Poor food

Someone said something about a challenge going around for parents — make sure your kid tries 200 different foods before they turn two. As our first is about to finish his first trip around the sun, without keeping a journal or counting I can say with full confidence he’s enthusiastically enjoyed over 100 foods. He’s tasted over two dozen different forms of cheese. We love food in our household.

I was thinking how his daily culinary exploration differed so greatly from mine. Mom made yummy food — I’d still scarf down her spaghetti and peppery pork chops any time. But like many growing up in the nineties, much of our diet was processed. Margarine, breakfast cereal, white bread, and American cheese were daily staples. Pop tarts, pizza rolls, and star crunches were regular delicacies.

The thought that we ate like this as a result of being a low income household crossed my mind, only to be quickly expelled. Not having a lot of money does not relegate you to consuming industrial byproducts, in fact eating an empty diet makes you poor…

You’re paying more for the food, processing is an additional expense. Ground beef is much cheaper and more nutrient dense than a box of hot pockets. And crappy food leaves you deficient, less capable at everything else you are doing. If it weren’t for massive subsidies, the economics of factory food simply would work, but that is another topic.

When our little guy gets to eat sauerkraut I fermented, carrots his mom grew, eggs from the chickens in our back yard, and beef from a farmer we know, it’s not because we are rolling in the dough. On the contrary, it’s actually the way eating is when you remove all the luxury, and it’s true wealth.