Snack Revolution
- Julie Murphy
- Aug 28, 2015
- 5 min read
I was so excited for my daughter to start Pre-K. Until I saw the snack schedule.
Ritz crackers, Nilla wafers, Cheeze-itz, Saltines, Graham crackers, Wheat Thins, Goldfish, pretzels, apple juice. Processed foods with no nutritional value, full of chemicals, preservatives and GMOs. It turned my stomach to think of her eating this EVERY DAY, what it would amount to over the course of a year. I knew I had to do something.
Full disclosure here: I am far from perfect when it comes to my own diet. Cupcakes, cheesecake, ice cream and chocolate are my close, personal friends. I once ate nothing but chocolate for an entire day (I was in Belgium, on a mission to sample every variety they had to offer.)
But now that I'm a parent, I enjoy these indulgences in moderation, and mostly in secret in order to set a good example... because when it comes to my kids, I have much higher standards. It’s my JOB to make sure that they are NOURISHED, that they have what they need to THRIVE, and it is not a job I take lightly. Plus, I worked too damn hard to bring them into this world to let their bodies get destroyed by junk food!
So when I saw the snack schedule, I started composing some e-mails. And I began doing a little research to back up my gut instinct. Soon I discovered it was even worse than I initially thought. These foods are bad in ways I hadn’t even imagined.
I sent an email to the director of the program with some links I had found. She was very understanding, but said she had to talk to her supervisor. In the meantime, I emailed all the parents and started getting several of them on board. The director got back to me saying they were willing to add one heathy snack per week. I didn’t think that was enough, so I got the phone number and email address of her supervisor and sent him the following email:
Hi ___! How are you? My daughter is currently in the _______ program at ______, and I wanted to talk to you about the snack schedule.
I'm very concerned that the snacks currently being offered are processed foods with no nutritional value and are damaging to children's health. Processed foods are full of GMOs, harmful chemicals and artificial ingredients. They have been engineered to be so incredibly “rewarding” to the brain, that they overpower anything we might have come across in nature, thus making children get easily addicted to them, craving them at the expense of anything natural and nutritious. Here is some more information:
Juice is often thought of as a health food, but it is actually not. Recent research has shown that while eating fruit decreases the risk of diabetes, drinking juice INCREASES it. This is likely due to the effect of spiking and crashing blood sugar. Juice has as much sugar as soda, and is the blood-sugar equivalent. Also, the amount of vitamins you get in a glass of juice is negligible. See here:
Also, there is the issue of glyphosate, the main ingredient in the pesticide Round up. Round up is the most widely used pesticide in the US (though banned in many other countries) and concentrated heavily in GMO foods (soy, corn, canola oil and sugar are among the most common GMO foods). Non-Organic wheat is processed using glyphosate, so wheat contains a lot of it as well. Glyphosate has been classified as "probably carcinogenic" and kills beneficial microflora in the gut, making us more susceptible to disease:
I've spoken to some of the other parents and many of them seem to be on board with making a switch over to healthier snacks. I understand that making a change like this is not easy, and I'm happy to help in any way I can. Please call me at your earliest convenience so we can discuss.
Thanks,
Julie Murphy
This was late afternoon on a Friday. I waited patiently through Monday and Tuesday, then followed up with a phone call on Wednesday, leaving a voicemail. When I didn’t hear back, I began to get discouraged. I asked the parents to send more emails and make phone calls if they could. I began composing another, angrier email, that I really didn't want to send. I decided to save it as a draft and give him one more day.
Well, hallelujah! He called me the next day, full of enthusiasm. “I just wanted to let you know that we had a board meeting about it and we totally agree. We need to be making better choices for these kids. I already have someone out shopping for carrot sticks.”
Victory!!!
He went on to tell me that it was something they had been talking about for years, but it was just easier to stick with the old way of doing things. They needed that extra nudge from the parents in order to get moving. He sounded truly excited to make these changes and asked me to get the parents to brainstorm a list of options that we would be happy with.
Here’s what we’ve come up with so far: sugar snaps, oranges, raisins, string cheese, plain yogurt, nuts (as long as none of the kids have allergies), edamame, hummus, carrots, cherry tomatoes, grapes, clementines, cucumber slices, kale chips, apples, pears, celery sticks, avocado, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, figs, Mary’s Gone Crackers, Lundberg Organic Rice cakes, seaweed snacks, Go Raw sprouted cookies, Go Raw Flax Snack, coconut flakes, sunflower seed butter, Arrowhead Mills Sprouted Cornflakes, Barbara's Organic Honest O's, dried fruit with no added sugar or sulfur, organic unsweetened applesauce.
Now, some parents reading this might be worried that the kids won’t want to eat the healthier options. And that is definitely a possibility... but not a reason to give up. Remember, junk food is engineered to be rewarding to the brain. So if kids are addicted, they might actually go through withdrawals! But eventually, if you remove/limit access to the addictive stuff, they will get over it and learn to enjoy food in its natural state.
We need to advocate for our children… and for ALL children. We also need to take a stand as consumers. Right now, it is a huge pain in the butt to read every label and spend the extra time and money required to eat healthfully. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If we use the power of the dollar and refuse to buy junk, food companies will rise to the challenge and come up with better products... or risk going out of business. It's already happening. And as demand grows, these products will become less expensive, shopping will get a little bit easier.
And if you're not sufficiently freaked out over processed foods, I've posted a few more horrifying links below.
Let's stop eating this crap and eat real food instead! Who's with me?
And some inspiring news:
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