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Sample of one of our grab bags!
I couldn’t take it any more and about 2 weeks ago I sent an email to everyone in B’s class. I was having an off day and I picked B up from school and asked her how school was. She said fine, we had salami and gogurt again for snack. That was it. Everyday since the first day of school she had been fed salami and gogurt for snack.
I went home and wrote this letter:
To my complete surprise the whole school did a 180 on snack and things have been great. There were a lot of emails sent in response to mine about how a change was in desperate need. I know that we aren’t feeding them only organic, but fresh and natural is a huge step forward from packaged and processed. I figure a few snacks every week is ok since she eats only organic at home. Also for those of you who wonder about processed food and why it’s so bad. I will let you know that once the school started serving less processed foods B had a much better attitude and her moodiness all but disappeared.
I just wanted to give a little update as to what happened with this big issue for us.
If you have an issue with something that is directly related to your child speak up! I wish I had done this earlier.
We are in the second year of preschool for our oldest daughter, B, I love the school we have picked and I know that she loves going there. I have one small issue with this school and I don’t know if it’s just me being overly green and crunchy. It’s group snack. I know crazy, but every school day one parent is responsible for bringing a snack for the whole class. I have found that we are one of only 4 families that eat organic. What does this mean, well salami, gogurt, goldfish crackers and un-organic grapes, apples and strawberries are served as a regular snack favorite. I knew that B would be exposed to different foods in school and I even thought really hard about packing her a snack everyday just for her. My issue came with at what point am I the crazy mom who won’t let her kids, without food allergies, eat the snack that others bring? Let me put this quick little side note out there too. I don’t eat potluck food or most things that people bring places to share I never have I doubt I ever will. I just prefer that I know what your kitchen looks like before I eat what your serving. Anyway back to preschool
I opted out of sending her to school with her own snack and let her take part in school snack like all the other kids. I’m now wondering if I made the right choice. If you have ever seen gogurt you know why. This stuff is disgusting and it comes in the most unnatural color blue on the planet. I’m pretty sure they put some sort of additive in there that makes the kids addicted to it, because these kids will eat 2-3 if you let them. I have told B that she isn’t allowed to have them anymore. I just couldn’t sit there and watch as she sucked this nasty stuff from a tube. I convinced her that the yogurt, you know Yogurt with a Y, at home was much better. First word out of her mouth when I opened the yogurt for her was, this looks a lot tastier than the other stuff. Even a 3 year old knows that things that blue can’t taste good. Yes she’s had a lot of yogurt, but as she got older she preferred cheese to yogurt. I try to give her a lot of variety of food so not a lot of one type of food is an option. OK I put my food down with the gogurt, which I’m very proud to say she’s OK with and is actually following this rule. Am I being crazy?
What do you think is giving your kids a little taste of the non-natural OK or should/do you strive for complete organic/natural food. I’m having a hard time with this. I know that once she gets to kindergarten that I’ll have control over what I send her to school with, wether she trades with another kid is to be deteremined later.
What’s the balance that you’ve found for your family or yourself. Do you cheat and just realize that the majority of people still don’t eat organic and you just do the best under your own roof or do you find yourself bringing your own food to functions in order to maintain your organic diet.
I love cooking shows and most shows that have to do with food, but I’ve become so disgusted by the over eating challenges. I look at the 24lb burger challenge, yes that’s a real challenge, and think what a waste of food & life and for what? Does anyone need that much beef, or any food for that matter in their system? What is the reason for this craze? Maybe the 80′s movie The Great Outdoors had something to do with it, but I somehow doubt it. I really don’t see how your stomach could ever forgive you for shoving that much food into it. Not all of the challenges are mass quantities some of them are trying to melt your face right off your head.
I won’t lie, I find the super hot food challenges rather amusing, mostly because I loath spicy food and just don’t understand how these people can even start to survive the pain. There have been a lot of the spicy food challenges, but it seems to be the main event always has to do with some form of beef. The top food challenges, that I’ve seen, mostly have to do with large quantities of beef product, milk product and then spice and peppers. I know this isn’t really dealing with anything green, but it is!
