Organic Junk
Sometimes we do well. Yesterday was one of those days. It was the first day of our new CSA. The farm we subscribe to isn’t just organic, it’s biodynamic. And we received more dark leafy greens than I ever imagined would be in my home at any one time: Red Russian kale, spinach, head lettuce, loose-leaf lettuce, broccoli rabe, turnip greens, radish greens, and bok choy.
Young Master Fussy came along for the vegetable pick up. He got to play in the sink with some water, as his arms became a “swishing machine” that washed the greens. And he helped Mrs. Fussy braise several different greens with garlic scapes, and toss them with some pasta and Parm Reg.
Then we watched this young man, who eschews leafy greens and avoids them at all costs, eat two platefuls of pasta. For dessert, I let him have a few sips of 12 year old balsamic. He said it tasted like honey, and he was right.
But that was dinner. We did well. Let me tell you about snack time.
I have no idea how we got so much junk food in the house. It’s really stunning. For those of you who have been reading for a while, you know that when I feel guilty about something, I need to get it out in the open and clear my conscience.
You will pick up on the theme in a matter of seconds.
EvniroKidz Organic: Leapin’ Lemurs cereal
EnviroKidz Organic: Gorilla Munch cereal
Cascadian Farm Organic Kids: Fruitful O’s cereal
Annie’s Organic: Bunny Fruit Snacks (Berry Patch)
EnviroKidz Organic: Crispy Rice Bars (Berry Blast)
EnviroKidz Organic: Crispy Rice Bars (Peanut Choco Drizzle)
EnviroKidz Organic: Crispy Rice Bars (Chocolate)
That, my friends, is a lot of sugar. That is a lot of processed food. Jamie Oliver would be so disappointed in me for feeding this junk to my kids.
But it all depends on what you are optimizing for. Personally, I’m not so concerned with processed sugar. For Little Miss Fussy, given her tender young age, I’m a bit more restrained. But her older brother I am less concerned about. And most of this junk is for him.
In a sense it is the natural progression when you are trying to avoid some of the shenanigans at work in our food supply like pesticides, genetically modified organisms, HFCS, rBGH, and all the nonsense recently reported about conventionally produced soy products.
There isn’t a lot left to choose from. And while the crispy rice bars may have a lot of ingredients, for the vast majority they seem to actually resemble food:
Brown rice flour*, brown rice syrup*, honey*, peanut butter*, chocolate icing* (evaporated cane juice*, tapioca starch*, palm kernel oil*, cocoa*, natural flavors, soy lecithin*, sea salt), invert cane syrup*, roasted peanuts*, evaporated cane juice*, soy oil*, acacia gum*, sea salt, molasses*, tocopherols (natural vitamin E).
* Organic
Still, there is no getting around that it is junk food. A better snack would be some carrot sticks, an apple, or a cup of applesauce. A better cereal would be one that doesn’t have sugar as its third ingredient and contain 9g of sugars per 1 cup serving.
But the kid likes these, and food should do more than just provide nutrition, it should give you some pleasure. The organic junk seems like a pretty fair compromise. Even though I feel guilty every day for not sending him to school with more fruits and vegetables.
But all in all, I think we are doing fairly well at instilling all of our fears and prejudices into our children, so that they can grow up and resent us properly for screwing up their lives. And isn’t that what parenthood is all about?
FUSSYlittleBLOG 
We have been on the same trend of eliminating the junk. We don’t have a cabinet-ful of those things you’ve got listed above but in our freezer, you will find no fewer than 7 different flavors of Ben and Jerry’s.
It’s hard to get food that’s really food and when you read the labels it’s overwhelmingly apparent that most food contains at least some of the stuff we’re trying to avoid. More and more, we get stuff that’s less processed – ingredients rather than ready food.
As for Young Master Fussy, it’s nothing he won’t be able to work out in therapy when he gets older.
As a fellow member of your CSA, I am interested in following along and hearing what you do with each week’s share.
Check out “eat this, not that” for kids. It’s got some helpful alternatives
Thanks for pointing this out, Daniel. That’s the problem with organic packaged foods, poor labelling laws, and tricky marketing. Consumers trying to make the right choices are still easily fooled. Crap in a box is still crap in a box – take the “healthy”, organic cereal rice bars you mentioned – nearly all the ingredients on the ingredients list are sugar… with a nice kick of omega-6 from the soy and some MSG thrown in just for fun. Take a look:
Brown rice flour (sugar – glucose), brown rice syrup (sugar), honey (sugar), peanut butter (some sugar), chocolate icing (sugar) (evaporated cane juice (sugar), tapioca starch (sugar – glucose), palm kernel oil*, cocoa (no doubt sweetened – sugar)*, natural flavors (MSG), soy lecithin*, sea salt), invert cane syrup (sugar), roasted peanuts*, evaporated cane juice (sugar), soy oil (o6)*, acacia gum*, sea salt, molasses (sugar), tocopherols (natural vitamin E).
If that’s not a recipe for Type 2 diabetes – I don’t know what is.
I have a soft spot for those Envirokidz crispy rice bars — and the Peanut Butter Panda Puffs. I can’t help myself.
Daniel, when I was young, my mom discovered my serious addiction to red peppers. They were sweet, and delicious, and healthy- so, instead of sending me with a fruit roll-up or a twix bar, I got those as a dessert with my bagged lunches.
Sometimes I even got a few dill pickles, which I loved more than life itself.
Is there any favorite food you could him that would be better, but still easy, that is a fruit/vegetable?
My kids like Luna Bars. The ingredient list isn’t bad and they have calcium. Most of the “fruit” bars lack any form of nutritional value.
We struggled with junk food.
An aside…we’ve been CSA members for 8+ years. In fact, we now not only shop Schenectady Greenmarket each week but we belong to two (yikes!) CSAs.
But back to junk food…Paraphrasing Mark Bittman–junk food is ok if you make it yourself–is the guideline that we have had the most success with.
When you want something sweet, make it. We’ve made cakes (it takes like 15 minutes of prep), cookies (make one batch of dough, bake 1/4 of it and freeze the rest in little logs), crackers (fun and easy)–even ice cream. Trail mix is quick and easy–and great in a lunch box. This year I’m hoping to get a dehydrator to start drying berries (wouldn’t they be good in the trail mix?).