Options for Healthier Eating?

So, it seems my last post on the potential hazards lurking in the foods we feed our kids hit some nerves out there in the e-world. We are all desperate to find ways to keep our kids healthy, and we are all trying to make ends meet while rushing from one commitment to the next.   So what is a caring, responsible, well-informed parent supposed to do to keep our kids from becoming toxic waste dumps?  Well, I hate to say it folks, but we are going to have to start, gulp, cooking!  The ONLY way to make any sort of dent in the amount of toxic crap our kids are exposed to is to ensure we are giving them the best quality food items available to us.  Now, don't think for a minute that this in any way guarantees our kids will be toxin free.  After all, we have ensured that no source of nutrition is safe since we have thoroughly polluted our environment, but we can do as much as possible to mitigate the damage.

One recent experience I had while making cupcakes brings this idea to the forefront and demonstrates just how simple this solution really is.  Instead of making everything from scratch, I had purchased a cake mix and a tub of frosting from the grocery store.  I had splurged too, no store brands found their way into my cart that day, no siree.  I bought name brand everything.  The cake turned out somewhat less than ideally, as it was a lot less dense than I would prefer, but it would suffice.  The frosting, on the other hand, was atrocious!  I could taste the chemical afterburn in what should have been a simple vanilla flavored frosting!  Ugh, yuck, spew, nasty!  Even though I had planned on sending the majority of these cupcakes with my husband to his officemates, I couldn't do it.  I didn't want my reputation as a decent cook to be tarnished by the gruesome chemical aftertaste of that frosting!  So what is a girl to do, you ask?  MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN FROSTING!  Seriously folks, how hard is it?  So I softened up some butter (yeah, butter, have you read what is in margarine?  can you pronounce any of it?  do you really want to eat it?),  I grabbed powdered sugar off the shelf, and I took some REAL vanilla out of my cabinet and whipped up a batch of frosting in about 3 minutes.  Wow, that was a real investement in time wasn't it?  NOT! 

After reading about cellulose, a common ingredient found in baked goods as a replacement or filler for flour, which is nothing more than a wood pulp byproduct...mmmm, we are eating trees...I decided to read the boxes of cake mix I have on my shelf, and guess what?  Cellulose, yep, they are filled with cellulose and other crap that has no place in your kids' stomaches!  Go ahead, open your cupboard and see what other evils lurk therein.

Let's start a revolution, or perhaps a devolution as this is how our parents and their parents cooked, let's get back to scratch.  Let's tell Archer Daniels Midland that we are sick (literally in some cases) of them pretending they give a damn about our health, and hit them where it hurts.  Restock your cabinets with the things our mothers and grandmothers kept: flour, honey, molassas, sugar, whole oats, real grains, cocoa powder, vanilla, butter, eggs.   Let's stop eating the crap they put into those shiny, pretty packages and make our own food!  After all, the packages probably have as much real nutritional value as what's inside them!

Besides, what kid doesn't like getting up to their elbows in flour and licking the beaters?  Who knows, you may just discover that the most fun you have with your kids is in the kitchen.  After all, it used to be the heart of the home.