What’s a mom to do about baby food?

Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

What’s a mom to do about baby food?

Monday, January 16th, 2012

~guest post by MRS

One morning HandyMan called me from work and asked me how my day was going. In the middle of changing a diaper, I propped the phone between my ear and shoulder and told him that so far that morning I was 3 for 3. Confused he asked me what I meant and I replied that I had changed 3 diapers so far that morning and all of them had been poopy, thus 3 for 3. Such is the glamorous life of a stay at home mom.

Sadly that’s not an abnormal morning for me. Sometimes it seems like all I get done all day is feeding the kids and changing their diapers. When Blue and Daisy wake up in the morning they both act as if they’re starving and demand food. Blue waits, temporarily appeased with an episode of Thomas & Friends (Blue is obsessed!), while I nurse Daisy. Then I change both their diapers and get Blue and myself breakfast. And so goes the rest of the day.

Recently we added even more feedings to our day when we started Daisy on solid foods. I had put off introducing baby food because Daisy was premature and because it would just add that much more to my day. I thought as long as she was satisfied and gaining weight well with just breastfeeding that I would hold off on giving her baby food. But at her 6-month well child appointment, the doctor strongly encouraged me to start giving Daisy solid foods. So we did.

And while it has added more to my daily “to do” list, it has also been fun. Daisy hasn’t had a lot of variety yet, but I really enjoy watching her learn and experience new things. The faces Daisy makes as she tries a new food for the first time and the excitement she shows when she really likes a new food are so fun to watch. Sometimes she is literally bouncing in the high chair while I feed her.

But what about the safety of baby food? As a stay at home mom, I have enough to do trying to keep up with laundry, cleaning and taking care of the kids that it seems overwhelming to add making baby food to the list, but I want to make sure the food I’m feeding her is healthy and safe. To ease my concerns about the safety of baby food, I did a little research and learned that the plastic used in Gerber baby food (the kind I generally buy) is BPA free and just by reading the labels of baby food learned that the only added ingredient is water.

So I continue to buy baby food. And this gives me more time to play “choo choos” with Blue, cuddle with Daisy and change all those poopy diapers.

Tags: baby, baby food, baby food safety, food safety, mom, Parenting, SAHM, stay at home mom, Thomas and Friends, trains
Posted in Food, Food & Nutrition, Moms | No Comments »

My Food Resolution

Friday, December 30th, 2011

~guest post by MRS

As a rule, I don’t make resolutions, mostly because I’m terrible at keeping them. Like a lot of people, I think about things I need to change, activity levels, eating healthier, keeping our house cleaner, etc. Then I try really hard to accomplish these things for a few weeks, but before I know it I’ve missed a few days. Then a few weeks pass and I’ve slid back into the old habits. Our house is cluttered, I’m spending too much time on our couch and I’m thinking, “What diet?”

I know I’m not the only one who does this.

But as I think about what our life is going to look like this coming year, potential job changes, growing kids and more involvement in our family farm. I realize, that eating healthy foods plays a huge roll in our ability to accomplish those things.

Blue is a very busy toddler. He loves to play in the mud and is obsessed with trains, but he struggles with constipation. If we don’t give him enough fruits and vegetables to eat, he has painful bowel problems. So I buy fruit, lots and lots of fruit. And I feed it to Blue like it’s going out of style, but I don’t eat it myself. I sit down to lunch with Blue and he’s eating fresh fruits and veggies and what do I have? Generally, I’m eating a turkey sandwich, potato chips & drinking a can of pop. What am I teaching him by doing this?

Daisy is 6 months old now and we’ve recently started introducing her to solid foods. She is still deciding whether or not she likes them, but over the next few months we’ll transition her from a liquid only diet to a diet that isn’t just pureed fruits and veggies, but also finger foods. By the time her birthday rolls around, she’ll be eating mostly table foods. It’s hard to imagine that now, but the next 6 months will bring a lot of changes to Daisy. She’ll practically be a whole new kid!

As my kids grow, it’s increasingly important that HandyMan and I teach them what it means to be healthy. We need to drink water and not pop, eat fruit and vegetables instead of potato chips because if we just tell them how to be healthy without actually showing them what being healthy is, what are they learning? So it’s time to make some changes, to start practicing what we preach and leading by example.

Here goes nothing.

