Families That Eat Together....

What time is dinner? Used to be my kids could count on a 6pm dinner hour every night. If they were home. Some days all five of us ate together, but most days we ate in shifts. Whoever was home at 6 ate then, and everyone else warmed something up later. But then this year I messed everything up. At least for my daughter who prefers that we eat between 5 and 7 (when her computer is shut down by the computer gods). These days dinner might be at 5:30 and it might be at 7:30, it’s even ended up being 8pm (“think of it as European…”).

What’s brought this change? Possibly my middle-age panic that I’m missing out on what’s left of my kids’ time at my table. And possibly the fact that there are too many people going in too many directions every afternoon and it’s become difficult to figure out what I can cook in 15 minutes between car pools that will still be good 90 minutes later. 

Now we eat together. Except for Thursdays. Thursdays are “Fend for yourself nights”. That evening was just too complicated to find a common dinner hour. Mondays mean band rehearsals and drum lessons, so we eat at 7:30pm. On Tuesdays we eat early at 5:20 before soccer and bass lessons. Wednesdays is an after-practice meal at 7:15. Fridays we have to follow practice with Pizza Night at 8 (cocktails at 6:30). Saturday and Sunday nights are the only days we come close to our habitual 6pm feeding. The kids are adapting. And amazingly, it’s working. 

And now a recent study has revealed what I must have instinctively known all along. Family meals make your family healthier. Rutgers University recently evaluated nearly 70 studies to gather information about the benefits of families eating together at home. The studies revealed that families who eat together have a healthier diet and consume less junk food. Plus teens who eat at home with their families show fewer signs of depression. And all family members are more likely to have a healthy weight.  

40% of the typical American food budget is spent on eating out which makes me wonder how many of us are eating together as a family around our dinner table. This is a no-brainer. You can save money, be healthier, and help your kids by cooking and eating at home. Okay, I hear you now. But how do we get a healthy meal on the table when we’re busy with work, volunteer commitments, and shuttling kids to and from all of their activities?  

No, I don’t have an easy answer. But I have a few helpful suggestions.

1. Create a family meal book. Ours is a looseleaf binder with menus and recipes that most everyone likes. Half the time (at least for me) it’s the challenge of thinking of something to eat that slows me down. Two of my kids prepare a meal each week, so they consult this book when they do their meal planning. I regularly add new recipes I discover in my travels to prevent it from getting too boring.
2. Keep staples in stock. Our freezer will always have ground beef, homemade broth, fish, veggies, fruits, meatballs, and chicken tenders in it. These are the ingredients that the kids need to make meals. You will also find fish sticks, French fries, hot dogs, and flour tortillas for nights when dinner has to be quick and easy. Our pantry is always stocked with pasta sauce, olive oil, good vinegar, applesauce, soup, crackers, beans, ketchup, pasta of every shape and size, rice, potatoes, garlic, and onions. Because I know these things are there, I can cook confidently and the kids have what they need when it’s their turn to cook. Your pantry would probably look different – take your cue from your recipe binder.
3. Keep a good shopping list posted where everyone can add to it. Ours is on the side of the fridge. The system is – if you open the last one, add it to the list. That goes for anything – can of beans, bottle of ketchup, jar of jelly, clove of garlic, paper towel roll. This system makes my life easier. I don’t have to try to remember everything we need. The only time it fails is when I forget the list when I go to the store.
4. Keep meals simple. You don’t have to have a fancy meal for it to be healthy. For us it’s typically – some kind of protein, one carbohydrate, and two veggies or fruit. Done. I can get a healthy meal on the table in five minutes or two hours, depending on my day’s options. Cheese & bean burritos, corn, and applesauce is a five minute meal.
5. Utilize your crockpot. Everyone’s got one. At least everyone who ever gets married. I got three for my wedding. Nothing reduces stress like knowing dinner is ready to go the moment you walk in the door. A few of my favorite crock pot meals (e-mail me for recipes or check the recipe link on the blog) – Beef Stew, Meatloaf, and Lasagna. I can get all of these ready in the morning and come home to dinner ready to go. The internet is bustin’ with crockpot recipes, blogs, even websites so get your pot on!
6. Get everyone involved in making the meal happen. Every day my kids have either “set, clear, or dish”. This makes getting a meal on the table much more feasible. It also underlines their investment in our meal. We have a chalkboard mounted on the wall near the table which lists who has which job. I recreate the board each week based on who will be home to set the table and whose schedule would make dishes a better option.
7. Make eating together a priority. My kids fussed when I initiated this new practice. I ignored them. If they were hungry and dinner wasn’t for two hours, I pointed them towards the baby carrots and dip or I opened a jar of applesauce. I did not cave. It only took a few weeks for them to get the message. Remember – You’re the adult here. You get to make the rules.
8. I’m sure this is implied, but when you gather for a family meal, turn off the TV and leave the electronic habits elsewhere. Focus on being together.
9. One last idea here – once you’ve got them all sitting round the table, encourage the conversation. I have a friend that asks her kids to tell them one good and one bad thing that happened that day. My kids like to ask if anyone has new jokes (there seems to be an endless supply if you attend a middle or high school). I like to ask them one thing they learned today. At first it garnered sarcastic comments like, “the corn dogs in the cafeteria are gross”, but now I get much better answers. If necessary make a few rules like “No talking about minecraft at the table” (they would have conversations that lasted the entire meal and my husband and I had no idea what they were talking about.)

