Is organic living and eating easy for you – until the school year rolls around? Do you despair of how to keep your kids on a healthy diet, knowing they face standard cafeteria food fare every noon? Most of our local schools offer salad bars and healthy choices – but even so, children are bombarded daily with advertising seductions to go for the fad of the day.
Here are a few tips to make it easier:
1. Make your own.
This sure seems like a good idea – until the reality of time crunch hits. Or the fallout from peer pressure seeps in the front door with whining protests. If everyone is chowing down on Sloppy Joes and French fries and your child is the lone carrot-cruncher, she’ll feel isolated as a matter of course. It would take a huge personality to overcome this disparity.
2. Make it easier.
Find out what the going “thing” is currently – and duplicate it as much as possible: Sloppy Joes? Easy enough to make this in advance from good, organic ingredients to send along. Or – if you prefer vegetarian, how about tofu in a tomato sauce over a bun? Why not? Some might not even notice the difference. You get the idea. Be creative!
3. Involve others.
Gather with like-minded adults who have children of your child’s age. Agree in advance what the “menu” for your select little cooperative will be. Three – or five children eating the same thing constitutes a peer group too, and protects them from the isolation factor. You may find others who’d like to take turns, and form a rotating round of responsibility for the day’s fare. Imagine that – only prepping once a week for five children. Voila – you’ve addressed the time crunch, too!
You should also know about a few programs and the efforts that your local school is making along the lines of “keeping it healthy” for the sake of the kids who attend. There are individuals dedicated to making this challenge easier for us all.
The local “Farm to Table” program features a different farm each month. Participants make presentations and focus on local, healthy, organic foods, inspiring the youngsters to develop a taste for what’s good for them by making it interesting. .
The “Interfaith Farm and Food Partnership” is funded by a USDA grant and offers ongoing education in the realms of nutrition and food – eating, preparation, and origins.
Additionally, many schools make a concerted effort within the confines of their own halls to make a difference for the sake of the youth who attend. Marcy Hermens at Hoover Elementary comments, “We try to create relationships with healthy vendors for donations. For example, we offer yogurt instead of ice cream for snacks when we are able.”
Reach out at the next parent’s gathering. Connect with your neighbors. Make an effort to get to know your child’s favorite friends. Form that mini-cooperative. Call your school office and ask about the need for volunteers or connections for the programs they participate in. And take it from there. Your child may become part of a growing collective for whom healthy is the norm!
full article at: www.maryannwallace.com
Mary Ann Iyer, MD
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Dill It Up!
Mary Ann Wallace, MD
www.maryannwallace.com
We gardeners share certain maladies of abundance. If you garden, I’m sure you’ve encountered at some point in your illustrious efforts a full-bore attack of zucchini glut. I’ve been struggling of late with keeping my attitude of gratitude for abundance in the face of ever growing hordes of ever-enlarging zucchini.
You know what I mean.
Leaving completely out of this conversation the question as to whether I have a sufficient supply of good natured friends willing to divest me of this so-called bounty, I will steer us along the lines of a few good discoveries I’ve made about how to work up all this good stuff. (See? Am I displaying a great attitude or what?)
We often have zucchini for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner! In one exemplary day recently, we had zucchini bread for breakfast, sautéed zucchini with zucchini flowers and basil and zucchini pickles for lunch with zucchini cookies for dessert, dried zucchini rounds for a mid afternoon snack and zucchini frittatas for dinner. That wasn’t all we had – but you get the idea.
I have, thus far, steamed, sautéed, minced, mashed, baked, broiled, boiled, dried, breaded, lasagna’d, omelette’d, cookie’d, cake’d and mixed zucchini with every imaginable combination and spice. Even zucchini juice is tasty. And – of course – we all know that a requisite in every Christmas basket from those such as us is a nice (un)frozen loaf of zucchini bread.
And then I found the standard recipe for dilly beans in one of Rodale's time honored ancient texts. My beans and I are getting along fine, thank you. But the zucchini. That’s where I’m in a pickle! Hmmm. Why not? It just so happens the renegade dill volunteering all over the garden and associated pathways are also rampant. Replace beans with squash and call them Dill Zucchini.
It worked! So – here’s the recipe only slightly modified with gratitude to those who have gone before us, bearing the fruit of their labors:
Dill Zucchini
4 pounds zucchini
1 garlic clove per pint jar
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper per pint jar
5 cups vinegar
½ tsp. whole mustard seed per pint jar
5 cups water
½ tsp. dill seed per pint jar
½ cup salt
Wash and cut zucchini into slices to fill pint jars. Pack slices into clean, hot jars; add pepper, mustard seed, dill seed, and garlic.
Combine vinegar, water, and salt; heat to boiling. Pour boiling liquid over the zucchini, filling jars but leaving ¼-inch headspace. Seal and process in a steam bath for 5 minutes.
Yum - What a dill!
www.maryannwallace.com
We gardeners share certain maladies of abundance. If you garden, I’m sure you’ve encountered at some point in your illustrious efforts a full-bore attack of zucchini glut. I’ve been struggling of late with keeping my attitude of gratitude for abundance in the face of ever growing hordes of ever-enlarging zucchini.
You know what I mean.
Leaving completely out of this conversation the question as to whether I have a sufficient supply of good natured friends willing to divest me of this so-called bounty, I will steer us along the lines of a few good discoveries I’ve made about how to work up all this good stuff. (See? Am I displaying a great attitude or what?)
We often have zucchini for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner! In one exemplary day recently, we had zucchini bread for breakfast, sautéed zucchini with zucchini flowers and basil and zucchini pickles for lunch with zucchini cookies for dessert, dried zucchini rounds for a mid afternoon snack and zucchini frittatas for dinner. That wasn’t all we had – but you get the idea.
I have, thus far, steamed, sautéed, minced, mashed, baked, broiled, boiled, dried, breaded, lasagna’d, omelette’d, cookie’d, cake’d and mixed zucchini with every imaginable combination and spice. Even zucchini juice is tasty. And – of course – we all know that a requisite in every Christmas basket from those such as us is a nice (un)frozen loaf of zucchini bread.
And then I found the standard recipe for dilly beans in one of Rodale's time honored ancient texts. My beans and I are getting along fine, thank you. But the zucchini. That’s where I’m in a pickle! Hmmm. Why not? It just so happens the renegade dill volunteering all over the garden and associated pathways are also rampant. Replace beans with squash and call them Dill Zucchini.
It worked! So – here’s the recipe only slightly modified with gratitude to those who have gone before us, bearing the fruit of their labors:
Dill Zucchini
4 pounds zucchini
1 garlic clove per pint jar
¼ tsp. crushed red pepper per pint jar
5 cups vinegar
½ tsp. whole mustard seed per pint jar
5 cups water
½ tsp. dill seed per pint jar
½ cup salt
Wash and cut zucchini into slices to fill pint jars. Pack slices into clean, hot jars; add pepper, mustard seed, dill seed, and garlic.
Combine vinegar, water, and salt; heat to boiling. Pour boiling liquid over the zucchini, filling jars but leaving ¼-inch headspace. Seal and process in a steam bath for 5 minutes.
Yum - What a dill!
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