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.

Three of my kids who will not be here for Thanksgiving have called in the past week to ask me what to do with the turkey carcass once everybody’s done eating the Big Dinner. So while there are about a million things you can do with the leftover chunks and slices of turkey meat (turkey sandwiches, turkey & gravy on a shingle, etc.), not that many young people these days know what to do with all those bones and the gelled goo and the fat and skin and stray bits of possible meat that may cling, other than to put the whole mess into a plastic garbage bag and toss it into the dumpster. Or bury it in the back yard. Heck, even the cats won’t clean it off well enough to bleach any bones, and you sure shouldn’t feed it to the dogs!

So here’s the basics to brew yourself up some good turkey broth from this leftover yuck, which in turn can be used to make future gravy, future soups (any kind), or just poured over the dry dog food and mixed to give Fido a feeling that s/he has a feasting holiday too. It’s not hard, you just need a stock pot (or canner) big enough to hold all the ’stuff’ scraped off the platter and roasting pan.

1. Scrape the carcass, loose bones and leavings off the platter and roasting pan into the pot. Add enough water barely cover.

2. If you’ve leftover crudités (carrot and celery sticks, roasted garlic cloves, etc.) put them in the water too. If you’re planning future soup broth, chunk up an onion and put it in with the rest, along with ~2 teaspoons of salt. Also add 2 bay leaves, some rubbed (or fresh sage), rosemary if you like it, and 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper.

3. Let ‘er boil, turning the bones occasionally, for at least an hour. Add water if necessary.

4. Lift out the bones and bits, package for disposal. Strain the broth into jars and refrigerate. Use within a month or so, for whatever dishes need gravy or broth. This can include collards/kale, hopping john and other dishes you’re likely to cook for the rest of the holidays, make a white gravy with some broth for breakfast biscuits. If you’re just planning to use the broth to flavor up dry dog and cat food, leave out the salt, pepper, herbs and onion, but do include the carrots and celery.

See how easy that is? Sure, it’s a project, but worth it not to waste anything from your big feast. And don’t forget as we move into flu season that Mom’s Turkey Soup is every bit as soothing and phlem-clearing (this is true, look it up!) as Mom’s Chicken Soup. In fact, every time we get a whole chicken around here I do the same thing, and use the broth for soup.

As the world financial situation looks to be bad and getting worse, there may not be much consumerist excess for Christmas this year. So the traditional feasting and other such food goodies are going to be even more appreciated than usual. My mother’s generation lived through the Great Depression by not wasting anything, and the better able our generations today are to do much the same things, the better we’ll survive intact. When you can’t just jump into the SUV and drive to the store for a single item, your best bet is to process your own items from what you’ve got, then USE them.

Turkey Broth and Other Leftover Turkey Recipes

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!

11. Teach Your Grandchild Something Cool

When you have your grandchild for a day or a few days, try to get them interested in some skill or knowledge that you have, which he or she might be willing to learn. My daughter sniffed at sewing because I sewed – said she didn’t have to learn. But #1 grandson is quite the sew-er (seamster?), makes many of his own fashionable accessories (including a kilt and leather armor, all his halloween costumes) and does his own alterations. I taught him the basics, help him pattern, he enjoys doing the work.

If your grandchild is artistically inclined, have art supplies handy. If s/he’s a budding actor, encourage it. There are interests you as grandma can indulge and help to develop, and children need to know someone’s interested in what they can do.

12. Let the Grandkids Help With Meals

When our grandchildren are here with us I like to get their daily input on what’s for lunch and dinner. Sure, they sometimes think up something awful, but it’s an opportunity to get to know what they like and don’t like, what combinations most appeal to them. I’ve tons of cookbooks with great illustrations, and a big garden that’s usually got fresh produce incoming when they’re here. Except for strawberries and cherry tomatoes, most makes it into the kitchen before being eaten.

