The first part of July was very full of relatives here at the homestead, and my relatives run the gambit in ’size’ designations between morbidly obese and thin as rails. I’m a sort of in-between person. Weigh the same now (approaching my 40th anniversary next month) as I did the day I graduated from high school and the day I got married. Don’t tend to gain or lose and never have. Hubby is one of those ‘high metabolism’ sorts who could look like a starving Ethiopian with little trouble just by skipping a few meals, but keeps firm muscles under the no-fat covering by getting way more exercise than most guys these days. Comes from the homestead lifestyle, heating with wood (thus cutting and splitting), maintaining the acre of up-and-down yard, and playing lots of ‘challenging’ disc golf.

Our daughter takes after him. You’d swear she’s got a giant tapeworm or something watching her woof down more food in a single sitting than I’m likely to eat all day (or over two days!), never gains an ounce and has to eat lots to maintain what little she’s got. Her son takes more after his father, and could easily put on significant weight if he’s not careful. Of course his diet is worse than ours – he likes fast food burgers, fries and soft drinks, whereas we are mostly vegetarian, seldom eat out, and drink primarily our great spring water in herb/green teas or plain, or mixed with straight fruit juices like blueberry, cranberry, pomegranate or some combo. All of us get sugar cravings occasionally and are known to pig out on chocolate or other candy, but that’s rare enough not to be a big deal, living as far from town as we do. Daughter likes a little coffee in her sugar, when she’s not here a pound of sugar can last for months. Hubby and I don’t use it in coffee or on cereal (though we do like fruit on our Cheerios), and don’t drink milk straight-up ever. Daughter can consume a gallon a day without even trying.

Out of five kids in my family, 4 of us siblings tend to be slender like me. Yes, the poundage has rearranged quite a bit over the course of my 58 years, but you’ll have this (it’s a gravity thing, I think!). The youngest, my baby sister who had a 17″ waist when she got married, is now morbidly obese. She and her three children spent four days here, took grandson back with them to Florida. Her two sons are like her hubby, high metabolism guys whose plain old nervous energy keeps them skinny. They don’t exercise or even go out of the house much at all, so that’s not a factor. Her daughter is just now ‘chunky’, risks being fat as she gets older if she isn’t careful. Our parents weren’t fat folks, in fact, Mom was a runway model with long legs and perfect posture, lots of grace and beautiful chestnut hair – a real beauty. Grandparents weren’t particularly large on either side, though my father’s sister was a fat woman as was my mother’s grandmother. So there are no doubt a few fat genes in the mix, where there seem to be none on my hubby’s side.

And indeed genetics do play a role. Primarily, I suspect, in how metabolism is regulated, along with hunger signaling and tendencies to store fat. But my observations also tend to support my strong suspicions that most of it is diet and exercise habits. Primarily diet. This was doubly confirmed during their four-day visit, when we had to be the food suppliers.

Now, I’ve an ample garden and the apples are ripe, the pears are dropping, and there’s plenty of juice, tea, milk, cereal (Cheerios and plain Shredded Wheat), whole grain bread, cheese, pickles, canned veggies, etc. I cooked dinner every night, usually a bean dish (Mexican), potato soup, salads, vegetable plates, linguini or ravioli, etc. None of them would eat a bite of any of it. Over those days the bring-home from work for hubby consisted entirely of a 24-pack of Coke, a gallon of whole milk and two giant-size boxes of Frosted Flakes. Sis and her daughter ate bowl after bowl after bowl, finishing off both boxes every single day. Niece also whined constantly for someone to drive to McDonalds and get her bacon cheeseburgers, though we never did.

When I visit them I observe their diet too. Bags and bags of fast food burgers and crap piled on the kitchen table, cabinets chock full of snack foods, a fridge full of fatty lunchmeats, ice cream, chocolate milk, etc., and boxes, bags and wrappers piled in corners and along the walls of every room. They haven’t had a working stove/oven in 15 years, but sis doesn’t cook anyway so there’s no need for anything more than the hot plate her hubby and sons use to make themselves occasional Campbell’s Soup or canned spaghetti and meat sauce or beef stew. Adding it all together in my head, I figure they must spend 5 times what we do for a week’s worth of food, and not a single bit of it is what I’d considered healthy.