Like any change, it takes awhile to make this happen. But it’s worth it. Don’t take my word for it, take Rutgers’. Here are a few comments from the newsletter highlighting their findings: 

A study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University showed that teens who take part in regular family meals are less likely to smoke, drink alcohol, or use marijuana and other drugs. 

Studies have also shown that children and teenagers tend to have better grades when their families have dinners together at least five times a week. The Columbia University study showed that frequent family dinners were associated with better school performance, with teens 40 percent more likely to get As and Bs. 

Kathleen Morgan, chair of Rutgers Family and Community Health Sciences, states that having healthful meals during the transition from early to middle adolescence impacts the development of healthy eating behaviors for youths. Morgan claims that the period from 12 years to the late teens is "one of the most dynamic development periods in a person's lifetime, and habits established in this time frame are more likely to last." 

Miriam Weinstein, author of The Surprising Power of Family Meals, reflects that "family supper is important because it gives children reliable access to their parents. It provides anchoring for everyone's day. It emphasizes the importance of the family." 

I think that last comment is the one that most resonates with me personally. Our family meal anchors our day. All five of us are going in many directions all day long. We’re encountering people, teachings, and media that offer conflicting messages about life, values, and the choices we make. It’s good to come together near the end of each day so that we can process what we’ve heard, seen, and experienced with people who love us and support us no matter what. After being disconnected all day, it’s a few precious minutes to reconnect.

The Battle for Your Health

There’s a war going on in your house. Well, at least within your body. Your immune system is much like the armed forces. Without it, your body could be invaded on a regular basis and taken over or even destroyed by enemy invaders.

I’ve learned more than I want to know about immune systems thanks to the unwelcomed invasion of Alopecia Areata in my youngest son’s body. Since that time, I’ve been building up the defense systems of everyone in the house. The result? We’re still hosting Alopecia, but beyond that we rarely get sick. I have an opportunity to reflect on this each fall when we go to our “well” check ups and the doctor comments on how he/she hasn’t seen this child since the last “well” visit. 

Just recently I watched as an enemy invader germ tried to take down each of my kids in succession. Happily, it failed. Each child complained briefly of a slightly sore throat and general tiredness which lasted a day or so. I loaded them up with vitamin C and gave Tylenol to the biggest complainers, even allowing one of them to spend a day at home “resting” (actually watching nonstop TV and eating). Their immune systems were victorious. None of them ever sported a fever.

Their strong fortified systems fended off the worst of it and it’s a distant memory already. I remember the day when a passing virus would have leveled my children, spiking their fevers and requiring a desperate run to the pediatrician’s office where we would be told it just has to run its course. The “course” would include a few days of really sick, followed by a cold that would hang around for a week or longer. Their immune systems made short work of this latest virus.

 Beyond following an organic diet, here’s my advice for beefing up your and your child’s immune system: 