If we’ve picked a bunch of tomatoes, I get out the tomato recipes and let them decide. It’s usually Granny’s Famous ‘Mater Pie. We chunk up the variety veggies and marinate for kabobs. They’re expert ‘tater and corncob foil-wrappers, and will eat as much of everything cooked in or over the fire as they can fit in their stomachs.

13. Have Them Help You Read the Fine Print

When your grandchild learns to read, one fun exercise is to take him or her grocery shopping with you and teach them about scrutinizing food labels. They get to practice their reading skills, and learn something about what’s really in the stuff they’re eating.

My general rule is if you can’t pronounce it, you probably shouldn’t be eating it. Keep going through the brands until you find one that doesn’t have all those unpronounceable chemicals and preservatives in it, chances are your grandchild will decide very firmly that it tastes much better than that ‘other’ brand.


14. Let Them Make the Drinks Too

I have the simplest lemonade recipe on the planet – a cup of bottled lemon juice and a cup of sugar in two quarts of water. It’s hard to mess up, so I usually let the grandchild make it first thing in the morning, drink all day. Pick up some fresh lemons, limes or oranges and let them squeeze the juice. Let them help you harvest some fresh mint for mint tea, or work the juicer with the morning’s garden haul for homemade V-8.

You might be amazed at what healthy drinks and snacks your grandchildren will eagerly consume if they get to help concoct them. And you won’t get a reputation as the “junk-food granny.”

15. Encourage Physical Activity

If your grandchild is born in a city like mine were, you know that social conditions no longer encourage kids to spend time outdoors doing physical things. Too much danger out there, too little to do. If you live in a rural environment as we do, or can plan to go rural when the grandkids are with you for visits, keep them moving!

Go hiking or bike riding, visit museums or exhibits they’ll enjoy. Go camping or swimming, take up frisbee golf or horseshoes or badminton. Play kick the can or capture the flag at dusk, or even a friendly game of tag. Every bit of exercise you can engage in with the grandchildren is exercise that will help you too!

These are fun tips about how a new grandma can build a relationship with her grandchild/grandchildren that’s unique and valued. When babies are new some plain old mom-knowledge is most useful, some TLC to the new mom and dad too. Cook some meals, stay with the cranky baby while they take a walk to earn calm. Babies are not babies for very long, and before you know it they’re full-fledged kids with more energy than any adult, and an insatiable curiosity that seeks stimulation.

In the end, the very, very best thing about grandchildren is that you as grandma can give them back to their parents for the hard work and worry. Your main job is to enjoy them!

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

It’s true that one of the many ‘important’ jobs Moms do is to direct the proper nutrition of their families. Some Moms do better at this than others, as the growing obesity epidemic demonstrates. There are a surprising number of working Moms out there who don’t cook, and families that somehow manage to survive on pizza and hamburgers.

I was a singularly lousy cook back when I got married. Knew how to make exactly one thing – Campbell’s Bean with Bacon soup (add a pat of butter and a dollop of ketchup to the pot, eat it when it’s hot). I’ll never forget our first breakfast – I did so want to impress him! But I fried that bacon and fried that bacon until it shrunk to nothing and turned char-black, but it just never would get stiff! Brave and loving soul that he is, my hubby ate it anyway and even pretended to like it.

But pretty much all I heard while learning how to make Kraft Mac and Cheese, Tuna and Hamburger Helper and rice (reading the instructions on the box really helps!), all I ever heard from my husband and his mother was how great her steak fingers and French Fries were. Worse, I was fond of all sorts of vegetables, even Brussels Sprouts, and hubby wouldn’t touch anything green. My Mom was an excellent cook, always served meals with at least 3 or 4 vegetable choices, a bread (often her wonderful sweet cornbread), a salad and some meat. Only when she was mad at us did we end up with liver and onions, but I swear she could even make that taste good!

I did finally learn to cook. Even bought some cookbooks, and Mom gave me some of hers. When the kids got old enough to eat solid food, I decided it was the perfect time to introduce them to vegetables. Told hubby that if he got hungry enough he’d learn to like ‘em too. Surprisingly (to my Mother-in-Law), it worked! Before the kids started school we’d gone vegetarian – ovo-lacto, but no more meat main dishes. And managed to be both healthy and not obese anyway!