This of course isn’t everybody’s story, but it certainly plays a part in most of the “obesity epidemic” in this country. Bad food, bad habits, bad choices. And sis, being an RN who actually knows the reality of such things, expects just like most of the rest of ‘em that medical science will simply come up with a “fat-pill” one of these days that will keep them skinny without them ever having to change a single thing about their choices in life. I find that terribly sad.

Now, I’m ten years older and will probably die long before she does of something or other. She could well be like my great-grandmother, who we called “Big Mama” and who lived to be an obese, chain-smoking (corncob pipe), happy and semi-healthy 100. So general health isn’t a terribly good argument to use if the person is perfectly happy as they are. She does have some issues with depression, but not considerably large ones (no more than the rest of us, I’d say). She and hubby love each other just as they are, the kids are well-adjusted enough to function, they seem to enjoy their life fine. So I don’t bitch, I just stand in awe and wonder.

I do perceive an odd American mindset in all this. Sort of flagrant indulgence in the deadly sin of gluttony (as popular these days as lust, greed, wrath, sloth, envy and pride) as a way of life, with full expectation that somebody will ‘cure’ the deadly results without the person having to give up the sin. I also am guilty of not feeling too sorry for the greedheads on Wall Street (who DO NOT deserve to be bailed out with my hard-earned money!), the lusty free sex addicts and serial semi-monogamists, the angry old racists who disrupt Town Hall meetings with their hatred, the evil torture-enablers who want to be tyrannical dictators, or the fat folks who live in a pile of empty food containers they can’t even manage to throw away.

That’s probably pride on my part, though I’ve nothing much to be proud of, so I’ve my deadly sin too. I don’t tend to fat. That’s because I don’t eat a lot, and I don’t eat junk. But if I WERE constantly hungry and DID eat junk, I’d weigh what she does. I’m too dumb to be greedy and too lazy to be rich, though I’d sure love to be not-poor for a little while in my life. Not ever likely to happen, though. Maybe I’d have been a loose woman had I not found my soul-mate early in life, so I can’t too much fault those still actively seeking The One in their own lives. And if I didn’t mind living in filth, I probably wouldn’t ever clean my house (or my daughter and grandson’s rooms, which qualify in spades for the ’sloth’ designation). I do get mad enough to be considered ‘wrathful’, often at things I can do nothing about and sometimes at things I could do something about if I approached them differently. The Irish in me is just an excuse, so I’m no doubt guilty of that one as well. We’ve all got our issues and our weaknesses – our deadly sins – one is no better or worse than another.

So I just love ‘em. It’s all I can do. Try to encourage them to get more exercise or eat better when they’re here, but giving in and buying them most of the junk they want anyway just so they’ll be happy. Simply like being around them when I can, try to understand where I am overstepping and shouldn’t interfere, accept them as they are and as they come just because I love them. Life is hard on all of us, for sure. And no one can live anyone else’s lives, nor reasonably force them to be someone they’re not. So through the years I’ve learned to take things with a grain of salt, enjoy what little time I get with people I love, and try most of all to encourage their happiness. If what would make them happy is not something I can provide or they can ever provide for themselves, they’ll just have to learn to do without.

Like when some young relative who dropped out of school because he thought the requirements too stringent bitches that Bill Gates hasn’t yet made him the multi-billionaire VP of Microsoft (or some such ridiculousness), I just laugh. What’s the point of pointing out how silly that sounds? Or when another young relative bitches that nobody is giving her a nice car for free when she’s got two DUIs and wrecked the last one and is too drunk most days to hold a real job, what’s the point of suggesting that she quit getting drunk all the time, get a job and buy her own damned car? Or when another relative complains about achy knees and a bad back that make the stairs to the bathroom too difficult while weighing three times what a normal person weighs, what’s the point of pointing out that’s probably why she’s sore? All these things are entirely self-evident. They know that as well as I do. So they’re just sounding off, I make small noises of sympathy, then distract them with some other topic or project.

