Gross

Since dd was about 3 months old, she and I have been on a dairy-free diet. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to adjust to eating this way. I actually kind of liked it. Recently we have been given the green-light from her pediatrician to begin introducing dairy. Ever since then I have become so aware of how poorly we Americans tend to feed ourselves. For one thing, it was a real challenge to eat dairy-free in restaurants. Everything, and I mean everything! has cheese in it. I would order salads, and have to send them back because they had cheese sprinkled on top. And that was in addition to the croutons which were covered in a cheesey coating. So basically I would learn what one or two things I could order from each restaurant, and eat those every time we went to that place. No problem. A little boring, but no big deal. Finding things for my dd, who was eating more and more solids all the time but was picky, was far more challenging. I felt, after a while, that I was feeding her the same 3-4 foods all the time. Poor kid! At home we got creative, and it worked well. Since losing my pregnancy weight, I have maintained (and not by any attempt on my part) a weight that is significantly below my first pregnancy weight. In fact I steadily lost weight for a while, and then started to gradually gain again. I was eating well because I had gotten rid of all the milk fat in my diet, and I also wanted my dd to eat good, healthy, organic foods, so I bought and cooked better foods. Then as dd's food interests expanded, and we were told to be less strict about dairy, our diets began to change. I have become lazier as a cook, she is eating and enjoying more foods that are high in fats and sugars, and we're eating milk fats again. Part of me wants to slam on the brakes and get us back on the healthy track we've been following so well. Part of me wants to say "Relax!" and be less strict about our diets. After all, isn't it better that she have a little of the fast-food hamburger than nothing? The fact is, though, by becoming healthy, I've become aware of just how gross the American diet can be. Case in point, we recently decided to order some Omaha Steaks products. They sent us a promotional deal, where for a savings you can get a sampling of their products. Along with some nice looking steaks and fish came the biggest, fattest hotdogs I have ever seen. I literally feel sick looking at them. My dd likes hotdogs very much, and I thought, what the heck, we'll try one. So they're not the hormone-free, nitrite-free dogs we typically buy. We'll give them a shot. At 20 grams of fat per dog, what we're getting is a shot of artery-clogging, body-slowing, mind-numbing, gut-clogging filth. 20 grams of fat!!! And that is just one example of the gross things we (Americans) eat. I went out to dinner with a friend recently. We went to TGI Fridays, a place I don't frequent, but can find something at. They were proudly advertising their newest appetizer: fried macaroni and cheese balls!! The rest of the menu was barely better, and there was practically nothing for the dairy-free, health concious person. I don't know whether to shut my eyes and my mind and just eat all this crap, or become a health nazi and get back on track. Or something inbetween.