I have just completed the first big food shop since before Christmas, much to the relief of the entire family. This means that we should no longer be forced to eat pasta with a sauce spiced up with leftover salsa in an attempt to put the shopping off for as long as possible use up all our leftovers.
My shopping basket was about as stereotypical as it is possible to be in January, apart from the fact that it did not contain celery. It was filled with fresh vegetables, supplemented with whole-wheat pasta, and contained no alcohol or caffeine – though that’s mostly because we topped those up a lot more recently than Christmas.
As someone with a minor obsession with list-making, I plan the food shopping in our household, mapping out what we are going to eat through the week, and buying the ingredients accordingly. Like drinking black coffee, it’s a habit I’ve carried over from my student days, when £10 had to feed me for the week. Any number of websites will tell you that doing this will help you to cut down on your food waste and the amount you spend on shopping. I wish they could see our fridge at the end of a bad week, is all I can say.
Food has to be one of the most complex minefields in today’s society, knocking me sideways every time I sit down to plan a meal. If it contains nutrients of any description, and any form of protein other than chicken nuggets, The Paleontologist is likely to gag over it and eat no more than three mouthfuls. On the other hand, if it has cheese or some form of carbohydrates, The Cowgirl will eat it until she makes herself sick (I really wish I was speaking metaphorically there…) Trying to be more conscious of food waste and the energy used in food production means I want to cook food that will be eaten, and give us all the energy we need for the day, but also that I don’t want too much instant food. On the other hand, after a day of teaching with lunch shovelled down at my desk, I need meals that can be cooked in half an hour or less. I would love to eat more plant-based proteins, but I’m married to someone who will only eat lentils if they are heavily disguised, preferably as a steak.
As if that wasn’t enough, you then get into the dilemmas of trying to raise body positive girls. Reducing our impact on the climate means eating more local, unprocessed food, and not wasting it by throwing half of it away at the end of the meal. So I find myself encouraging The Paleontologist to eat – and then remembering I promised myself to never tell my children that they have to clear their plates, or use pudding as bribery, as that can lead them to being unable to tell whether they are full for themselves or not. What happens if she is actually full, and I’m making her overeat? But what if she isn’t, she’s just being fussy, and I’m wasting food by throwing it away? Add into all of this the fact that I am, as one observer put it, of “Traditional Build”, and the dilemmas increase. I have spent my lifetime disappointed by my physical appearance; hang-ups I am struggling not to pass on to my children. I don’t want them feeling that dieting is something you have to do, as a woman, to fit in with society. But they’re already taking selfies better than I can (The Paleontologist has the pout down perfectly) and I didn’t teach her that – I don’t know how to do it myself. So how much control do I have over any of this anyway?
What is the solution to all of this? How can you balance the messages about the risk of obesity with wanting children who are body confident? How do you balance teaching them to listen to their own appetites and the needs of their bodies with reducing food waste – including that wasted by eating it when we don’t need to? And how do you do it all whilst knowing that at least once a week, the food plan will go out the window and you’ll be doing chicken nuggets and chips, as that is, despite all the careful planning, all you actually have the energy for?
So far, the best I’ve come up with is to muddle through with a mish-mash of every theory in moderation – which is, incidentally, my approach to every other parenting choice too. There are times I encourage them to eat, and times I encourage them to stop. We talk about food waste, and listening to our own bodies. We talk about eating because it’s habit (yes, even The Cowgirl is old enough to be doing that already) and knowing when to stop. We talk about the kinds of food you need to make you big and strong and fast and help your brain to work, and we pig out on chocolate in front of a film when that’s all any of us are up to. It’s not the best of any solution, but for now, we seem to be muddling through. If you have any better ideas, though, I would love to hear them!
Messy Simplicity 