Of course, the teachers and administrator at the school my children went to didn’t think anything of informing them that we were trying to kill them – “everybody knows” you can’t live unless you eat processed meat 3 or 4 times a day! I actually purchased a great book on vegetarianism and nutrition, donated it to the school library after informing the teachers and principal that they should read it first – before saying another word to other people’s children about family food choices.

When the kids were teenagers they never seemed to be around for family dinners like they used to be, so I stopped cooking pretty much. Hubby or I would just open a can, throw something together quick, and eat it. I don’t know where the teenagers were eating, but since they weren’t dying I figured they must be eating something somewhere. Then I got grandchildren, and it’s been a regular cook-fest ever since. We sometimes have a house full of them (plus parents), and their favorite thing is the food – either eaten right there in the garden or made into some scrumptous dish.

All of them swear I’m the best cook on the planet, having figured out the best way to ensure Granny gives them extra helpings and lets them eat dessert first. The grandson who lives with us managed to get all the way to 6′3″ and about 155 pounds without ever having eaten meat as a regular part of his diet from the time he was born. He loves everything I make, never tires of telling me how much he loves my… sourdough bread, deep dish New York style pizza, clean-out-the-fridge veggie minestrone soup, black bean veggie burgers, grilled veggie kabobs, etc., etc., etc.

Daughter’s not much of a cook. She can heat up a can of beans , can read the instructions on a package of cake mix or pasta or red beans and rice, and can make some killer nachos. But basic cooking wisdom seems beyond her. How much salt per quart for a big pot of beans or soup, how to substitute what you’ve got for what the recipe calls for, how to add just the right herbs for just the right aroma and flavor are not things she’s ever paid much attention to. Probably because I do most of the real cooking. I know how that works, since I never learned to cook for as long as my Mom was doing it!

It seems like the older i get the more I enjoy trying new things. Plus, with hubby, daughter and grandson all here to give me kudos for the meal, it is a fine ego stroke.

At any rate, my newest granddaughter is due the first week of March. So while I’m working on the baby quilt and other goodies for the big day and its aftermath, I’ve also started collecting cookbooks to give my daughter. She is actually not a bad cook, at least for reading directions and being creative with ingredients. I do wish she liked vegetables more, or at least got more variety. So that’s what I’m going for, along with promises of exotics when she visits here with the baby. Baba Ganoush (eggplant) and pita with a side of serious tabouli and home made lemon and garlic hummus, creamed leek stuffed puffballs (or portobellos), fried kale and sage chips, lentils with olive oil and multi-colored peppers, boiled green peanuts on rice with piñon and saffron sauce, etc.

I don’t know about her husband, but my daughter eats meat very seldom and would like nothing better than to go vegetarian with her daughter. As I told my hubby all those many years ago, if he gets hungry enough, he’ll learn to like vegetables!

Links:

Gourmet Vegetables: Smart Tips and Tasty Picks

The Gutsy Gourmet: Vegetables

Organic Cooking Products

Moms spend much more money that Dads do. More than 2 trillion (with a ‘T’) dollars a year! That’s a darned lucrative market, so it’s one with a hefty amount of psychologizing put into it by Madison Avenue when they’re designing ad campaigns.

Now, there are people out there who will insist that the target audience for all this marketing is children, and many psychologists insist that advertising targeting children is unethical. Not that ethics counts for very much when there’s trillions of dollars on the table, of course. Deal is, children don’t work for a living, thus have little money to spend on all those expensive, questionably useful consumer items they’re being sold. The person who is REALLY being targeted is Mom. The marketers are just adding to the marketing appeal by enlisting children to do their work for them!

