Sunday, June 30, 2013

There's no such thing as a free lunch

We are so blessed to be spending our 3rd summer as part of the Governor’s Scholars Program.  There are so many benefits to being involved in this community, not the least of which is not having to cook for weeks!!

At lunch and supper every day, we choose between two fast food chains, an asian station, a pizza station, a grill (hamburger/hotdog), a hot line with rotating entrees, a sandwich station, and a salad station.  While Steve and I are attempting to eat as healthy as our will power allows, we’ve had a little more trouble convincing Katie to eat a variety of foods.  Bless her heart, she is drawn to the apple & orange case every time we go to the cafeteria. So at least there’s that and a few random fruits and vegetables she’ll eat from the salad bar.

In college, one of my professors shared the economic idea that there is “no such thing as a free lunch.” At the risk of sounding completely ungrateful, I’d have to say the same applies for our family this summer.  No I don’t have to cook, or clean up the dishes, or plan the menu, or even pay for the food!  BUT, I miss cooking, and planning the menu, and purchasing the types of foods I want to eat. (notice that I still don’t miss washing dishes. J ).  So the “cost” of our luxury is not measured in dollars and cents per se.  It’s the compromising of many of our views on food.

I definitely do NOT want to come across as a food snob whatsoever.  However, Steve and I have been making changes through the years, and even moreso in the past few months, to eat what some online foodies classify as “real food.”  The definition of “real food” can mean different things to different people.  For us, it means eating foods with the least amount of ingredients (especially those we can’t pronounce), and as close to how God intended.  We often buy certified organic products because we feel that the price difference is justified by reduced health bills now and in the future.  And frankly, most organic foods taste better!

It saddens me how much American society has normalized unhealthy food choices.  Yesterday I overheard some women at a museum talking about how you shouldn’t eat bananas if you want to lose weight because bananas do not contain as much water as other fruits.  To be fair, I didn’t eaves drop on the rest of the conversation, but I couldn’t help but wonder, what do they feel is an acceptable substitute?  We are bombarded with images of low calorie, low fat, low whatever else products that contain ingredient lists longer than the Los Angeles phone book!  And we’re exposed to these ideas at such a young age, that it’s definitely an uphill battle to unlearn these habits.  From experience I can say that your body craves whatever you eat.  When I ate overprocessed foods, I craved and overindulged in overprocessed foods.  When I ate “diet” foods, I craved and overindulged in diet foods.  Now that I’m attempting to eat more whole foods, I truly do crave fresh foods.  In my opinion you cannot overindulge in fruits and vegetables when they are prepared in a healthy way.

I’m also saddened by how hard it can be at times to raise a family on real food.  At least twice in the past few weeks, complete strangers have offered Katie ice cream and cookies when she was upset about something.  Thankfully the offers have been made directly to Steve and I, and by some miracle of God, Katie either didn’t hear or decided not to protest our gracious decline.  We want our girls to have a healthy view of all food.  Ice cream, cookies, fast food, etc. can be tasty and perfectly fine to partake in on occasion (ideally less than once a week in my book).  We don’t want them to have any sort of eating disorders because we were so strict on food that they either feel ashamed to join in celebrations or go off the deep end when they are old enough to buy their own foods.  We want them to have control over their own bodies and decide which foods make their bodies feel the best.  But I am so done with the belief that we should let “kids be kids” and let them eat all kinds of junk. 

This is by no means a knock on the amazing service we are receiving in the cafeteria.  I feel that many of my complaints are merely a small example of the huge problem we have in this country with nutrition.  I could probably ramble on about this subject for days.  In fact, many people do as there are entire blogs dedicated to this topic.  And I don’t really have the energy to turn this into an activism post.  I just hope we can stay focused on our family’s goals while at home or away. 

One of my favorite blogs on real food that includes an extensive recipe index.  I also follow her on Pinterest and Facebook:  http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

Our breakfast every morning is a variation of Dr. Sears’ smoothie recipe.  Gives us so much energy and is such a tasty way to start the day: http://www.drsearslean.com/resources/recipes/#breakfasts

~Carla

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Dumping the Disposables (diapers, that is)

Carla and I have both cloth diapered out children. In fact, Carla has probably CD my child more than I have ;). While we both love the environmental and financial aspects of it, there are times when I am so thankful to have a disposable on hand.  More on that later.
4 months old with Carla "lala"
Pocket diaper with insert at his 1st birthday! See how cute!

