The Whole Idea of "Kid Food"
I found this LA Times article really interesting and disturbing. I'm curious on other people's food situations. Do you cook? Do you buy these pouches that are popping up everywhere? How snack-stocked is your pantry? Are you trying to find ways to cleanse it, too?
After reading Casey Means' book Good Energy (See my Book Corner on homepage), I kind of tore apart our pantry. I had thought we were pretty good, but then I started checking nutrition labels. Didn't realize Wheat Thins were basically cookies with all their added sugar.
Damn. Those are so good.
We have since found another brand, Simple Mills, which is actually gluten-free - a term I usually run from, to be honest. Trendy usually turns me off. It’s the same reason I only recently tried “avocado toast” - everyone just seemed way too excited about that. It sounded gross. Slimy. But then my two-year-old, Sophie, wanted her avocado on her toast one morning, and I was lucky to be able to have her scraps before herding the kids out the door. WOAH! Avocado toast is really good! (With salt.) I now add eggs and eat it all the time. I think I hit the trends off wrong with overnight oats. Ugh. I could not handle that cold squish. So now I just question every health food trend out there.
But to get back to the current gluten-free craze, it just sounds like something’s missing, doesn’t it? How can you have a muffin without flour? (I also LOVE baked goods and the Boston bakery, “FLOUR.”)
Then I discovered almond flour.
The Simple Mills brand of crackers, made with almond flour, is DELICIOUS, and even passed the taste test of the three kitchen critics. We also discovered almond flour makes even better pancakes than regular (is that the term?) flour too. Substitute honey for sugar, and you are basically not even eating a treat, though they taste even better than normal pancakes, and you don’t feel like an elephant after eating them. The almond flour crackers are more expensive, but we don’t really need crackers anyway, so I kind of see it as once in a while thing. Nuts and fruit are the go-to snack. (Easier for me, too.)
But back to the whole idea of kid food.
I feel like this is a huge marketing scheme in which companies are preying on parents who are treading water with everything we have going on. (Looking at the breakfast dishes in the sink as I'm writing this...it's three in the afternoon.)
After reading Casey Means' book Good Energy (See my Book Corner on homepage), I kind of tore apart our pantry. I had thought we were pretty good, but then I started checking nutrition labels. Didn't realize Wheat Thins were basically cookies with all their added sugar.
Damn. Those are so good.
We have since found another brand, Simple Mills, which is actually gluten-free - a term I usually run from, to be honest. Trendy usually turns me off. It’s the same reason I only recently tried “avocado toast” - everyone just seemed way too excited about that. It sounded gross. Slimy. But then my two-year-old, Sophie, wanted her avocado on her toast one morning, and I was lucky to be able to have her scraps before herding the kids out the door. WOAH! Avocado toast is really good! (With salt.) I now add eggs and eat it all the time. I think I hit the trends off wrong with overnight oats. Ugh. I could not handle that cold squish. So now I just question every health food trend out there.
But to get back to the current gluten-free craze, it just sounds like something’s missing, doesn’t it? How can you have a muffin without flour? (I also LOVE baked goods and the Boston bakery, “FLOUR.”)
Then I discovered almond flour.
The Simple Mills brand of crackers, made with almond flour, is DELICIOUS, and even passed the taste test of the three kitchen critics. We also discovered almond flour makes even better pancakes than regular (is that the term?) flour too. Substitute honey for sugar, and you are basically not even eating a treat, though they taste even better than normal pancakes, and you don’t feel like an elephant after eating them. The almond flour crackers are more expensive, but we don’t really need crackers anyway, so I kind of see it as once in a while thing. Nuts and fruit are the go-to snack. (Easier for me, too.)
But back to the whole idea of kid food.
I feel like this is a huge marketing scheme in which companies are preying on parents who are treading water with everything we have going on. (Looking at the breakfast dishes in the sink as I'm writing this...it's three in the afternoon.)
