Dr. Mom Online

I can’t wait for camp to be over! I thought camp was supposed to give parents a ‘break’!

It’s SO much easier, in our little family, to make our meals at home and eat together. Every lunch and snack that is packed for school (or camp) seems to create stress… for mother and daughter alike!

At home, you get what you get… protein, veggies, fruit, (organic, raw) dairy and some grains. For the most part, there’s not a whole lot of complaining – if so, it doesn’t last too long because the kids know they’re about to hear, “Fill up with health FIRST!” We do have special sweets for them, too, in case you’re about to call child services on me! They’ll have things like organic yogurt tubes or yogurt covered almonds or even those little 2-bite cookies from Whole Foods Market… once in awhile.

But for some strange reason, oh…. I’ll call it socialization (!!!), food consumed amongst friends, fellow campers and classmates must meet certain 6 year old standards of ‘fun-ness’ and ‘cool-ness’. Apparently, our family just simply does not have enough food items that come in bright wrappers or cool little individual serving size baggies. At least that’s the food world according to my daughter.

Whatever.

I tell my daughter that the next time I see a vegetable growing on a plant, inside a colorful wrapper, I’ll start buying “cool” packaged foods for her lunch! Until then, it’s “real” food in God’s wrappers for you, sista’!

In order to “give parents a break from packing lunches”, two days at camp offer catered lunches. Yesterday was a Subway lunch day and tomorrow is pizza day. What??? This is no break! In order to help my daughter feel somewhat ‘normal’ amongst her peers, I make every attempt to prepare a similar lunch for her on these catered days… all with healthier options. At least she doesn’t feel quite so left out, and, after a couple years of doing this, she’s totally used to it.

So, the Subway catered lunch menu called for: a 6 inch sandwich on white bread (choice of ham, turkey, salami/pepperoni or veggie), a bag of chips, a cookie and a pop. Okaaaaayyyyy…

I headed off to the grocery store – yes, a special trip for this “give the parents a break” lunch – and picked up some additional items we wouldn’t normally have. Her substitute lunch consisted of: a turkey sub (made with a 6 inch organic whole grains sub bread; organic free-range, nitrate-free deli turkey; a slice of organic, raw cheese; organic spinach and tomato); a small baggie of organic tortilla chips; one organic, no-high fructose corn syrup Oreo knock-off cookie, AND several carrots, cucumber slices and edamame beans… just for fun!

All I said about her lunch at drop-off in the morning was “Please consider filling up with your healthier lunch items FIRST…  or at least do your best to get the healthy things into your body!” After school, I didn’t ask what she ate first. I’m sure the cookie was near the top of the list! Either way, she ate all those veggies and her entire sub! (I can’t believe this kid is still such a twig, with the amount of food she can pack in!)

So, it was a win-win. She was happy that her lunch resembled the other 25 kids’ lunches (minus the Subway wrappers and bags), and I was happy that she did get some good things in her growing body. Am I happy that she had chips and a cookie? Not really – I don’t understand why they needed BOTH chips AND a cookie in the first place. Why not throw in some veggies, for cryin’ out loud! How did that Jarod guy lose so much weight eating Subway, with lunches like these?!

Even my daughter couldn’t believe that I actually packed chips and a cookie! As I explained to her, they were the least toxic choices I could find in that ‘food’ group, BUT that certainly doesn’t make them healthy. It just makes them less toxic. They don’t do a thing to build health, nutritionally speaking.

Judging by the smile on my little girl’s face, I’m somewhat convinced that these healthier ‘junk’ foods, served occasionally, might actually build some emotional health! She was one happy camper!!!