Breakfasts, Smoothies & Critics

Thursday night's class was awesome. We held Cali hostage way past our 9:00 stop time and forced her to keep blending and juicing and teaching. Thank you Cali!

Cali brought some delicious things to taste and demonstrated juicing, and making smoothies (green and chocolate). She related some fantastic information about minerals, proteins, dairy, meats, transitions to whole foods,energy, fertility and natural aphrodisiacs (an extra incentive for husbands to watch the kids:)). Watching SuperSize Me and Food Inc. would be a great follow-up to Thursday night (you can rent it on Netflix or watch the documentary in parts on Youtube).

Next week I am really looking forward to the topic "Snacks and Kids."

Our preparation for this meeting is to watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I watched it in May and have been thinking about it every since. It is eye-opening, inspiring and well I think I fell a little bit in love with Jamie Oliver and his English accent. Here is a link to the first episode. There are six--and I loved every one. Davis climbed on my lap when I was watching the first episode on the computer. He and I watched several together (warning there is a bit of language in some of the episodes) he was inspired too. He and I cooked in the kitchen together using "Jamie's recipes." I still call him "Jamie" when he makes up his own recipe (for example cutting up different types of fruit with a butter knife and mixing them together). I think it was great for him to see the effects of bad foods, the inspiration to eat good foods and a male role model in the kitchen (besides Tim, of course:)).

Bronwyn ate the granola that Cali made for breakfast the next morning. As I was curling her hair she said, "I can't wait to see what you learn next week!" I told her next week would be especially great because it was about kids and things that I could send with her in her lunch.

She then said she didn't want to bring any of it to lunch.

When I asked why, she wouldn't tell me.

I assured her I wouldn't be sad or upset.

She said that yesterday a boy made fun of her for her "raspberries and bananas."

He called it a bad word.

She wouldn't say it for me, but spelled it out.

" s.i.c.k."

He had said, "That looks s.i.ck."

Seriously? Raspberries and bananas? Are we so far off that a second grader gets made fun of at lunch for eating. . .FRUIT?

I talked to her a bit about a message that Cali shared last night about critics: The quote is by Emerson--"Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them."

I think peer pressure is a great topic to discuss at this age. But really I thought I would be talking to her as it related to drugs or lying--not about eating fruit:). Tim and I talked about it and he shared that she was crying last night when she told him about it. We are trying to make some simple, tasty changes in our diet. I have already seen the benefits in myself and in my kids. . .and I guess I hope next week Cali will be able to teach me how to make some snacks for my kids that look a little less like. . .um, fruit:).