Moms generally don’t watch as much television as their kids do. According to New Dream: Facts About Marketing, the average American child watches about 40,000 television commercials a year, which translates to more than 100 a day. This translates directly into what savvy marketers call “The Nag Factor” – getting kids to nag their Moms into buying something they want (but probably don’t need). Here are some facts about that “Nag Factor” to keep in mind…

• American teenagers will ask Mom to buy them something an average of 9 times before she finally gives in.
• More than 10% of 12-13 year olds admitted to asking more than 50 times for a product.
• More than half of children say getting Mom to buy a product they want makes them “feel better about themselves.”
• Nearly a third of children admitted that peer pressure plays a big role in what products they desire.
• The nag strategy pays off for both kids and marketers – 55% of kids say they’re usually successful in getting Mom to buy.

And don’t think that very young children are immune. Recent studies show that by the time a child is 36 months old – that’s 3 years old – they recognize an average of 100 brand logos. Some kids get money from their parents instead of goodies, and spend a collective total of $24 billion of it themselves on products they want. It’s their influence on how parents spend that the marketers are mostly after, since that figure dwarfs allowance big time.

So. How do advertisers do it? Here are the Top Ten Media Marketing Strategies for getting Mom to buy a child what s/he doesn’t need:

1. Play the “Cool” angle. If you can convince a kid that she or he will automatically become leader of the in-crowd if Mom buys the product, the kid will do all the hard-sell work.

2. Introduce kids to products at school. If a product marketer can get an ‘educational’ website approved by grade school teachers instructing classes in computer tech, internet resources and keyboarding, the kids will insist Moms purchase the products on a regular basis at home.

3. Create a children’s television program based on your products. Air it on PBS or other ‘kid-friendly’ channels in the afternoon or early evening, or on Saturdays. This ensures kids will nag for products associated with the program – toys, food, games, videos, clothing – you name it, they’ll make sure it gets bought.

4. Product placement is important. In the cereal aisle at the grocery, make sure the junk cereals are on the lower shelves. Put the candy and bubble gum within easy reach of short folks. Place the junk toys and candy below the tabloid rags at the checkout stands, Mom will be distracted. If a kid can reach it, Mom isn’t likely to get violent in public trying to pry it out of their screaming kids’ hands.

5. Make sure kids know that chemical dyed sugar water will make them fit and strong – and most of all, sexy. Then the kids will make Mom buy.

6. Don’t be fooled by movie ratings. Kids get into PG-13 and R rated movies all the time. Use those marketing trailers to sell, sell, sell!

7. Sex sells. Especially to 10-year old girls.

8. Use pointless approval slogans. “Mom Approved” or “Mom’s #1 Choice” are good whines to get children to demand bubble gum toothpaste, nutrient-sapping cereals, sugar drinks, candy disguised as fruit, and any sort of junk food.

9. Associate your brand with a cartoon character, clown or pre-teen idol. If the kids’ latest heartthrob wears X shoes exclusively, or dresses like a whore, the kids will demand those shoes and that brand of ‘junior petite’ hooker gear. If Ronald McDonald does a school magic show, the kids will want Happy Meals exclusively for at least three months.

10. Play the abuse card. Make kids believe that they’re being abused if Mom doesn’t buy them what they want right now, they will get that message across in no uncertain terms to Mom.

Urban legends – often spread on kids’ internet chat sites and through their cell messaging cliques – are very helpful for that last one. If a kid can inform Mom with a straight face that some kid in Peoria (or Bangor, or Seattle) committed suicide because they were being harassed for not having this jacket or those shoes or knowing all the words to that rap music song, Mom will feel guilty and concerned that her reticence to buy will drive the young’uns to suicide.

Interestingly enough, I have been unable to find any statistics on how many Moms go crazy, commit suicide or end up in jail for NOT buying things their media overstimulated children demanded. There probably aren’t any such statistics, but it’s a darned good thing (if you are a marketer who knows how to make children do your work for you) kids aren’t nearly as media savvy as Moms are!

Links:

Kids and Commercialism

APA Report: Selling to Kids

We are coming for your children

Online Marketiing to Kids: Strategies and Techniques

Kids for Sale: Television versus the Internet