"Smart" Choice Labels

Being a mother of 3 hungry little beasts my household isa hefty cereal consumer. And by cereal, I mean healthy, low sugar cereals such as cheerios, Kashi and Total. Fruit Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cocoa ANYTHING are banned in my kitchen. In my opinion, those have slightly higher nutritional value than sending your kid off to school with a Snickers bar for breakfast.

Apparently the "Smart Choice" label, which is being slapped on cereal brands everywhere to help parents make healthier purchasing choices, fails to agree with me. According to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/05smart.html?_r=1&partner=rss heavily processed, sugar-laden cereals such as Fruit Loops are getting this seal of approval.

On a similar note - I am not a popular mother among neighbor children. Nor (I presume) will I ever be. Last week, we took the kids swimming and brought along a 7 year old bratty little boy that Jacob recently befriended. I packed a lunch consisting of bean and cheese burritos, fresh picked apples, and a bag of chips. A good balance of fun and nutrition, I thought.

The boy was excited about the bean and cheese burritos until he opened one up and realized it was not a lard-ridden carb wrap filled with lard drenched beans and cheese that he had anticipated. Nope. Instead, it was a whole wheat tortilla filled with fresh picked diced tomatoes, beans, cheese, avocado and sour cream. The kid promptly (and rather rudely) told me that he didnt like my food and that he just wanted the chips. He continued by telling me the juice box I supplied him with was gross. And after he squirted it out on the sidewalk he asked for a soda.

I ordered him to eat my crappy food because in our household we have to eat the healthy stuff before we get any of the snack food. And as for the juice box - well he was going to have to make do with good old fashioned H2O because I don't allow my kids to waste money and food like that, so he wasn't going to get away with it either.

Bottom line - I sent the kid home at 430 with a very hungry belly. Do I feel bad? Not one bit.