Free Range Kids

[no_such_reality]

Well PS, you left the biggy.

Partially Hydrogenated Oil. Sometimes just labeled as Hydrogenated Oil which may or may not be partially hydrogenated.

Also, you cannot depend on the food labels for information. For example, Townhouse crackers, link Notice the #2 ingredient is Partially Hydrogenated Oil yet, all the fat is labelled at Saturated, partially saturate, mono-unsaturated each listed at 0.5 grams and the total at 1.5 grams. With the dreaded dagger symbol disclosing the transfat gotcha.

Two other items to watch out for: invert sugar, basically, this is sugar that has already had the first and most difficult breakdown (digestion) stage done so a complex sugar module becomes two simple fructose and glucose modules. Usually, the boxes will contain the label 100% natural…

The second item is splenda (sucralose), another artificial sweetener labelled 100% natural because it is derived, extracted and concentrated from a natural item (bananas). Not sure if in the modern manufacture if they extract or simply brew the chemical equivalent.

[North County Native]

My daughter’s school has discontinued food rewards! (San Marcos School District) At first it seemed a little bit extreme – no treats for class parties etc….. I do think it is a wonderful idea now. She has quite a few overweight kids in her 1st grade class. If my child was one of them, I’d be very uncomfortable with wondering what treats she was going to come home with after every holiday or birthday party.
At home, we have severely limited our kids to junk food and occasionally the grandmas indulge them (isn’t that what grandmas do?) At 25 I found out that I had too high bad cholesterol and too low good cholesterol. I had to make a change fast! One of the things I did was incorporating more fish into our diet and we rarely eat meat with more than 7% fat. My kids look forward to Salmon and spinach night (they are 3 and 5).
I also have pre-diabetes even though I don’t appear obese. I grew up eating the typical american diet, which has seemingly become even more unhealthy. I was not overweight at all as a teenager. I ate whatever I wanted and developed bad habits. I don’t want my children to eat junk primarily because I don’t want them to develop these bad habits and also develop pre-diabetes at a young age. My dad found out that he had diabetes at 40 and is in very good control of it. His father had it as well and ultimately died an earlier death due to the complications he had when he didn’t take good care of myself. My doctor did give me kudos and mentioned that if I was still just eating the typical american diet and not exercising much, I’d be one of his morbidly obese patients weighing in at 300 pounds! I just have to be very careful –
I’m very very happy that our school is trying harder to reward the kids in other ways however, I do believe that the lunch program needs a complete overhaul. Its not as gross as the stuff we had as kids but its still not healthy.
Also I’ve lived in an apartment for quite awhile and it is culture shock to me!!!! Many parents are never outside playing with the kids! Whenever my kids are outside, I’m right there with them. We have to go play! What are their parents doing? Especially the ones who have 1 parent home all day? We walk a lot and play at the many neighborhood parks.
Sodas are also a huge problem! I grew up drinking a coke every evening. As an adult I switched to diet to avoid the calories and sugar. My husband kept telling me that it still wasn’t good for me. My well intentioned mother in law would argue with me that real sugary soda is better for you than diet. I’d argue back that the sugar would definately cause me to become a diabetic sooner! Well, we were both a right and wrong because it is all bad!!!! I went to an ear, nose, throat doctor because I kept loosing my voice for no reason. I have nodules on my vocal cords,probably caused by reflux! He gave me some pills to take and suggested cutting out all caffeine and as much carbonation as possible. I took him very very seriously about the carbonation. I’ve saved a ton of money in the last month from not buying it, lost 10 pounds and I haven’t even tried those pills! I feel great! My husband sat in disbelief as I ordered water the other day at a restaurant! Some studies also lead you to believe that drinking any soda will make you want to eat more with it. I believe it.

[CardiffBaseball]

What about In-and-Out Burger? I can’t have one of those?

And as discussed before the marinated tri-tip (especially the chipoltle) is to die for. Fatty content be damned. Of course you can’t afford to eat that stuff daily. The leftovers used to make great spinach salads for lunches.

[speedingpullet]

No reason not to CardiffBaseball, as long as its not every night. Personally, my favourite junk food is a Carls Junior classic 6 Dollar burger and fired zucchini, as I find the In-and-Out-Burgers food a bit insipid.

BTW – I’m sure many of you have seen it already, but Morgan Spurlock’s film:

Supersize Me

is a scary watch.

[mrquoi]

I will freely admit that I eat fast food and drink soda pop. I also indulge in burritos fairly often (Mucho Gusto is my favorite). I also love ice cream and chips. I’ve even read Fast Food Nation and watched Super Size me.

But, I am very active and healthy and know that an In-N-Out #3 with grilled onions is an indulgence. MMMM. Burger. Now, I must go indulge …

Oh, I don’t know if kids’ eating habits is really tied to the housing market. Plenty of stay-at-home moms let their kids eat crap too. It’s just a lot easier for them to hand over a lunchable and soda than to make a sandwich.

[The-Shoveler]

Nor_LA-Temcu-SD-Guy

I think it about how active the kids are, If they are surfing or Bicycle M/X ing everyday they are probably fine, If they are siting looking at this Blog all the time (ho wait that’s me).

[JES]

Mydogsarelazy:

Did you notice what kinds of cars these parents drive? My guess is that the parking lot was filled with at least a few BMWs, Mercedes and maybe a Jag. So long as mom can pull into Panera with a hot car and high fashion clothes, who cares what the kids eat or who watches them during the day? The fact that they spend more on hand car washes and massages every week than they do on day care should not be our concern, right? All that really matters is that these parents get to take at least one vacation to Sun Valley to ski this year while their kids wander aimlessely through life learning that the only thing that matters is the pursuit of material goods and maintaining a wealthy outward image regardless of your true financial situation.

I love Southern California, and especially Carlsbad and Encinitas. Maybe I’ll do a stated income loan for 900k tomorrow so I can start living the dream too!

[barnaby33]

Why wait till tomorrow? There has to be a 24hour mortgage broker who can get the ball rolling before midnight!

Josh

[Author]

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