Better Food Choices

Used to be when I wanted a mid-day or late PM snack we would reach for tortilla chips and salsa, now we reach for fresh cut veggies and greens. The ability of our kids to eschew the processed food full of oil and eat a colorful combination of cancer fighting, low calorie (and low cost) vegetables is awesome…we have yet to hear a complaint, and to be clear the processed food IS available unrestricted to them. We know how lucky we are here. I grew up in a home with food insecurity, so it means a lot to me to be able to always provide our family with good nutritious food.

We have also been very deliberate about NOT making them also go full out “no oil”. For instance, tonight we had a birthday celebration and we had two homemade vegan cakes, one made with cashew-based butter replacement and one made with applesauce. They tried both (Mom and Dad only ate the applesauce cake) and my daughter said they were BOTH good. She is not one to spare my feelings over taste if something is not pleasing to her, as she has won contests for her vegan baking.

We had made this “no oil” cake one time prior, along with an Esselstyn’s cook-along online. Her comment today was the no oil cake “tastes different then I remember, I think my tastebuds have changed”. She is RIGHT, her tastebuds have changed. When we first made that cake it was early in pandemic and she was still eating some animal products…it was the online cooking that changed her over to eating all plant-based. We did not make her go all in plant-based with us, gradually we were throwing away so much unopened milk, yogurt, eggs and cheese that we just asked her if she wanted us to get those things for her anymore and she said to our surprise, “no”! Our food choices and behaviors seemingly shaped her preferences to ditch the dairy and eggs.

Mixed Greens on oil-free Wheat Pita pocket with cucumber, grape tomatoes, w/oil-free hummus.

Similarly, over this last week of our Lenten “oil fast”, we continued to get the kids their usual food-stuff (snack chips, plant-based ice cream, faux cheese, and cashew-based butters, etc.) but these things are not being as heavily consumed. They went from having plant-based ice cream daily to only eating it once this week. Bags of snack foods sit unopened on the shelf…and they are not even aware of this change. They are eating the things we are making without oil and seemingly filling-up and not going after the snacks.

This is a fascinating family experiment in how the food choices are largely influenced by the parents. We just keep including them in the “healthier choices” we are consuming. When we started making those soft pretzels, I had to make no kidding about 50 of them (we went through around a dozen a day over course of 4 or so days) because they kept on eating them all. We are looking forward to seeing how the next 4 weeks go during this time of fasting, whether or not they continue to be as amenable to our choices.

It is not like our children to give up food or fast for Lent so this is truly an organic experience unfolding. We are really happy to be “changing their taste buds” as our youngest pointed out. We can all benefit from making better food choices. Although it is less convenient and it takes time to prepare these no oil foods ourselves, we are not feeling like we are fasting once we get the food ready to eat. We have been shocked as a family to see how many things contain oils that we were buying and exactly what kinds.

Imagine children choosing this Pear Raisin Mixed Baby Greens salad with Chocolate Balsamic over a bowl of ice cream! It is happening right before our eyes and it is kind of amazing to behold. We hope and pray we can keep this going for all of our health.