Being green isn’t just about buying organic or cleaning with vinegar, it’s also about limiting or really figuring out your needs vs. your wants. I don’t mean that people that are green never go shopping or get things that they want, but it’s about limiting your excess. It’s also about using our resources in a responsible manor and reducing what we don’t use. Eating mass quantities of food for no reason other than to see if you can is the epitome of waste. Most of the challenges give one person enough food to feed a family of 4 or more in some cases. The waste from this food is so disturbing. I’m assuming that most people are taking the leftovers home, but really if you just forced your stomach to grow in size because you’ve shoved so much food in it are you going to eat that same food the next day?
I really think that there are so many things wrong with shows like these, which is why I don’t watch them anymore, but my main issue is just the amount of waste it produces and the natural resources it takes for one person to eat enough for 4. I’d love to hear what you think of these types of shows or if you’ve ever seen one.
Picture from I bet you won’t
My goal for tonight is to have enough time to make a serious reading dent in the amount of people that take part in this blog hop! I know that everyone that participates is worth following so I’m slacking and need to get moving and start following.
There’s tons of things going on right around this time of year. One of the big ones is school starts, most people are already back at school but B just started. B is in her 2nd year of preschool and although she doesn’t pack a lunch, she’s only there a few hours in the afternoon, I have already started thinking of ways to keep her “cool” while still being green with her lunch. It’s inevitable that kids will swap things from their lunch for something in someone elses lunch. It’s part of the whole learning process. I don’t want B to be that kid who no one wants to swap lunches with, but I refuse to have her be the kid who’s mom packs packaged food that could be used in some sort of bomb shelter. I think I’ve figured out a pretty happy medium, in my head of course.
Bargaining food, OK organic food has come along way since I first started going organic, a lot of it has to do with brands like Newman’s Own & Annies products, these are two brands of packaged foods I don’t mind buying. I love the Newman’s Own “oreo” type cookie, when I’m feeling like a treat. Annie’s makes amazing fruit snacks that you can buy in bulk, added bonus! Other than these products I really don’t buy packaged foods. I think that by giving B something that looks like the Dora type fruit snacks or the oreos she will feel like she isn’t doing anything different, but for me I’ll know that she isn’t consuming a ton of preservatives or hydrogenated oils. The other things are obvious to send, carrots, apples, broccoli (my kid loves raw broccoli). I can even send her with an Honest Kids juice box, it’s organic and only contains 10g of sugar, and it looks like a caprice sun.
The hardest thing for me is the sandwich, or something with substance. B loves cheese sandwiches, although lately she wants a cheese sandwich without the cheese. I have a hard time sending anything dairy, egg or any combo of that to school. The idea of her eating something that has been sitting out really freaks me out! So what about a Newmans Own, or Trader Joe’s pizza that was cooked the night before? They are both a thin crust pizza with a relatively good ingredient list. The cheese is already cooked and they travel well, they are already squashed and small. Obviously you can’t really send pizza everyday, but once in awhile why not. Other ideas? I’m working on them. Peanut butter and banana tortilla wrap MMM, easy and you don’t have to worry about it getting hot and gross, hot and gooey yes.
All these ideas of going green and you still need something to put them in. Nothing could be more fun for a kid than items from this blog I did awhile ago http://www.greenasweegrow.com/blog/?p=622, these plastic alternatives are washable and easy to use for all sorts of items. Obviously a lunch box is a great investment there are so many to choose from it really depends on what your looking for. All of them will be a better alternative than buying paper bags to send to school. The older kids will probably prefer a simple lunch sack, Nubius Organics has a great selection of Eco friendly lunch on the go items. While the younger ones might really like a lunch box that has a little more “style” to it, check out Gator Tots. The last thing that I’ve been thinking is that the amount of paper products used in schools is crazy! What if you send a cute napkin to school with your child. They could use the napkin to wipe their face and hands without using any paper products.
