Thursday, July 11, 2013

Questions Anyone?

While our summer has been busier than normal, with our camp commitment, summer still tends to be a more relaxed time for us, which allows us to enjoy things we never seem to have time for during the school year, like playdates.

When I first started teaching, I scoffed at the term, playdate.  I thought it was ridiculous that parents actually scheduled time for their kids to get together to informally play.  Well, fast forward 8 years, and now that I'm a mom, I not only participate in playdates, but love them.  The key is in finding a good individual or group, and we lucked out on our first attempt 4 years ago.  Now, I could write a whole blog post on the origin of our playgroup, but suffice it to say that there are 3 of us mommies, with a combined 7 kids, who have been getting together more or less regularly since before the kids could even sit up on their own.  We used to meet once a week, until I messed it up by going back to work full-time.  Now, even though we can go months without seeing our friends, we try to get together whenever we have a break from school, and as soon as we do, we quickly fall back into an easy comfortable rhythm.

So anyway, today we were meeting back up with our "old" friends for a playdate, and we enjoyed the added bonus of 3 additional moms and their respective kids.  You would think a house full of rambunctious kids would hardly be relaxing, but it managed to work.  My kids and I came right from a morning at camp, which meant that we arrived starving and ready for lunch.  Since we have gotten into the habit these days, we came prepared with our own food, knowing that most of what was served would not meet our more stringent guidelines.  Now, I try to be practical when visiting people and bringing my own food, as I hate offending anyone.  So if we travel to a home of someone we don't know well, we usually bring one real-food friendly dish to share and then just make do as best we can.  Today, however, we had the luxury of visiting a good friend who is not easily offended, and so I knew she wouldn't mind if we packed our own items.  It did, however, lead to a whole slew of questions about the way we eat.

It's funny, but whenever people ask us questions about our food transition, they tend to apologize, as if they were offending us by asking.  Meanwhile, I am always thrilled to answer any questions, because I appreciate the genuine interest.  I know that not everyone will agree with our views, which is totally fine, but I always find the conversations interesting.  So anyway, in the midst of this start-and-stop real food conversation, someone stated, "You should write a whole blog post about that because I had no idea".  We are still so new into this lifestyle, that I am always hesitant to give out facts, because the more that I read about food, the more I realize that there is so much that I don't know.  When I step back and look at it, though, I realize that I know so much more than I did when we first started out just a few months ago.  And if sharing our "knowledge" can help someone else, I am totally game.

Which leads me to this - What questions do you have about our real food lifestyle?  Please comment and share your thoughts, and assuming that I have any information on the topic, I will try to turn it into a decent future blog post.  Remember, there are no stupid questions! (I shouldn't say this, because I am a teacher, but I do honestly think there can be stupid questions.  However, I have faith in you, my awesome readers (all 3 of you) and I am happy to answer anything you ask, even if it seems obvious, so please fire away.)

2 comments:

  1. LOL I love this. And our playgroup, of course! So I overheard you mention something about coconut/palm sugar or something? I love all things coconut, and know that I should be looking into some alternatives for my children's #1 food group, SUGAR SUGAR SUGAR, so maybe you could post about the different alternatives in your baking and/or ingredient labels, so we know what to look for, and avoid.

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  2. Great idea! You know that I still need to satisfy my sweet tooth with desserts, so this is definitely something we have addressed. Let me try to consolidate the info and I'll get working on a post.

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