Kid Chow & Starving Artist

The Food again. "What about the kids?" Emails and questions, everyone wants to know if I am also starving the children, are they threatening to abandon ship and move in with normal people and what do they eat. As you know, Tallulah in The South is on board with me. No sugar, the whole deal, for the next year. (Invest in sugar stocks towards the end of next November, demand and sales expected to escalate dramatically) But what about Dear Clyde-Pierre and poor Wolfgang and little Hank? Clyde-Pierre is his Own Man. This means he is very strict about his food intake. He and The Band only consume a very limited diet. I believe it mostly consists of hot dogs from 7-11, subs from the renowned Sheetz deli & the vegetables of choice are pickles and jalapenos. When there is a rare sighting of him, I sometimes huck a carrot at the back of his head, but the dog usually gets it first. What it basically means for the Little Boys who do not have jobs and cars is a lot less sugar, much less white bread and junk food, but not perfection. With my family, I am making myself be selfish, in the proverbial oxygen mask sense of the word. I know from past attempts at healthier eating that I have to "save myself first" and then be better able to help them. For them, that presently involves no fast food, which we were eating SEVERAL times a week. We were what the documentary Super Size Me said McDonald's tagged "heavy users". They still get homemade hamburgers on whole wheat buns, ketchup, frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, all those foods that were most important to them, but no sugary cereals. They eat lots of organic eggs, fruit, popcorn and nuts. When visiting friend's homes we have a don't ask/don't tell policy, meaning eat whatever you want, but I don't want to know. They have gotten much more social. hhmmmm. The only unbendable rule/request is please never ever any soda. They have seltzer water and juice. We used to have candy on Special Occasions which according to Gaston meant everytime we put on a movie. If you know my family, you already know that might as well be a twenty-four hour I.V. hookup. This family breathes movies like oxygen, we have gone entire days speaking ONLY in movie lines, no joke. Dear Hubby's idea of "a little candy with a movie" is the industrial size boxes and bags FOR EACH PERSON. So that is what my family had come to expect with every movie. So I had to declare movie watching Not a Special Occasion. Little Hank has repeatedly asked for Twizzlers, says he misses them and would like to have some with a movie sometime. I ignored his pleas and got all natural fruit leather instead, which he took one bite of, put it down on the chair and walked away. The dogs ate that too. So on weekends, for ONE special movie I think I will allow some candy, the difference will be quantity, a small reasonably sized single serving pack from the checkout. As far as Wolfgang, he wants to try to improve his diet and is being very cooperative in the sugar area. So, the kids aren't starving, they are eating a lot more whole grains and a lot less sugar and junk and are most likely eating my friends out of house and home at sleepovers. I will try to improve their diet gradually over time, but for now am very pleased with where they are and their great attitudes, mood swings and outbursts have declined. They are such groovy kids, especially for a bunch of little addicts. I am more concerned they have good manners when visiting than eating a perfect diet. When invited to dinner recently, I intended to eat before I went and then take a big salad, but the boys were excited because we were going to be having homemade pizza! When we got to my friend's house, she had made a whole wheat pizza just for me! My kindred spirit, lovely Luna, had made me this amazing gift with her own beautiful hands. Amazing because my only interaction with dough involves picking up the biscuit dough off the floor that had flung across the room when I hit the can on the edge of the counter. So you can imagine my delight. So for now, that's where the DimWhits are with The Food. An excellent book on the subject of kids and sugar is Little Sugar Addicts by DesMaisons, a more dry, boring, but informative book for the analytically minded (meaning you are welcome to my copy since I'm not using it) is Fast Food Nation and of course the documentary, Super Size Me. So, the kids are eating better, but not perfectly. Wolfgang is enthusiastic and eating well, Hank has yet to eat anything green and Clyde-Pierre Who?...my son,the Elusive Starving Artist, if you see him, please buy him a salad. The dogs, however, look and feel great!