Filed under: food, green, organic, parenting, sustainable | Tags: california, children, dad, dinner, eat, education, family, food, kids, los angeles, lunch, mom, parents, school, shop
Back to school for my family revolves around food. After a summer’s worth of ten o’clock breakfasts and 4 p.m. “linners,” we’ve got to stock up on the essentials for three square meals a day. And because all three of my children have, shall we say, distinctive taste buds, that involves a lot of stocking up.
First there’s the new water bottle, because invariably the caps for the ones we have were lost over the summer, leaving us with a cupboard full of indestructible stainless steel containers that are completely worthless. And though my kids might still complain about toting the bottle around rather than tossing a plastic version, I simply remind them that the (filtered) tap water that I pour is tested weekly, while bottled water isn’t required to be tested at all. And that independent tests have found all kinds of icky stuff like giardia and chemicals in bottled water—in fact, last year several kids in our district were hospitalized after buying it from a school vending machine.
That’s enough to get them running to the water fountain.
The water bottle is followed by a new set of BPA-free plastic containers, since the tops to those have invariably gone the way of the water tops, and our existing sandwich boxes became bongos for the Barnacle (read: baby) in June. To fill them, I fill a cart with three types of food: bland for my 10-year-old (peanut butter sandwiches, no jelly), salty for my eight-year-old (seaweed chips and olive snacks) and hearty for the Barnacle, who eats pretty much anything—just a lot of it.
Yes, I buy organic food, and no, I don’t find it’s more expensive. Studies found that because kids eat four-to-five times more fruits, veggies and milk than we do, they’re way more vulnerable to the pesticides in the conventional food. If I can justify buying a coffee for $3 at Starbucks, I can certainly justify paying $1 for milk if it prevents my daughter from early onset menstruation and my son from smaller testicular size linked to infertility (yes, it’s true).
At the market, I add a bunch of goodies for our annual end-of-summer block party. We roll the barbecues into the front lawns, block off the street with trashcans so the kids can play full-court basketball, and break out the beer. Because summer can’t last forever, but fall’s fun too. Cheers!
P.S. Pic above is from a few years back when my daughter started kindergarten, and my niece was evacuating Katrina. Ah, the good old days.
P.P.S. Looking for great eco-friendly lunchboxes and water bottles? I got mine from OneSmallStep.com, where they’re giving readers 10% off now through September 15th with “EcoStiletto10″ at checkout. And for insulated lunch bags made from 100% recycled water bottles, check out KidsKonserve.com, where they’re giving readers 15% off with “ecostil” at check out through September 20th. Note the EcoStiletto.com connection, where it’s all about the ecoswag, baby. Subscribers get discounts like this, plus a chance to win free sustainable shoes, every week!
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