What are you hoping to change in 2012?

Tags: 2012, diet, Food, fruit, mom, New Year, Parenting, resolution, vegetable
Posted in Food, Food & Nutrition, Moms | 1 Comment »

Looking beyond my full plate

Monday, November 28th, 2011

~guest post by MRS

As I was sitting down to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my family last week, I started thinking. Not about the amazing food I was about to eat (although the food was amazing), but about the 1 in 6 people in our country who regularly don’t get enough to eat.

It’s easy to stand on our soapboxes and talk about the ineffectiveness of entitlement programs, i.e. food stamps or how people just need to get a job to feed their family. It’s also easy to get caught up in the arguments about food and farming. We should all eat only local, organic foods or conventionally grown food is fine or that all GMO foods need to be labeled as such. And while I understand that these are things that people are passionate about, sometimes I wonder if we’re focusing on these “secondary” issues a little too much.

Because, seriously, there are people in our own communities who are going hungry! Isn’t it more important that people are fed than whether or not they’re eating GMO or non-GMO food? I imagine that if you went up to a parent who was struggling to feed his children and offered that parent food, regardless of what kind it was, that the parent would be grateful just to be able to feed his children. I know I would. It breaks my heart to think about even the possibility of not being able to feed my children, and yet for some parents that is a daily reality.

It took a little bit of the joy out of my Thanksgiving dinner to think that while my family had more than enough to eat, my neighbors might have nothing. And as I thought about the arguing and in fighting that seems to permeate the food & farming industries, it all seemed just a little silly to me.

Who is hungry in your community?

Why can’t we focus on making sure that there is enough, affordable food for everyone before we get caught up in the organic vs. conventional, GMO vs. non-GMO, etc. debates.

I realize that it’s a tall order to make sure everyone has enough to eat. I also know that it’s overwhelming to think about feeding all 7 billion people in the world, and that for a lot of people, myself included, it’s easy to look at that number and be so overwhelmed that I do nothing. It’s also easy to get so caught up in my own life that I forget to think about what other people might be going through. So I thought to myself, “What can I do, in my community, to help, even in a small way?” And I realized there’s a lot I can do. I can volunteer at and donate to my local food pantry. I can give money, even if it’s just a small amount, to my church’s “Care & Share” fund. Most importantly, I can stop making excuses for why I can’t do anything and instead, make it a priority.

What can you do to help feed the hungry in your community?

Tags: Agriculture, Farming, Food, GMO, hunger, hungry, mom, non-GMO, organic, Thanksgiving, volunteer
Posted in Agriculture, Food, Food & Nutrition, Moms | 1 Comment »

How many hands are behind your food plate?

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

One of my favorite classes at Michigan State was Food Systems Management. The content left an imprint on me; we studied charts representing all the different parts of the food system. I found it mind boggling to see the many entities that milk went through to get from my cow to a person’s glass; the farmer is the first step in caring for an animal and producing the milk in a safe environment. However, there’s also a milk truck drive who picks up the milk and follows strict procedure, a milk inspector ensuring state regulations are followed and the people who test the milk when it gets to the plant. Then there are hands involved in the pastuerizing, processing, chemical analysis, quality control, distributing and retailing of that milk – all of which play an important role.

Some will say that food shouldn’t be that complicated; it should go from garden to plate with no one in between. The reality of feeding people 12 months out of the year intervenes, as does the economics of getting a variety of foods to the majority of the population. I’m giving thanks for the MANY hands behind the food on our plates this season; and would invite you to do the same. Some food jobs for you to remember:

