Healthy diet and food sharing

[vegma]

Ok, am I going too far with this healthy diet thing? We're vegan, mostly organic, avoid processed foods, dyes, hydrogenated oils. Ds doesn't even know what junk food is! So what's the problem? We're involved with a group that likes to share food (as do most people). Most of the activities are "bring a dish or snack to share". The people are so generous, but I don't want ds to eat their food!! And so far (he's nearly 4), he's happy with this - he doesn't miss what he's never had. If I don't get around to making something to share, we eat before we go. So call me a "healthy food freak" ... hmmm, or maybe a "control freak"??? How do others handle this?

[GranolaMommy]

I have the same problem (except my son is almost 3) I just avoid potlucks and at playdates, I just heavily monitor the offered food. I try not to obsess and I'm flexible on some foods and not on others. Fresh fruit and veggies are always allowed. And I always make sure to bring something to share. Other moms have commented to me that their kids won't eat the healthy things they make/buy for them, but they will if it is out of someone else's bag. Isn't that always the case? :rolleyes:

[vegma]

Granolamommy, you used two key words in your post - "flexible" and <not> "obsess"!!! I haven't figured out where to draw the line in public in yet.

[GranolaMommy]

I think that I eased up on it during a period where I questioned a lot. I am not the hard-core vegan I once was. When DS needed to be supplemented with formula because I could not produce enough milk (we supplemented with an at-breast supplementer for 18 months. He never even once had a bottle) anyway, when we did that, it really shook my belief system. I backslid a lot. Recently I reached a point where I realized that eating and living in a conscious way *is* important to me and I do have a limit to how flexible I am. But that time in between helpde me to ease up a lot and know that I make the best choices I can for him, lead him in the ways I can, expose him to compassionate and gentle ways of being and to friends who at least share a gentleness about them and then try not to focus on the details.

Sure we don't eat meat, and we try to avoid using animals, but we aren't perfect and we never will be. And sometimes being "normal" is important. And a handful of hydrogenated crackers aren't going to ruin him forever. But then I offer him a Lundberg brown rice cake and he usually is glad to trade me. Now, I'd probably have to pry a cookie from him kicking and screaming, but most people don't bring those packaged ones. I guess it would depend on teh cookie and the situation. Generally I try to avoid refined sugar because I have insulin resistance issues and don't want to pass them along. My hardest is Goldfish crackers. (Actually those Stouffer's brand "Whales crackers. Same basic cracker. Anyway...) DS seems to be drawn to them when other kids have them. He could care less when he is served them (like at grandparents or something) and I never have brought them into our home, but I don't freak if he has them, I just try to distract him elsewhere. But my big thing is to not make food an issue. If it is forbidden fruit, he will want it. If I let him have it and move on, he doesn't obsess about it. Soon it will be fast food. We don't eat it. He doesn't have friends who eat it or talk about eating it, at least in front of him. But i bet it will be an issue one of these days. I mean, you can only pass so many Burger King and McDs play places before the questions start. I think I might make a stand there.

There are so many things to shield our children from. Right now I worry about meanness and violence in daily life, in the greater world and in the children he is exposed to. I cannot bear children who are mean to other children and whose parents don't intervene. This is a big sticking point that leads me to consider homeschooling. Because while my child is rough and tumble and boyish, he is also sensitive and easygoing and will let other children walk all over him because he prefers the peace. But he does get hurt by it. Enough that he tells me he is sad.

Gah! This post went all over the place.

Jennye

[sophie]

Vegma-
Sometimes I feel the same way, so it's nice to hear there are other people like me! (just wish they lived where I do). Do you mean that the other people bring stuff that is vegan but unhealthy, or non-vegan?
I have definitely relaxed my standards since I had my first baby. I remember getting into an argument with my father-in-law because I didn't want my son eating a non-organic banana. Nowadays if we're in that kind of situation I let the kids eat what's going, but only as long as it's vegan. I've never let them eat non-vegan stuff, even when other people are making me feel like a food fascist. The thing is, my children are so fine with it that it's easy. If I told them to eat something non-vegan they'd probably give me a lecture! If they were crying and pleading I have no idea what it would be like!

