parents in America feel that their children's nutritional needs are worth it. Heaven forbid you might be inconvenienced by having to feed your kids something that someone else didn't make for them.
School lunches are crap, usually and yet kids eat them because their parents can't be inconvenienced enough to get up in the morning and make them something, or do it the night before, or here's a novel idea...teach the kids how to make their own!
My fridge is full of fresh fruits, some cut, some whole, cooked pastas and rice (I cooked them), veggies that are easily placed into containers, salad fixings ready to go, boiled eggs and more. The cabinets are full of the small amount of pre-packaged foods I buy: canned salmon and beans, crackers (organic, thank you), fruit leathers and other dried fruits, cereals (no high sugar stuff here), dehydrated veggies and other similar things. Its very easy for all but my kindergartener to fix their own lunch without direction or help.
Good food is one of the best gifts you can give your child and its one that you should require yourself to give them. So get off your ass and cook something. If you don't know how, learn and teach your kids at the same time; that way, when you are out of the house, they can still eat healthfully without your help. Preparing meals for my children is an inconvenience with which I am glad to be stuck.
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