Still loving them, still glad to have them in my life, still thankful for the time in life I get to spend with them. And in return, I’m thankful that they don’t spend much time on my deadly sins and giving me advice I won’t take about how to ‘fix’ my life. Who knows? Maybe someday somebody really will invent a sin-pill we can all take to fix what our indulgences do to our lives and health!

The volunteer students from D.C.’s Bancroft Elementary School who have put some backbone into the First Family’s organic kitchen garden this season enjoyed a fresh lunch salad topped with sweet, fat peas that they’d helped to grow and harvest. For dessert, they got cupcakes topped with berries, also grown in the garden on the South Lawn.

Thus far the well-tended organic garden, which sports various cultivars chosen by the White House Chef to compliment the cuisine served both to the Obama family and to their guests – with a majority of the bounty going to local D.C. food kitchens – has thus far produced 80 pounds of fresh food. And it’s still June, not even tomato time yet! As the First Lady says in this clip, getting involved in growing, harvesting and preparing fresh, organic food can help with a number of health-related issues that plague this country’s citizens…

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure are all diet-related health issues that cost this country more than $120 billion each year. That’s a lot of money. While the dollar figure is shocking in and of itself, the effect on our children’s health is even more profound. Nearly a third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese, and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime. In Hispanic and African American communities, those numbers climb even higher so that nearly half of the children in those communities will suffer the same fate. Those numbers are unacceptable.

A. Siegel of Get Energy Smart blog does a little math and comes up with an intriguing scenario related to gardens just about a quarter the size of Michelle’s. If just five million Americans were inspired to create a Victory Garden in their yard (or in containers on their deck or patio, in window boxes, inside by a sunny window, etc.) that produced 20 pounds of food each year, it would amount to 100 million pounds (50,000 tons) of fresh, healthy vegetables and fruits grown right at home or in the neighborhood. That’s 50,000 tons of good food that would not have to be grown with chemical intensive agriculture, harvested by third world peasant/slaves, shipped to your local market using fossil fuels, and costing a hefty chunk of the shrinking household budget.

The added incentive is of course getting people outdoors instead of parked in front of the television when they get home from work, bending, digging, hoeing, tending and simply enjoying their garden. Even that little bit of exercise and simple enjoyment can help reduce a tough day’s accumulation of stress, and reducing stress has its health savings dividends as well.

Kudos once again to our beautiful First Lady, her helpers in the kitchen, the Obama girls and the students of Bencroft Elementary for a tasty job well done. Things like this are a fun and healthy chunk of the Change We Need!

My DiL is an organic gardener like me (I’m so proud!), we often go back and forth about different cultivars, particular techniques for (trying to) beat bugs, etc. She linked me to a story from the LA Environmental Health Examiner this morning that I’m making the subject of this post.

Jon Stewart spoofs and doctors warn: avoid GMOs

Seems that on the 8th of May this year the American Academy of Environmental Medicine [AAEM] officially called on doctors to educate their patients and their local medical communities as well as the public to “avoid GM foods when possible.” Why? Well, it seems that the results of those long-term feeding studies that Monsanto, et al. were NOT required by the FDA to do before they introduced poisons disguised as staple food crops are finally coming in, and they aren’t good…

“There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation,” according to the AAEM’s resolution to its membership.
“The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.” A review of more than 600 papers in scientific journals led biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava to conclude that GMOs are a major contributor to the sharply deteriorating health of Americans. Worse, pregnant women and their babies are at the greatest risk for harm. What is known from experience with GMOs as animal feed so far:

• Female rats fed GM soy suffered a greater than 50% loss of their litters, compared with a 10% death rate for the natural soy control group.

• Surviving females in those rat litters experienced problems becoming pregnant when they matured.

• Male rates fed GM soy had their testicles change color. Their sperm was altered to produce fewer offspring and those offspring were smaller than normal.

• Indian buffalos that grazed on GM cotton plants after harvest had reproductive problems or became infertile. Pigs fed GM corn also became sterile.