I know a lot of the things that I’ve mentioned require making sure your child brings them home and then once it’s home you have to clean it and get it ready to be used again. Really thought if you think about how many paper napkins, plastic bags and paper bags are thrown away each day in our school systems, don’t you think that making a small sacrifice is doable? What are your going back to school green secrets?
Have you ever wondered if all these amazing electronics are contributing to things like cancer, ADHD, ADD, divorce & maybe Social disorders? I know that up until a few years ago I didn’t have a cell phone and now I have actually gone back home if I forget it. It’s not like the world will stop turning if I don’t stay in touch with my husband, let’s face it he’s the only one that ever calls me, but I feel weird w/out it. Have we become a society obsessed with our “toys” do we put items above people and actual face to face time and in the process are we exposing ourselves to more radiation and instant gratification than is “healthy”? I know I’m not just imagining the changes or making them seem more than they are. I spent almost my entire adult life coaching volleyball at the high school level. What does that have to do with anything?
High school is a great way to measure change, at least I think. Your talking about kids that live in the same town and you can see how over time things in a community have changed. Our community is small, for California it’s small. There is only one high school in our town and the majority of kids have gone all the way from Junior high together, we do have a few elementary schools. Anyway when I first started coaching at the high school in 1999 kids had pagers, not all but a some. Within 10 years every kid had a cell phone and was glued to it. I had to make it mandatory that at practice your cell phone was off. Now I know that schools have a no phone policy in class, as it should be, but really sports practice come on guys you’ll make it a few minutes away from all contact outside of the gym. They couldn’t get through water breaks 9 out of 10 kids would forgo water to check cell phone messages or text who ever had texted them. I can almost guarantee that none of it was even remotely important.
This sort of constant contact can’t be healthy. People can’t wind down, I am so guilty of this. I’ll find myself in bed at night playing scrabble on my cell phone! For what reason? I don’t know, because I can I guess. The ones that puzzle me really are the elementary kids. Seeing kids that are younger than junior high on cell phones baffles me. I can see the safety side of having your elementary kids having cell phones. I can’t imagine that all these kids on the phones are contacting parents for emergency reasons.
There are so many new and amazing things that have happened in the last few years, electronically speaking, but at what cost? People don’t talk anymore they text. If you don’t stay in touch via text people basically don’t have much to say to you. If you don’t have the latest facebook, twitter, myspace (do people even still go on myspace?) social media overkill how will you know what your friends are doing?
Adults are just as bad as kids are with all these gadgets. I’ve seen whole families sitting at a table and watched the dad on his phone the whole time, not talking but doing something with the Internet or text. Woman at tables together talking on cell phones ignoring each other. Am I the only one that wants to yell shut the phones off!!! We can survive for a full hour without knowing what is going on with the people that aren’t at our table are doing. It’s hard for me to watch children sitting at tables with parents who are so pre-occupied with their phones that their children are being ignored. Hubby and I both realized one day that we on occasion we were those people ignoring B while we answered texts or emails at the table. We made a family rule no cell phones during any meals. It’s annoying to be at a table with people who show no interest in you, but can carry on a conversation with someone not even there.
I know this is a bit of a rant about a lot of things so if you’ve made it this far thank you, here’s my point. Are we so obsessed, addicted, attached or any other word you can think of to our electronics that it’s not just hurting our social relationships, but our health?
If you think about the amount of time that we as individuals spend on, near or around electronics it’s basically 24 hours, with a few exceptions of course. All of these electronics are constantly giving off radiation and electrical charges this can’t be good for us. Yet we don’t get away from it. Even on vacation most people want to know “Is there WiFi?” Could all this be contributing to the rate of cancer?
I’m doing a 3 part series on this, but would love to hear what you think about this so far.