We have both used pocket diapers. These have an outer shell with a pocket, and an insert (typically made of microfiber) that fits into the pocket. Carla has also used pre-folds with a cover.  We've used a variety of brands, and in my opinion, they are all similarly made.

I have certainly had a love/hate relationship with cloth diapering.  We didn't start until L was about 3-4 months or about 10 pounds.  I knew I wanted to cloth diaper and a friend of mine helped me start the journey by selling me her used diapers.  Stop.  I know what you're thinking, USED diapers?!  Really though--it's no big deal (mine are washed on hot and rinsed a gazillion times-more on that in a minute).  So I bought Fuzzibunz pocket diapers from her for $5 each.  This was incredibly cheap.  New pockets are at least $20 each.

CD is simple when/if your baby is exclusively breast fed (EBF).  EBF babies' poo is water soluble so you just throw them into the washing machine.  I did a load of diapers every 2 days or so.  With a 4 month old, you change a LOT of diapers, so I did supplement with disposable at times.

Here is my typical wash routine:
I use Rockin Green soap, but am in the process of switching to Carla's recipe which you can find here: Laundry Day the Natural Way 

I first remove all inserts from the outer shells of the diapers, and throw them all into the washer (I have a front loader HE), along with the washable trash can liner I use.  I run a cold water rinse first.  Then, run a hot wash with detergent, then 2 more cold rinse cycles.  And voila=clean diapers!  I dry the diapers on this fabulous drying rack at Ikea per Carla's advice.

At first, I was worried about staining, but Carla came through again with advice to put the drying rack outside and leave the sun to the stain fighting!  Amazingly, the sun does have the power to bleach my white inserts white again!

When L started solids, I had a hard time CD.  So, there for a period we did use mostly disposables.  Also, he went through a weird phase where they didn't fit him that great.  Poor Carla, who was watching him during the day for me, was having to constantly change his clothes due to leaks.  For the poo, I researched and found that many people use a diaper sprayer that hooks onto the toilet.  I read both positive and negative reviews, but ultimately decided that I didn't want to spend $50 on something that I wouldn't be satisfied with.  Enter the economical but vomit inducing metal spatula.  This little dear was used to scrape L's breast milk/sticky solid (mostly bananas and avocado then) poo into the toilet.  And, it wasn't pretty.  I just couldn't handle gagging every time I changed a poo diaper and I knew that if we continued down this road, mama was quittin' the cloth.   So, I found flushable liners and they changed my life!  :)

Source: Amazon

Now, I simply pick up the liner and throw it into the toilet!  Much better.  We are back to CD almost full-time now, due to the fact that  L no longer leaks and my husband (aka babysitter during the summer since he's a teacher) is a hardcore CDer.  I love that it doesn't bother him at all!

During the school year, L is at a sitter's house 4 days/week, so we do use disposables during the day.  We have always used disposables at night too.  The few times we've tried cloth at night (even recently) he leaked.  We also use disposables when traveling for convenience.  


Since several of my friends have inquired about CD, here are several factors I would use to convince you to cloth diaper (ahem, Jamie/Carrie/Macyn/Jennifer...)


  • Cost- I have maybe bought 3-4 boxes of diapers and my son will be 15 months in a few weeks.  There is a statistic that people spend $2500 on disposable diapers until a child is potty-trained.  At least when you buy cloth- you can also use them for your next child, and so on.  


  • One-size- with snaps and elastic on the FuzziBinz they truly are tailor made to fit your baby. I have a skinny mini and although we occasionally had leaks, I can tighten the elastic around the legs.  I love knowing that I can use the same diapers from newborn until L is potty-trained. 


  • Washing- it's not that bad. See above. 
  • There are many cute colors and patterns to choose from!  
    Rockin the argyle print!  And no, I can't figure out how to flip it!


So if you're having a baby, if you've had a baby, or even if you have a diapered toddler- consider cloth diapers.  

And---check out my friend's informative post on specifics: All You Ever Wanted to Know (and more) About Cloth Diapers


~Trina