• In the US, the incidence of low birth weight babies, infertility and infant mortality are all rising dramatically since the introduction of GM foods in the human foodstream.

Serious food allergies are rising epidemically, immune dysfunction is also becoming endemic in the US population. Multiple animal studies of GMO diets indicate that these too are attributable to the new staple foods. The various Bt crops – engineered to produce bacterial toxins in every cell of the plants – have been implicated in the mass deaths of buffalo, cows, horses and chickens.

Bottom line is that no matter how convenient these genetically modified crops are for farmers, seed purveyors and agricultural chemical conglomerates, they are not good for what we humans use them for at our end of the production chain – food. AAEM’s resolution contains advice to doctors to inform their patients to avoid GM foods. This means staying away from anything with soy or corn derivatives, cottonseed and canola oil, and sugar from genetically modified beets.

Those products are okay if they are labeled “organic” or “non-GMO,” so read those labels carefully. Growing season is upon us, so local farmers will be selling produce at farmer’s markets in bulk, and are usually on hand (or a family member is) to tell you whether or not the produce came from GM seeds. Eat as fresh and close to local as possible, avoid highly processed foods – most contain GM soy, high fructose corn syrup from GM corn, and possibly other GMO ingredients.

Your family’s health is on the line, so do what you must. And don’t let Monsanto’s strong-arm tactics get in your way, don’t believe a word of the pro-GMO advertisements they’re paying a fortune to brainwash you with. I’ve found that the best thing is to not buy any food you see advertised on TV. But then again, we quit paying to be brainwashed by TV way back in the mid-1970s, so that hasn’t been difficult!

Please go to the above link and read the article. It’s highly informative, and should help make up a lot of people’s minds about this issue. There is plenty of information about GMOs out on the wide web, easily accessed through OCA or a Google search on “GMO.” Educate yourself, save your family from the health effects of industrial foods.

Since our daughter and grandson got back from their sojourn to Florida and Costa Rica, I’ve again had cause to prepare the kind of labor-intensive foods I didn’t bother with at all when it was just hubby and I here by ourselves. One of our favorite cold munchies are two-bite sized stuffed grape leaves, so I thought (since I made a big batch today) that I’d go ahead and give the details on this delicious delicacy.

The key ingredient, of course, are the grape leaves. These should be gathered in the late spring (May-June), when the vines are barely blooming. The newest leaves and the leaves near the bloom clusters are the best, they should be as large as your spread hand at the base. Wild fox grape leaves work too, though they are only about half the size of good vineyard leaves. They also have a tarter flavor of their own, so these can even be the preferred leaves if you’ve got some growing in your immediate area.

When the leaves are gathered, you can freeze or brine them. I usually freeze enough to add to every jar of dill pickles that I produce during the cucumber harvest (July-August), as they help lend crispness to the pickles. Those leaves that you want to preserve for stuffed leaves are best put into brine. For this, use kosher or pickling salt, 2/3 of a cup of salt to two cups of water. I use the “cigar” method, which is pretty easy.

Put your leaves into a flat-bottomed container (baking pan works well), stacked ten or twelve on top of each other. Pour boiling water on them to cover (you may need to weigh them down a little) and let them sit for five minutes. Lay out smoothly on newspaper to dry. Once they’re fairly dry and workable, cut out the base stem, fold the base and sides to a rectangular shape and roll the leaves loosely around a pencil to make tubes. Pack the tubes upright into canning jars (you should be able to get 35-40 in a single jar) and pour boiling brine to cover. If you’ve sterilized the jars and lids first, you don’t have to seal by water bath, the brine should preserve fine for 3 to 5 months. If you’re planning to keep them longer, go ahead and put the jars in a water bath for 20 minutes to seal.

The stuffing can be pretty much anything you can imagine. Our favorites are cous-cous and pine nuts or brown rice. If you make a mean tabouli, just omit the cucumbers (but keep the tomato), undercook the grain. To these add lots of herbs, the best being ground cumin, turmeric (with rice), fresh mint leaves and basil, parsley, and lots of chives. Cook the cous-cous, grain or rice to about half done (use half the water, don’t let it burn). Mix the herbs in, add any grated veggies you want to include – good choices are carrots, peas, bell peppers, eggplant or lentils – plus a healthy amount of roasted garlic and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice.

