Chapter Three: In Which We Discuss Healthy Eating

My husband and I watched one of his favorite movies the other day—Heavyweights--which has become a kind of summer tradition in our house. Heavyweights is a hilarious movie about a group of kids sent to a fat camp that has recently been taken over by crazy fitness guru Ben Stiller, who hopes to turn the kids' insane weight loss into material for his infomercial. It's one of those great kids-take-over-a-relatively-large-institution-feel-the-power-use-it-responsibly-learn-life-lessons type of plots that makes the child viewer feel empowered, and maybe in this case, a little hungry. To stick it to the man, the kids have all kinds of secret hiding spots for their candy, as well as a scout that goes outside of the camp for a fee and picks up fast food.

While we were watching this time, I couldn't help but be bothered by the movie's premise. At the end, the message seemed to be: “you're fine the way you are; you don't have to change.” I turned to my husband and asked, “don't these kids want to lose the weight? Aren't they tired of being the fat kid, or has it become ok since 'they're all the fat kid'?” (that last part being a line from the movie). Aaron, as always, put some things in perspective.

“You have to remember that when this movie was made, we didn't have the studies that we have today that tell us how dangerous childhood obesity is. Not as many kids were obese. So the message of the movie is not about health, it's about understanding that the fat kid in your class could be a pretty cool guy if you gave him a chance, and that you shouldn't be worried to be yourself.”

It took me back to my own childhood eating habits. Little Debbies as often as I could get my hands on them, Coca-cola for every meal, sneaking chocolate milk into my chocolate cereal when no one was looking, often eating waffles with chocolate syrup for breakfast (or a snack), and microwave popcorn. My summertime lunch was almost always an individual sized frozen pizza finished off with a giant ice cream cone. All that to say, I also have to give my parents a lot of credit for making me eat my vegetables, fixing me delicious home cooked meals, and teaching me to love gardening and fresh produce. As many good habits as they gave me, my stubborness and penchant for sugar won out in my college years, and today I'm trying to fight them off.

For the most part, I feel very uneducated when it comes to food. I have little to no knowledge about what it does to my body, and I'm more than happy to drive through a line and pick up whatever you'll give me for less than five bucks. But I want to make more of an effort than that. Aaron and I want to have kids in a few years, and besides having my body as healthy as possible for pregnancy, I want to have developed healthy habits to pass along to them like my parents did for me (albeit without the knowledge that Diet Coke isn't the best thing for you all the time). At the moment I'm not the eat-a-baby-carrot-for-a-snack type, but maybe I'll get there. To educate ourselves, we've been watching all kinds of food documentaries on Netflix. Our most recent views have been “Food Matters” and “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.” I think my latest policy developed out of “Food Matters,” which talked about the benefits of vitamins and eating as much raw food as possible for the nutritional benefits. So here it is, the sentence that governs my food choices as of late:

Don't eat what you can't pronounce.

It's scary to look on the nutrition facts of any food product and not know what you're looking at. If I don't know what they are, I don't know what they're doing to my body. I can't fathom the idea that my body would need whatever that is, if it's not available in nature. I find instant relief when I look at a package at the grocery store and see simple, definable words. Ocean Spray's Craisins have two ingredients: cranberries and sugar. Maybe that's another part of this policy, the fewer ingredients the better. I want my food to come out of a kitchen, not a chemistry lab.

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead is a really amazing film. I highly recommend it!

I'm hoping that with this new perspective, we can eliminate some of the more dangerous foods from our diet and eat only the identifiable ones. More produce, more greens, more raw food, less chemicals, less confusion, and finally, more knowledge. In the words of Aristotle, “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.” This practice is as much about taking my back ownership of my mind as well as my body: I will not let anyone feed me that doesn't value my health and well-being.

By necessity, this change is very gradual, and it has all started with me getting to know my kitchen. I'm no longer in there just to fix up dinner or to grab some oatmeal for breakfast. Over the past few weeks, I've covered our counters with flour and exacerbated our supply of butter, milk, and eggs—I've made snacks and meals from scratch. I've made crackers, cookies, pizza dough, pasta, crisps and crumbles, and bread. Most importantly, I traded in one questionable, yet delicious dessert for the homemade version, a la Smitten Kitchen.

That's right: Oreos.

I love my homemade oreos so much better than the originals, and I know exactly what went into them (because I made them myself!) With the amount of butter and shortening that go into the cream (there's butter in the cookie too, let's not forget) they're certainly not the healthiest thing out there. Herein lies the difference between my current effort at lifestyle change and a diet. I'm not cutting out sweets temporarily—they will always be a part of my life—I'm just cutting them down and taking control of what they are, and how much sugar is in there. In a recipe for a blueberry crumble, I cut the sugar in half to let the natural sugars of the blueberry be the main focus, because I could, because it was in my kitchen, because I was in charge of this thing that was about to be my breakfast.

I hope this encourages you to think about your choices and to try to make some healthy ones. I could go on and on about this topic because I believe it's tied to a greater philosophy that I've been developing—all wrapped up in education and the domestic arts—that I will probably elaborate on as this blog continues. Just know that I'm very much determined to take care of myself and my husband and whatever kids we have in the future. But for now, we're starting small, and it's about making homemade oreos.

I'll leave you with some links to a couple of recipes I've been using.

For the past couple of years, I've been making the braided bread from Made. It's really easy and a great introduction to simple bread making.

Here's my next project: Homemade microwave popcorn? I love the idea of controlling butter and salt portions through this easy idea.

A very basic Pizza dough. The video on this website on how to knead the dough is strangely soothing...