Food is Driving Me Crazy

A number of idyllic years ago, I ate whatever I wanted to eat. I was blessed to have a mom that cared about nutrition, so my home meals were eerily health-conscious, but I was free to eat out as I got older and started being away from home more often.

Side note 1: I wasn't as free as I thought since many of my days were ruled by severe migraines, lesser headaches, and stomach pain. Now I know, those were food-related, but then I did not make the connection.

Side note 2: My mom was WAY ahead of her time when it came to ideas about nutrition. All the blogs out there right now about real food and healthy cooking and organic mommies are total rip-offs of the way I grew up. Really. Tell me. Did your mom pack alfalfa sprouts in your lunch? Did she have an opinion about pork or organic vegetables? Did you have a cardboard box of various squashes in the basement next to the cabinet full of home-canned foods to sustain you through the winter? Had it all been grown in your back yard? Did your entire family go to the salad bar on your once-a-month trip to Wendy's? Did your bread start getting crumbly because it was homemade and lacked preservatives and stabilizers? This doesn't even include all the chemicals and fragrances she refused to have in the house.

See what I mean? The difference between my mom and all the bloggers out there now is that my mom didn't spend hours a week posting idyllic pictures of her house and instagram photos of herself posing in her skinny jeans next to her fresh basil plants.

Honestly, I thought my mom might be a little crazy. Just a little. As it turns out, she wasn't.

Now, a few decades later, I know too much about food. I spend too much time planning it, I spend too much time shopping for it...preparing it....serving it....cleaning it up. Begin again....Food is really driving me crazy. I am struggling to put it in its place and not have it consume me.

I have a food motto.
I am doing the best I can to feed my family with the knowledge I have, the time I have, and the money I have.

I have some rules.
1) No food coloring. It's a petroleum product. As in gasoline. Some kids have seizures or severe reactions to it. Did I mention it's gasoline? Oh yeah, and it's illegal in some other countries.
2) No high fructose corn syrup. It's just gross. It's stripped-down low-quality corn with a dash of sulfuric acid to help break it down. I see no point in it.
3) No artificial sweeteners. Myths have abounded, but truths have even topped the myths. Eat the real stuff in moderation or don't eat it at all.

Already, these three rules drive up the price of what I buy. That's just wrong. Healthy eating costs more.

4) Soda is a treat. As in, I buy a 2-liter of Sierra Mist (does not contain high-fructose corn syrup) for upset stomachs. We go through about 4 bottles a year.
5) BHT and TBHQ and MSG are no good and are not on my list. Have you noticed chicken and lettuce and oranges and onions and rice don't have mysterious acronyms? If you don't know what it is, it probably won't hurt to skip it. I still struggle to eliminate these as I keep finding BHT popping up in lotions and cosmetics of various sorts and my go-to travel GF cereal of Rice Chex. Read up on it sometime. Or don't. It's scary.

So, I think that's enough for today. I have to go fix dinner.