Animal Geneticist
Animal Nutritionist; yes, cows have diets – theirs is more scientifically formulated than yours
Baker
Barista; have to love my non-fat chai tea latte
Bee Keeper
Biotechnology researcher; consider the ability to provide vitamins to the malnourished
Blogger
Boutique Crop Farmer
Butcher; it may not be pretty, but is important unless you like eating cowhide or turkey feathers
Chef
Cheese Maker; how smelly do you like yours?
Chief Financial Officer
Consumer Sciences/Home-Economics Teacher
Culinary School Teacher
Dairy Nutrition Specialist
Dietitian; this is the place you should go for unbiased and scientific info.
Enologist; have to love those grapes
Entrepreneur
Extension Educator
FDA employees
Fish Farmer; my love of seafood makes me very thankful
Flavor Chemist
Food Broker
Food Chemist; yes, there is chemistry in food – even the simplest food.
Food Inspector
Food Microbiologist
Food Plant Employees
Food & Restaurant Critic
Food Radio Host
Food Retailer; grocery shopping is not my favorite
Food Photographer
Food Scientist
Food Writer
Garbage Anthropologist
Grocery Store Manager
Herb Farmer
Historian
Honey Producer
Ice Cream Taster/Namer
Marketer
Mushroom Grower
Nut Grower; please pass the almonds, pecans, peanuts…
Nutritionist
Obesity Researcher
Packaging Specialists; remember that noise Sun Chips bag?
Product Demonstrator
Quality Control Inspector
Recipe Developer; this is kind of a hobby – it must cool to do it full time.
Restauranteur
Seed Scientist
Specialty Crop Farmer; mmm, love those lentils
Tasters
Tea Growers & Shop Owners; you keep me sane in the morning
Tree & Vine Fruit Grower
Truck Driver
Viticulturist
Waitstaff; bad service and good service usually mark your memories of an evening out
Wild Game Farmer
Wineries; thankful for the vino!

Won’t you join me and thousands of others giving #Foodthanks on November 23? Blog, tweet, Facebook about it. After all, don’t all of the hands behind your food plate deserve gratitude?

Tags: Agriculture, Food, Nutrition, Thanksgiving
Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Dietitians, Food, Food & Nutrition | 3 Comments »

Should we focus on food apathy or grandstanders?

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

The 80-20 rule applies to food. 80% of folks likely don’t care unless someone relate directly to their concerns. 10% believe there’s nothing wrong and never will be, which I’ll label as the entrenched. The grandstanders, as I call them, are the 10% who do everything they can to draw attention to their position, often times creating a political quagmire on issues such as animal welfare, obesity, biotechnology, CAFOs, etc. It seems to me that we spend a disproportionate amount of time on grandstanders; responding to their nasty media campaigns and blog comments.

Are you focused on grandstanders or the 80% in the middle?

Meanwhile, the majority of the population moves on in food apathy. They know they should eat less, but really have no idea of how many calories that involves. Witness the IFIC Food & Health Survey, where 9% of Americans can accurately estimate the number of calories they should consume in a day for a person their age, height, weight, and physical activity. In a number unchanged from 2009 to 2010, 70% say they are concerned about their weight status, and 77% are trying to lose or maintain their weight. And even more concerning in 2011, 5% more report that their physical activity levels are sedentary – a significant increase from 2010.

The combination of a lack of knowledge of calorie needs and increase in sedentary lifestyles tells me there’s a great deal of food apathy. I’d love to see agriculture and nutrition professionals to work together to overcome people’s lack of interest in nutrition. Health professionals, such as dietitians, have been fighting an uphill battle in getting people to move from apathy to action. That spells opportunity! Perhaps agriculture can move some of its sights from the grandstanders to growing partnerships that will hit the folks in the middle.

The International Consumer Attitudes Study shows that 95% of the global population are concerned about cost, taste and nutrition. Food costs are top-of-mind as Americans look ahead at a Thanksgiving meal that will cost $5.73 more this year on average and as the world faces growing numbers of people living in food insecurity. It’s a great time to create interest with food buyers by talking about ways agriculture work to keep food prices down – and why food prices are rising. Explain it on their terms, not yours and you might be surprised at the connection you make. You can do this in a 5 minute conversation in the church parking lot, a Facebook dialogue, blog post or phone call. There’s no right or wrong place.

While I’m a huge proponent of the reach of social media has in connecting farm and food, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to focus on the grandstanders in that medium. This is particularly true on Twitter. Why not make a point for the remainder of 2011 to connect with the middle? Find others interested in overcoming food apathy. Combine forces.

And maybe, just maybe we can make a dent with the majority. One of the great times to do that is with the U.S. Thanksgiving, where food traditions (and overeating) are top-of-mind. Foodthanks on November 23 is a great example of connecting with the middle. Won’t you join in – and then continue that focus for the remaining 37 days of 2011?

Tags: Agriculture, apathy, calories, Food, Nutrition, Thanksgiving, weight gain
Posted in Advocacy, Agriculture, Dietitians, Food, Food & Nutrition, Nutrition | 4 Comments »