[renee]

hello everyone.
i'm guessing there will always be people who think we are freaks for our lifestyle and eating habits. i really don't mind. of course , i don't want my daughter to be hurt by people calling her a freak, but we are lucky that most everyone we spend time with knows that we are vegan and everyone is very considerate of the fact.
being vegan is not something that we compromise on. and after ten years of being vegan, i can confidently say that we never will compromise. but i realize that that is not what works for everyone.
like sophie, our compromise sometimes occurs when we let our daughter eat something that is not organic. once our neighbor was so happy to be able to offer chloe a piece of celery to eat. i felt i would be going a bit overboard if i didn't let her eat the celery just because it was not organic. after all, it was vegan.
and the other day we were at my husband's friend's house and chloe said she was hungry and our friend offered her an apple. i didn't say anything but i was sitting there thinking about how the apple probably wasn't organic and how many pesticides ( i was guessing 14 or 15 ) were sprayed all over it. i was going to let her eat it anyways, but you can imagine how relieved i was to discover the apple was organic after all.
i guess some of you reading this might think i am a bit extreme, but aside from making sure that something is vegan, it being organic and non-gmo are two of my biggest concerns.

[Sheree]

I wish I lived near all of you who've posted. I completely agree with everyone hear, and face these exact issues. I am fortunate that most people in our lives respect our eating habits, but it's still difficult when invited to dinner or kids birthday parties. Not sure what to do about the cake & ice cream thing. We have only been vegan (from vegetarian) for a few months, and haven't gone to any birthday parties since. What do you all do in this case?

[renee]

i talk to the host of the party ahead of time and if there is not going to be a vegan cake then i would bring along another special vegan treat. chloe has been vegan her whole life so she is very understanding and accepting if there is something we cannot eat.
the last birthday party we were invited to was from a family we do not know very well, but they knew us well enough to know that we are vegan and even knew that we don't eat refined sugar or honey, so used maple syrup in the cake. it was very thoughtful of them. so i didn't need to bring anything extra along. unfortunately though, the cake turned out to be all chocolate, with chocolate icing. chloe, who is three, has never had chocolate in her life. so i got her the tiniest piece, hardly bigger than my thumbnail, and she was perfectly happy with that. she had already eaten a big bowl of fruit salad before. i'm sure it was not organic, but i wasn't going to make her miss out on everything.

[Sheree]

that's helpful. I usually bring food with us just about everywhere we go, so I suppose I could make up a special cake and bring that along too. I suppose I could just let the host know that I'd be happy to bring another cake (that's vegan), but different from hers/his...who knows maybe some people would like to have an alternative.

Thanks again!

[GranolaMommy]

I can see all of your points, but I grew up with so many food issues and I cannot bear to pass them on to DS. So we have our hard and fast rules (kosher, vegetarian) and our relaxed rules dependant upon specifics and situation (we'd prefer vegan, no sugar, non-hydrogenated, organic)

But if we are at a party or the park with friends and he is constantly having to have different food than his peers, pretty soon he is going to notice and rebel and voila, food becomes an issue. I do always try to have snacks in my bag at the ready for situations where he cannot have the other food or just when I'd prefer he didn't. And I try to also have enough to share so that he sees that his friends enjoy his food contributions too.

As for birthday parties, we haven't been to many of these since DS is not quite 3, but we have been lucky that only one had a party where regular cupcakes were served. But they came without frosting and I just sucked up and dealt with it. Oh wait. I forgot one instance at our Waldorf school where someone's grandmother brought in grocery store bought cupcakes complete with crisco frosting for snack. We just subtly changed out a muffin we happened to have (whew) and stuck one of the plastic "Happy Birthday" things into the top of it and he never realized the difference. Of course he was just around his 2nd birthday at the time.

Jennye

[Sheree]

We too do our best to stay away from refined sugar, hydrogenated oils, food coloring and all that stuff. I will, on occasion, make an exception and let Summer have some crackers or something that contain these. It's so rare, that I don't want to make a big deal out of it. She doesn't get it at home, and that's where she eats most of her meals and snacks, so I let her know when she has stuff like this, that it's a special "treat" and that she doesn't get it very much because too much is not good and will make her sick. She's very accepting.