There was an article recently about how young girls are going through puberty earlier and at a much higher rate then in a previous 1997 study. Here is the article, check it out. If you have kids, or even if you don’t, this is a worthwhile read. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100809/hl_afp/healthchildrenus
OK so in this article they talk about obesity and then a few little snippets of what kids are eating. I am not a doctor, nutritionist or in any other profession that anyone should listen too, but here’s my thoughts.
I’ve noticed. I was a high school/junior high volleyball coach not some weirdo that was hanging around high school/junior high kids, that kids seem much older at a younger and younger age. I’ve seen kids walk into summer conditioning or summer camps and not have a clue that they aren’t in high school. There are girls that have walked in and I’m sure they are part of the new freshman class to find out that they are really the little sister of an 8th grader who has come to learn to play. These kids aren’t over weight and appear “healthy”. Yet they also appear 5-6 years older than their real age, which isn’t healthy. The article tapped into how being percieved as older causes kids to basical start acting older. So going through puberty early isnt just a physical issue, but a psychological one as well. This is a big issue, but why/how is it occuring? I really think a lot of this comes from the diets that we have become used too.
With kids they always seem to be eating. These kids tend to walk into the gym eating, shoveling, food into their face before games and practices. I’ve had a lot of time to observe what it is that kids are eating, and a wide variety of kids. There are the super health conscience kids who eat fruit, the kids that will eat other kids left overs and the kids that won’t touch anything that doesn’t come dripping with grease from a drive through window. The only thing they all have in common is 90% of them aren’t eating anything organic. They also live off coffee and energy drinks. I’ve never seen so many kids drinking coffee at such a young age, and at such a high consumption. I’m fairly certain that their blood has been replaced with coffee.
I really think that girls are going through puberty early because they are eating foods that are pumped full of hormones. Dairy cows are given antibiotics and hormones, they are also dipped in pesticides. We are then giving our children milk, cheese & yogurt from these treated animals. Our fruits and veggies are doused with chemicals to keep pests away. Animals that are used for meat are treated with all sorts of growth hormones to “bulk” them up. I’m going to use a very specific animal and it’s correlation with development. Chicken. Everyone wants the big plump chicken breasts, chickens don’t have breasts that big it’s unnatural. How am I supposed to believe that what is turning chickens into D cups won’t be turning our kids into early developers? I’m just throwing this out there. Maybe girls are going through puberty so early because we treat every ounce of food with some sort of hormone? Try Organic????
Would love to hear what others have to say about this idea.
This is a short little rant by me about throwing things on the ground. You’ve been warned.
Today the girls and I had a great day at the park, then right after the park we headed over to the post office. I was putting little miss K in the car when I realized that my Birkenstock, I know so crunchy, was sticking to the pavement. I tried to pretend that it wasn’t gum, but we all know the feeling of stepping in hot gum. It sort of oozes through the tread on your shoes and finds its way into every nook & cranny.
I immediately start doing the get the gum off my shoe dance, and B thinks it’s so funny looking that she joins in. Now not only do I have gum on my favorite pair of shoes, but my 3 year old is mocking me without even knowing she’s doing it.
So here’s my issue people. Why throw anything on the ground when there are garbage cans everywhere? Not only does it make our streets, highways and parks look horrible not to mention what it does to animals, but don’t you realize that you could be the one to step in your own stupid gum? If for no other reason than that, please throw your garbage away!
Hi all! I’m trying to get a better understanding of how/why people choose to live green or not. If you have a minute and don’t mind filling out random little surveys I’d really appreciate it. Thank you!!!
Please answer the following questions in a comment to the site. Thank you
1. Do you try to live a green lifestyle? Please tell me why for both yes & no answers
2. What do you think will make the biggest positive impact to the environment? (driving less miles, eating organic etc)
3. How do you try to reduce your impact on the environment?
4. Do you talk to your children about being environmentally responsible?
5. Does fear play into your environmental choices?
6. If money wasn’t an issue what is one thing that you would change about your life/house to make it more eco friendly?
7. Do you recycle?
8. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to being Eco friendly?
Again Thank you!!!!