Food for thought.

Today our pediatrician gave me the green light to give Wyatt snack foods to get his gums moving. As I examined the contents of the Gerber Graduate line I found myself drooling in the aisle. Everything sounded delicious... from the Strawberry Swirl Puffs, to the Banana Yogurt Melts. A mom with a toddler was standing next to me and after swapping age and birth dates (awkward silence after announcing I just turned 24 in August) she told me to check the ingredients before making my snack choice. It wasn't until I turned the package around and read the nutrition contents that I decided that it was too good to be true. Like any food, if it looks and sounds that good- more then likely its not good for you.

Have you ever actually tasted baby food?

When I started Wyatt on rice cereal at 4 months, I told myself that I was going to try everything that he ate, before he ate it. My first thought was that it definitely was lacking something and considered adding a bit of maple syrup and a dash of cinnamon to it. Of course, this is what my overactive taste buds are used to- sugar and salt... 2 things good baby food should be lacking.

I went on to try the peas, green cardboard mush and judging by the look on Wyatt's face, he was as disgusted with these as I was. All of the orange foods were good... squash, carrots, rutabaga, sweet potato. The fruits are always yummy... a milder version of applesauce in a sweet array of flavors. They also have a higher sugar content, making them tastier yet obviously not as nutritious. Now we are at a new stage... out with the prepackaged mash and in with the real food. I have dusted off my Magic Bullet and am prepared to blend our dinner to a choppy pulp. I was under the impression that Wyatt wasn't old enough for this yet, but our doctor said that since his weight is great we can start trying to cut out a milk feeding during the day. Hooray for me!

This of course means healthier eating for Bryan and I. Luckily I enjoy cooking and as I have said before, I love nothing more then finding ways to make healthy food actually taste good. I am far from the organic, granola loving mom shopping solely at Trader Joe's for fear their child should inhale ecoli from processed spinach (if this is you I'm sorry, its just not a lifestyle I can relate too). I am a real mom, on a real budget (something you cant be on if trying to go organic), with a real husband that refuses to eat steak and potatoes less then twice a week. This makes things a little trickier, but knowing that my sons (and okay, husbands) health is a priority makes the task less daunting.

A have a few rules that I live by:

1. Snacks CAN and WILL be nutritious.
2. Hot dogs are meant to be eaten only at birthday parties, if at all.
3. Convenient foods make lazy parents... and unhealthy kids
4. TV dinners are just that... made for kids that eat dinner in front of the TV.
5. The only option given at dinner is peas or carrots. Even that is dependent on moms mood.
6. If the first, second, or third ingredient is sugar, it isn't healthy. No matter what the label says.
7. If they can mash it up, add chemicals and call it baby food- so can I, sans the chemicals.
8. I cant expect my kids to eat spinach if they don't see any on my plate too

Don't get me wrong. I understand that sometimes you just have to do what you can do get by. Some kids are just picky eaters by nature. Myself included! My mom used to have to make me a separate dinner because I demanded chicken with every meal. I would not eat beans and refused to eat spaghetti with sauce. To this day I still wont eat pizza or chocolate. This actually works in my favor, especially in the diet department but seriously- what kid doesn't like pizza?

I'm sure if I drove to some specialty store I could have found Wyatt a healthier snack, but I didn't have the time or the patience to unload Wyatt from the truck again... nor was I going to attempt to make a homemade batch of Cheerios. So, instead I tucked an Organic box of Lil' Vegetable Crunchies into the bottom of my cart, the best choice out of them all and avoided eye contact with the 33 year old mother, born in June.