Rinse unrolled grape leaves well in cold running water, lay out to dry again on spread newspaper. Put a hefty spoonful of the filling at the stem base end and roll tightly. For this, I fold over the filling the base ends of the grape leaf to cover, roll up one turn, fold in the sides and then finish rolling to the tip. This makes a tight package. As I make the rolls I put them atop a lone (and inedible) grape leaf on the bottom of a soup pot overlap side down. Pack them together tightly and cover the bottom of the pot, then you can put a second layer on top of those. When the leaves have all been stuffed, put another large leaf on top of the pile and weight it all down with a small saucer and add your cooking broth.

The broth is just water, olive oil and lemon juice. To 2 cups water add 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 ounce of lemon juice (adjust this ratio to get enough broth to cover all your stuffed leaves). Bring to boiling over medium-high heat, then turn down to medium low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes (however long it takes to finish off the pasta/grain and/or rice) plus 5 full minutes. Remove grape rolls carefully with tongs, put on newspaper seam-side down to cool and drain. When cool enough to handle easily you can refrigerate them in a closed container or simply serve at room temperature as appetizers.

I don’t know about all grandmas, but I know from my own experience with other people’s kids that they often come to spend a week or two expecting to be fed precisely what they usually get fed at home, and can be positively horrified to find that Grandma doesn’t stock chocolate cereals or big bags of candy or white bread and baloney for sandwiches, and there’s not a McDonald’s or Wendy’s in sight.

Now, it’s not that I don’t make some concessions to the basic kid-diet. My non-vegetarian grands and nieces/nephews and such do have the option of a can of beef-a-roni or a frozen pepperoni pizza here and there. I’ve even been known to purchase some turkey-dogs to roast over the campfire. But the grilled burgers are black bean, there will be no “Happy Meals,” and no bacon bits for the baked potatoes.

I also stock lots of fruit, whatever’s available when they’re here. I grow strawberries in the garden, those usually get eaten as soon as they’re picked, and they only last so long into the season. I have some cherry tomatoes that went wild one year, show up in unexpected places all over the garden. Those get eaten as soon as they’re picked as well, one granddaughter swears they’re sweeter than cherries! None of the kids seem to like cooked greens very much, but they’ll eat as many peas raw from the pod as I can possibly pick on any given day.

This year I’m trying watermelons again in the garden. Haven’t had much luck with them previously, though pumpkins do just fine. These are the little ones no bigger than a cantaloupe, which I’m hoping will do better. They won’t be in until August, though, which should coincide with when the Florida niece/nephews will be here.

Thing is, I don’t think it hurts a child to understand that things at my house don’t work just the same as they do at their home. We don’t eat fast food, and don’t go out to dinner, as we live too far out in the country and don’t have that kind of money to waste on junk anyway. It’s an opportunity to introduce them to a variety of new, more healthy foods, to let them see where food actually comes from, and to allow them a new view of diet and being more conscious about WHAT they’re eating. In fact, I think that sort of thing is actually good for a child! Besides, it’s always a fun project to include the kids in menu planning as well as cooking and prep.

The toughest task I’ve found through the years (mostly friend’s kids and nieces/nephews rather than grands) is the issue of white bread versus real bread. Some of them act as if they’ve no idea that white bread actually came from wheat before it was sifted and thoroughly bleached. Or that additives to bread – like oats, flax and sesame seeds, even sprouts – won’t poison them. Yet it only takes a day or two stuck with real bread before they learn to eat it without complaint, and some even learn to like it because it makes the sandwich better!

We go through jars and jars of peanut butter when kids are here (we do that when they’re not here too, though a jar does last longer). Once they’ve been cajoled into eating that PBJ on real bread using Grandma’s homemade concord grape jam from the vines right there on the garden fence, they uniformly tell me that store-bought jam just seems like fake juice with gel in it. I don’t use the outrageous amounts of sugar most jam recipes call for, because I don’t have to. Ripe grapes produce plenty of pectin on their own, and I’m not shy of using powdered apple pectin for low-sugar recipes, available right there next to the Ball jars and lids on the grocery store shelf.

