My Kids and Local Food

My kids are pretty good eaters on average. I say on average because one of them (my oldest) will usually try anything, my middle one eats about once every two weeks (at which time he will try about anything) and my smallest eats only exactly what she wants, when she wants. This probably sounds very familiar to you, so you probably understand why when I started this local food month, I was particularly concerned with the children aspect of going local.

It wasn't that I thought they would really starve to death (although I have to say in the middle of the night I do sometimes worry about that...I have really stubborn kids) or that I didn't think it would be good for them to learn more about food and seasonality. I was concerned about what kind of lasting impression this would have on them. What if they decided at age 16 that they would drive as fast as possible to the nearest fast food restaurant and gorge themselves for the rest of their life on processed food.

Unlike me, my kids have little context for our experiment. They don't understand the crisis that our world is in, they don't understand that our eating can make a difference, they don't understand about supporting our local economy. Furthermore, I don't want them to understand....not right now. That is too much on a child.

So instead, my husband and I grow a garden. My oldest child has decided that harvesting the garden will be his responsibility, so he goes outside every morning (and usually afternoon, you wouldn't believe how fast those squash come up) with his basket and scissors and comes back with a load full of produce. He takes this very seriously and the other morning, after we had been gone for a day, he runs outside before saying good morning shouting behind him that he has to check the garden because he hadn't checked it the day before.

Instead of talking about the politics of local food, my husband and I talk about how delicious the fresh tomato sauce on our pasta is, how the pesto that the kids are having is such a wonderful green and how the peaches practically taste like honey they are so sweet.

We try to get them to enjoy the good things that are in season. We make peach ice cream, do make your own pizzas with fresh ingredients (the kids LOVE this) and try overall to make things appealing.

Doesn't this sound lovely? Well, if you have kids, you have probably already decided that this couldn't be all rosy all the time. We had not been doing this local food month long (maybe a week and a half) when my oldest child asks me what is for dinner. Now remember, even though we hadn't been doing ALL local, for dinner we had been eating locally for a long time. Anyway, I told him whatever was for dinner that night (it doesn't really matter, but it could have been the squash tacos that set him off). He looked at me and asked "why can't we ever have anything I want for dinner?" Unfortunately, I took his bait and tried calmly to explain that we had lots he wanted, we had in the recent week had make your own pizzas, vegetable lasagna and pasta with pesto sauce. He glared at me and said (and this is a direct quote), " I wish you had never heard of the word local". And we think they don't pay attention to what we are saying.

My middle child has decided that he doesn't like my lasagna, even when I put meat in it, and that he wants the kind out of the orange box like we used to have (mind you this was at least a year ago) and oranges...he wants oranges (he screams at me, I guess he is on an orange kick). And my youngest, she misses her bananas so badly that she asks for them all the time and when we go visit people, she spots them and eats all she can get while we are there. None of my kids think it is very funny when I tell them next time I am in a tropical country (or Florida for the oranges) I will try and smuggle some fruit home for them.

It is frustrating that such three little children can stay so attached to something (like food) for so long after having it. I thought their memories would be shorter. Um, no. They still remember the boxed lasagna, the delivery pizza, and the peanut butter with the red top.

My husband says they will get used to it, and I am trying to agree. I try every day to introduce them to new ways of eating what is in season now and try not to flinch when the nice woman at the market continues to give them handfuls of strawberries in August.

I do still make exceptions for the kids' tastes and desires, when they apply to things I have not yet figured out how to do myself...although I am working on it. The following I still consistently buy from the grocery:

• Yogurt (we buy the large, whole milk plain organic...the only kind I can find without sugar or HFCS added to it) is a must have and I just add our own fruit and a little bit of local honey.
  
• Goldfish crackers, since I haven't figured out a good substitute yet (if you have any suggestions let me know).
  
• Cheese, while I can make some my own and get some locally, it is still a bit of a challenge, so I usually buy organic cheese for sandwiches.

And just in case you are thinking I've got this whole thing licked, the other day I found myself in ... the Chic-Fil-A drive-through (along with five thousand other people at 12:15 on a Tuesday afternoon).

I had two play-dates coming home with my three children who were pleading...please mom, can we have some chicken nuggets and not that nasty peanut butter? So, I relented and we ended up with 5 orders of chicken nuggets for all the kids (does it make it better that they had fruit and milk too?).

What I have learned (I am sure all of you have learned this way ahead of me) is that with kids....go slow and go easy on them. Even if they really do rebel when they are older and decide they wish to live off of greasy french fries and HFCS soda at the fast food restaurant, at least they will be conscientious consumers. They won't be able to claim ignorance, at least not about local food!