[sophie]

I had to relax my standards ( as I said before) as my kids grew older. While they will not eat non-vegan, they do eat things when they are out that they don't get at home. Now my older two (nearly 7, and 4 and a half) often stay with their grandparents, where I know they'll get non-organic fruit and vegies, white store-bought bread and treats such as vegan lollipops. But I don't stress about it, as I know when they're at home they're eating so well that it makes up it.
I have never ever had a problem with birthday parties, and we've had to cope with quite a few. there have been all sorts of scenarios, ranging from the hosts making ALL VEGAN party food (and I hardly even knew them, I felt like kissing them), to the hosts putting vegan stuff down one end and non-vegan dwon the other end of the table (my kids knew where the vegan food was, and all the other kids helped themselves to everything), to the party being held at a venue where burgers and fries were to be served. I sent Jasper to that one with a lunchbox full of treats that we chose together, When he came home he told me all the other kids had been asking him for things from his box! I always take a few things along to parties also. I have never encountered a bad situation with a birthday party. Though we haven't been asked to a macdonalds one yet!
Last year on a school picnic Jasper's teacher (who is vegetarian, yay!) asked everyone in the class to bring something that Jasper could share. It was so cute, some kids brought stuff like raw carrots. The teacher made dairy-free pizzas which I was so pleased about.
I would hate my kids to have food issues, but the thing is, they want to eat vegan because that's what our family do, they have no desire to eat non-vegan food. I know this could change when they're older but I'm not going to battle with them. When they're teenagers and want to try dairy then we'll have to let them do that. But while they are young it is up to us as parents to bring them up the best we can, and in my case this includes a vegan diet.

[sophie]

I just remembered a situation that happened a couple of weeks ago. We were out with friends at the local pub, sitting in the sun while the children played. I had promised the kids a packet of chips each, and while Al went to get them one of our friends was going to order some fries for everyone. The last time we'd been there the fries had been cooked in vegie oil, but I asked him to check when he ordered them. He came back and said they were cooked in animal fat now, but he'd ordered some anyway! His family (but not him) are vegetarian, and the other family there were non-vegetarian. Just as the plates of fries came over Al said that they'd run out of packets of chips! My son (nearly 7) got really upset as he was hungry and had been looking forward to the chips. Of course everyone thought he was crying because he wasn't allowed to eat the animal-fat fries,and my non-vegetarian friends were looking horrified, as if I was depriving my kids, and I felt really awful. To make it worse, my vegetarian friend was letting her kids eat the fries because "she'd already promised them". My kids could not understand why their vegetarian frineds were eating fries cooked in animal fat.
Anyway, we left and went home and ate kidney bean stew for dinner.
Don't know if that was relevant or not!

[vegma]

I appreciate all the responses:) Someone asked if the food other people bring is non-vegan or unhealthy. I must say, its "healthy" in a SAD (for example, packaged peanut butter crackers where our alternative would be a cracker with no hydrogenated oil and organic natural peanut butter). They even offered to bring salsa and chips next time, but we've only found one brand of all-natural organic chips (salt-free, hydrog oil free), and I guess I can give up the organic salsa. As long as it doesn't have those darn oils in it ... and the corn syrup!!! Anyone want to form a "healthy vegan" community?!

[Sheree]

Yeah, a "healthy vegan" community is right up my alley!!

[Sheree]

Oh, that scenario with the non-vegan french fries is what I dread. Nothing like that has happened to me yet, but I keep thinking one of these days, my daughter might ask for meat or cheese when we're at someone's house and I'll have to say no. And of course, the non-vegan friends/family will think I'm depriving her.

[mum2sarah]

vegma,
Actually, you should be able to find organic salsa pretty easily. They even have several brands in the tiny organic section of our local grocery store, where we shop when we don't feel like driving the 35 minutes to our closest natural health foods store.

[vegma]

That's good to know about organic salsa in mainstream groceries! Right now we're hooked on Muir Glen salsa - i wait until it goes on sale to buy it though as its soooo expensive. Found some coupons for it too last time:) What I meant by giving in on organic salsa was if other people brought vegan food to share and their salsa wasn't organic.

[mum2sarah]

sorry, vegma, I misunderstood... Incidentally, beware of Tupperware parties' salsa. My cousin does Tupperware, and she often makes homemade salsa in their cooking demonstration. She uses their Chipotle seasoning mix, which contains milk proteins!