Fast Food

This picture has been spreading around Facebook and for most of you, it probably isn’t new.  Both the picture itself, and the fact that fast food isn’t good for you, are pretty well-known.  And yet, most of us, at least periodically, still go.  It’s quick, easy and relatively cheap.  That’s why pictures like this are so good to keep in front of us.  For those of you who have never seen the above before, it is a picture of various fast food products two years after they were purchased. There has been no spoilage or mold in that time. We need to keep reminding ourselves that that quick, easy, cheap food, is questionably really even “food”!  The amount of preservatives and additives you would need to keep the “food” pictured above from spoiling after two years is nauseating.  What are we putting in our bodies?  And what are the long-term effects?  No one denies the negative long-term health consequences to eating fast food.

But…

I can already hear half my friends starting in with the “buts”.  There is a convenience to fast-food that cannot be denied.  And for all those soccer moms (or baseball moms, or volleyball moms, or ballet moms, or whatever), there are some days when you leave in the morning and don’t get back home until well past dinner.  Fast food is a necessary evil to get through those days.

Really?

I am the first to acknowledge that the various tasks we moms are called to perform in a given day can be somewhat daunting.  In one day, we’re supposed to keep up with laundry needs, keep the house picked up and clean (or at least sanitary!), cook three meals a day, be the taxi driver, keep up with our personal quiet times and exercise, and for those of us homeschooling, add a day’s worth of school for multi-grades into the mix.  The question isn’t, “How on earth am I supposed to find time today to do all that?”  The question is, “How am I going to prioritize what I need to do today to get as much of it done as possible?”  Okay, but how does this relate to fast food? 

I think one of the problems is the priority we give the “cook three meals a day” task, to other tasks.  “We have to have fast food on volleyball nights because there is just isn’t time to make and eat dinner.”  (I’m cringing because I’m totally guilty of this one.)  The priority that statement implies is very clear:  volleyball before food/health.  Are we really going to put a sport/activity that our kids are going to participate in through high school, maybe even college, before the very thing that is going to impact the rest of their lives?  And the solution is so simple:  PLAN AHEAD.

All it would take is looking at your schedule every night to see what the food plan needs to be for the following day.  If you are going to be out a lot, plan to get up a half hour earlier than usual and make something to keep in the cooler.  30 minutes.  That’s it.  If you have younger kids that look forward to getting their usual Happy Meal, you are likely to get some complaints.  After all, everyone knows Happy Meals aren’t about the food, but about the toy.  The cheap, plastic toy that will break in a week or so or be left in the car, or stepped on when they leave it out in the middle of the living room, or tossed in the already way too full toy box never to be played with again.  (Yeah, I have no experience with this whatsoever.)  Here’s an idea:  go to the Dollar Store and buy $20 worth of cheap, plastic toys (or maybe even throw in some actually useful items like crayons, pencils, notepads, etc.) and keep them hidden.  Every time you pack an “on-the-go” meal, put theirs in a lunch bag (could even get colored so it’s different) and add one of the toys to their meal.  It might help in getting rid of the complaints.  You could call it an Ecstatic Meal, because it’s that much better than a Happy Meal.  Okay, maybe not….

The point is, with a little prep and perhaps getting up a tad earlier than usual on some days, eating healthy on the go IS doable.  Look at the above picture again. Now look at your kids.  Back at the picture, back at your kids. 

Make the Ecstatic Meal.