I understand that Big Medicine (and its many peripheral lobby groups and supporters) insists that there is no connection between white sugar and hyperactivity in children. I long ago came to the firm conclusion that those people don’t have children. Ask any harried Mom or Grandma, they’ll uniformly tell you there’s very much a direct link between white sugar intake and the level of hyperkinetic frenzy any single-digit midget. A 1-to-1 relationship. Moreover, any observant Mom or Grandma will also tell you that if the child has to actually digest the sugar (unrefined sugars as found in honey or fruit or molassas), it doesn’t affect them in the same way at all.

Thus I don’t deny the visiting kids sweet treats, I simply make them using alternative sweeteners like molassas, honey or dark brown sugar. Or my jam, for PBJ cookies! That way their sweet tooth gets its fix, and I don’t have kids climbing the walls all night long.

A last word of caution on this is that if you do allow your grandkids to make S’mores or roast marshmallows over the campfire, serve your evening meal early so they’ve a couple of hours to get over the sugar rush before bedtime. Otherwise, Grandma and Grandpa aren’t going to get any sleep that night.

Grandma’s Black Bean Veggieburgers
1 can black beans (or 12 oz. from dry)
1 cup rolled oats
1 large egg
1 tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1-2 tbsp. dark soy sauce (to taste)
1 cup chopped veggies – onions, carrots, bell peppers, zucchini or summer squash, eggplant, mushrooms, whatever
Whole wheat flour, mashed potato or flakes, or corn masa – enough to make the mixture stick together into patties

Beat the egg, add the beans and mash lightly with the other ingredients and mix well. Add enough flour or mashed potato/potato flakes to make a workable mush to form patties that don’t fall apart.

Broil 3 minutes per side or grill 2-3 minutes per side, serve on toasted buns with condiments, lettuce, spinach, sliced tomatoes, pickles, onions, etc.

And for gardening/canning grandmas out there, check out the condiment recipes over at Wise Living Journal.

Science reports this week yet another research study touting the considerable benefits of breast feeding over formula or cow’s milk for babies.

This time the study is used to support the notion that breast fed babies are just plain smarter than babies who don’t have that advantage. The original article in ScienceDaily makes a causal inference that may not be scientifically warranted given the details of the study and the fact that correlation does not necessarily equal causation, but it’s something for new parents to consider.

Meanwhile, another study published this week links early consumption of cow’s milk with Type-1 diabetes, and that’s a correlation no parent needs to ignore! Researcher marcia F. Goldfarb suggests that the culprit may be a cow protein lactoglobulin may have adverse effects to the breast milk protein it mimics (glycodelin), which controls T-cell production in the human immune system.

So ladies, here are two more great ['scientific'] reasons to breast feed your babies no matter what your grandma or your Mother-in-Law tells you about the “unseemliness” of it all!

My newest grandchild is affectionately known as Sunshine (when she’s not being referred to by her eldest cousin as GuitarGreg) will be making her appearance within the next 10 days or so, 500 miles away. She’ll be my seventh and the oldest is 17, so I’ve a little grandmotherly experience. Since I’m not a perfect person, perfect parent or perfect grandparent, I’ve had to learn some things the hard way. This series lists 15 tips that might come in handy.

Part 1: Tips 1 – 5

For you new or expectant first-time Grannies out there, here’s tips 1 through 5…

1. Choose Your Granny Name Well, You’ll Have It Forever

If you don’t want to be called “Granny” or “Grandma” or “Grandmother,” come up with something you like better. Your grandchild will hopefully have at least two grandmothers, and you’ll want to distinguish your title from the others. My grandmothers were “Miss Granny” and “Lala,” my hubby only had one and she was the formal “Grandmother.” Some like “Nana” or “Nonie” and “Amah” is pretty good if you don’t mind the Asian overtones. “MeeMa” is another grandparent name among the tribe, while yet another is simply “Gram.”

