Hopefully, the comment problem is fixed. Please let me know if it’s still not working. It’s a frustrating problem because we can’t reproduce it. Yet we know it exists because several of you have tried posting and can’t!

Ok so on to other things.

I work really hard with my kids to teach them how to make the right choices. We all do right? But we are pragmatic about it. We don’t expect a 4 year old to be able to make the choice to cross the street by themselves. We don’t let a 6 year old choose which manners they want to follow and which ones they don’t. We don’t let a 7 year old make the choice about what time to go to bed at night. So… one wonders… what was the school district thinking when they gave kids free choice with school lunches? Did they think 8 year old were going to opt for the one healthy entrée over the barrage of junk food choices?

I am loathe to start any paragraph with the phrase “When I went to school” so I’ll use it as the second sentence instead. Ha! But when I went to school, there were limited choices and I think it was better that way. You had two entrees to choose from, two veggies, a couple side dishes and dessert. Milk was limited to white and chocolate.

Now my daughters are barraged with choice in the lunchroom. Everyday they can pick Pizza, Burgers, Hotdogs, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and then several other items that rotate. I’m thrilled they have choice… but why can’t they be only healthy choices? Hell at this point, I’d be happy with 95% healthy choices. At least I might have a smaller fighting chance. It seems that every choice is processed and none are too healthy. And… then there are the kids like my daughter who go through periods of time where they eat pizza every day for 14 days straight. No variety isn’t healthy! Am I the only one who thinks this way? Why arent’ there safeguards in place to prevent this? Does anyone else worry about this? Maybe I am over reacting? Cause understand, this is coming from a mom who obsesses about if their kids are getting enough different colored veggies and fruits in their diet.

I read this study once about how your brain determines what you like and what you don’t. The premise of it was that it’s our responsibility as parents to provide our kids with a “liberal arts nutritional education” by exposing our kids to lots of different types of foods. The article went on to talk about how after the 19th time a person eats a food, it becomes routed in the brain as “habit”. So they might not love it… but they will eat it and not despise it. After I read this article, I instituted a rule that you had to at least try one bite of everything on your plate. Every meal. If you didn’t like it, fine, didn’t have to eat it… but you always had to eat at least one bite. Lucky for my kids, my guilt doesn’t run deep enough to bring liver into this home… but I digress.

At the time, Dinara, who was 2 ½ when she came home from the orphanage, was not used to anything green. She flat out refused to eat any veggies except onions and tomatoes believe it or not. She was used to different foods and spices. And let’s be honest, at the orphanage, she was fed mostly carbohydrates. Some meat (horse!), and fruit and fresh vegetables were not a staple. So this rule played well for us.

Dinara went from eating NO veggies…flat out refusing to even pick up her spoon and put them in her mouth… to now eating almost every veggie. She will eat different kinds of beans, peppers, squashes, broccoli, etc. She’s still not a fan of cooked spinach… but will eat a salad with baby spinach and ask for seconds.

I do realize that I can send my kids to school with packed lunches and I will even save money in the process. We most likely will end up going that route. But I really do wonder who made these decisions. What kid…even the most nutritionally conscious, is going to opt the salad bar over pizza? And as a taxpayer, why am I paying for all this choice? They are kids. Give them two choices and they will eat one – or part of one. Maybe they will even learn to like something new. And think of all the money you are going to save getting rid of all this variety. You could apply it to say… teachers salaries!

All I’m asking is: if you must give a bazillion choices to Kindergarteners and First Graders… please only make them healthy choices. Not processed crap. My kids will eat healthy if there are not junk alternatives. It’s our responsibility as adults to see the long-term impacts of the choices we offer our kids.

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