Food = Love

They say that kind of thinking leads to being overweight and having an unhealthy relationship with food.

But I disagree. Food is totally about love. At least it can be.

Serving my family healthy food is just one other way that I show them how much I love them.

I was having a hard time putting my thoughts into paragraph form without sounding preachy, which is definitely not my intention. So I am going to make a list of some of the things we do:

Take Z to shop at the Farmer's Market - buy her fresh Fuji apples and let her eat them while we walk around.

Take Z to a small farm to work (she fed the goslings) so she can see how the animals we eat should be treated. Compare and discuss factory farming.

Make a point to give her foods from various countries - so within five years of beginning to eat solid foods our girl has eaten Indian foods, Sushi and other Japanese foods, Thai, Chinese, traditional French, Italian, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, British High Tea, Morrocan, Greek, traditional Jewish food, Isreali and other Middle Eastern and different regional foods from American, including Creole, Southern BBQ, California cuisine and more.

Encourage Z to try different exotic foods like many different types of sushi, including octopus, squid, salmon roe, eel, raw tuna, yellotail and more. She has had rabbit, deer, elk, lamb, bison, ostrich, duck, goose, frog, snail, alligator, turtle, abalone, as well as vegetables from parsnips to bok choy and fruits from kiwi to lingonberries. I am happy to say that she is excited to try new foods when she has the chance.

We both cook with Z. Pere gives her complicated lessons in kitchen science and gourmet food and is starting to train her to be his sous chef. I am the one that teaches her to make the things she regularly eats and helps her get comfortable working in the kitchen.

I developed and taught a unit study on nutrition and vitamins a couple years ago and included Z in grocery shopping, asking Z to help me find fruits and vegetables in a variety of colors. These days she checks the labels for trans fats and partially hydrogenated oils.

We talk to her about marketing and advertising. We let her watch Super Size Me and now she is really turned off of Mc Donalds. ;)

I love to add extra vegetables to our meals - our tacos have dark green leaf lettuce, chunky salsa, and avocados, and they are made with grain-fed beef and whole -wheat tortilla. *grin* And I love making those choices at the market, because I know that I am helping my girl be heathy and develop a healthy lifestyle. And since she eats healthy for her main meals then I don't mind letting her have some kind of little treat.

My goal is that Z has a healthy body now and that this kind of eating becomes her own and she learns how to and enjoys feeding herself and her family with love.