It doesn’t really matter what they call you, but that’s who you’ll be to them all their lives. Whatever you decide, let your children know your wishes. If you don’t they’ll give you a granny title of their own choosing, and you’ll have a heck of a time undoing it!

2. Don’t Attempt to Dictate Names for the Baby

I don’t care if “everyone” in your family is named after a relative, you don’t get to decide who – if anyone – a grandchild is named after. This can cause no end of tension in a young family, because the spouse also has a family that will have ideas about who that baby should be named after.

When we started our family we purposely chose names that nobody on either side owned, so there wouldn’t be issues of favoritism. Then had to correct situations where grandparents, aunts and uncles wouldn’t call them by their actual names. Best idea is to be happy for whatever name the parents choose (don’t pout if it’s not your favorite), then pay attention to what THEY call their child. If you reinforce the child’s awakening to his or her own self-identity, it helps cement your relationship.

3. Be Careful With Your Pet Names

Just as you may want to choose your own grandmother title, you may be tempted to stick a cute kiddy nickname on your grandbaby. This may be entirely inappropriate, so approach this with caution. If the parents use a nick, you can probably use the same one. Or not, it mostly depends on your relationship.

It may be okay to call the child by his/her formal name, even if the parents use an informal nick. “Steven” instead of “Stevie,” “Abigail” instead of “Abbie,” things like that. This way the child knows s/he has a formal, important-sounding name, and that his/her grandmother says it like it really *is* important. Makes them feel grown up.

4. Package Advice With a Spoonful of Sugar

Giving advice is always a tricky thing, and when you’re dealing with new parents it’s good to remember they’ve been through a lot very recently in just getting that baby into the world. If possible always wait for the right opening – when your daughter asks or expresses confusion, or her spouse expresses frustration.

Whatever you do, try hard to avoid taking sides in any ongoing disagreements between the parents. The last thing you want to do is cement dissent in the new family, so it’s best to put your best UN-style diplomatic skills to good use. These skills are something grandmas possess in abundance!

5. Be Positive, Even if Your Son-In-Law is Worthless

I’m joking, of course. Heard a Bluegrass band on the radio the other day called “The Worthless Son-In-Laws” (sic), which is the best band name since grandson #1 came up with “Puppet Hand Gone Bad” some years ago. So long as your child is happy in her marriage and he’s not running around or beating her, give him the benefit of the doubt. If you keep an open mind and get to know him, you might even figure out what she sees in him!

Stay tuned for tip installment #2…

Posts to This Series:
Part 1: Tips 1 – 5
Part 2: Tips 6 – 10
Part 3: Tips 11 – 15

Under the general heading of “nutrition” we’ve examined how to get the kids to eat vegetables, taken a look at how big food producers subvert our best nutrition goals through targeted advertising, how those same corporations once subverted the AMA to claim there’s no relation between diet and health, and how the best “animal protein” for infants comes comes directly from Mom.

The great blog One Big Health Nut has a post entitled Ten Great Reasons to Become a Vegetarian that just might help to push some of those kids who are toying with the idea all the way over the line. If Mom or Grandma were to help reinforce these reasons at home, that is. Why, a Grandma just might end up with a grandchild (like a couple of mine!) who eats bell peppers and whole tomatoes like apples, shuns any bread with no color, and subverts their school, scout and summer camp buddies to veggieburgers and veggie dogs.

Of Health Nut’s reasons, the ones that have worked best with my kids and grandchildren were #4: Save the life of many animals, #8: Help the environment, and #10: Vegetarian diets are healthier. Mad Cow and e.coli infection (Health Nut’s #1) are great reasons to avoid meat, but kids generally don’t tend to worry about such things much. They worry about obesity – they all know fat kids in their schools, and don’t want to be them – the environment, and (most of all for primary schoolers) animal welfare.

Go on over to One Big Health Nut and get the whole list! It’s worth printing out and putting up on the fridge with magnets. I did!

Ten Great Reasons to Become a Vegetarian