1. Eat real food. Fruits, veggies, whole grains. If you don’t recognize everything in the ingredients list – don’t eat it or feed it to your kids. Avoid excessive sugar. Cut out the food dyes and artificial sweeteners. Give your body the right ingredients to defend itself. When you load it up with artificial ingredients, it is weakened simply by the effort of trying to process things not meant to be eaten by people. That weakened state leaves it vulnerable, while whole food fortifies it with plenty of good nutrition.
2. Drink lots (and lots and lots) of water. Offer water with every meal. Encourage water drinking all day long. I try to drink a glass when I get up and one before each meal. Water helps keep your system running smoothly, flushing out toxins and giving you energy. Dehydrated people (most people are) are tired and not equipped to fight off enemy germs.
3. Get enough sleep. This is the hardest one for our family. My kids are teenagers (or almost) and their bodies are adopting nocturnal leanings that make it hard for them to go to sleep early. Sadly, the school district doesn’t seem to be concerned with these teenage tendencies and requires them to be on a school bus by 7am. I don’t have any answers for this one. I’ve been trying to let the natural consequences of gong to bed at midnight and being forced out of bed by a parental unit at 6am do the teaching, but it is a slow process. One child (the girl child of course!) has begun to figure this out.
4. Exercise! I swear by this. I know for a fact that a good run can knock out the first wave of a cold or virus much quicker than any medicine I can take. Get your kids moving somehow, some way. If they aren’t in sports, find another way. I used to let my youngest trade 30 minutes on the treadmill for 30 minutes of TV time. I know it’s bribery, but hopefully it’s also a lesson. Model exercise and invite your kids to join you.
5. Find some alone time. Stress has a big impact on your immune system. Stressed out people get sick. Find ways to counter that in your kids by making sure they get time to do their own thing. They don’t need constant stimulation. One of my kids makes music, another takes walks and writes, and the third spends solitary time with his legos. I know that when they aren’t getting these opportunities their stress level goes up. Try to create spaces in your kids days for quiet time. Sometimes this requires a little manipulation. My kids computers automatically shut down for several hours each day, effectively forcing them to find something else to do. Nine times out of ten it leads to quality down time. 

These days you can’t walk down the grocery aisle without being blasted by products claiming to boost your immune system. I’m here to tell you that there is no processed food or multi-vitamin that can even compete with the five things listed above. In fact, I’d wager to guess that most “immune boosting” products cancel themselves out by containing artificial ingredients, preservatives, and dyes. 

If you’re a vitamin taker, consider adding Vitamin D to the line up. Research continues to reveal that most of us are deficient in it, especially in the darker months. 

As winter approaches, take the time to access and reinforce your kids’ defense systems. Who knows what’s coming down the pike this year in terms of colds and flus. Be prepared.

One a Day

It has been said that the United States has some of the most expensive urine in the world. Huh? I know, not really appropriate topic for the dinner table. But since we’re not eating, I felt it might get your attention.


In the US, we spend about 23 billion dollars a year on vitamins (rough estimate from several internet sources, it might not be exact, but basically we spend A LOT of money on vitamins). Vitamins are a bit of a catchall for health. We take them “just in case”, kind of like insurance. This money we’re spending might never help us, but then again, it just might. How could we ever know? Truly, the doctor never says, “wow, your bones look great. It must be because you’ve been taking calcium for the last 20 years!”

Vitamins seem like a safe bet. Your body soaks up what you need and eliminates the rest. That strikes me as just a bit wasteful. So I vacillate between taking my vitamins and not taking them. My kids are a different story. Because we eat very little processed food, they miss out on all the “fortified” this and that, so on my worst days I get pretty paranoid and find myself surfing drugstore.com searching for a better vitamin. Until I think about all the veggies and fruit I cram in to their diets, and then I chill out again. But then I read the news and start to worry….my mind pings back and forth on this one.

According to the Mayo Clinic, and a few other sites, clearly I am not alone. No one seems to know for sure. Most say that kids probably get all they need from their diets and the fortified foods available in today’s supermarket. But then they cover their buts by saying a multi vitamin is probably a good idea. An awful lot of “probably” in that prescription. It comes down to this - basically they can’t hurt as long as you select a vitamin with no more than 100% of the RDA and you follow the label instructions.

As a mother I know there is plenty of guilt coming my way down the road when my spawn become parents themselves and realize just how many ways I messed them up. So vitamins seem like a safe gamble and at least I can’t be held accountable if they realize down the road that the diet I served them was missing some crucial vitamin or mineral. What? I gave you a multi-vitamin for that!

There are two supplemental vitamins I give to my kids. I’ve read enough to be convinced that these two are missing from pretty much everyone’s diet, at least in sufficient amounts. The first is Vitamin D. Research comes out almost daily on the need for more Vitamin D. I give it to my kids and take it myself, and occasionally sneak it in to my husband’s coffee.

Omega-3’s are the other vitamin I’m prepared to take a stand on. Most of us don’t get enough unless we eat fatty fish, flaxseed, and nuts daily. I’ve started leaving nuts out on the counter and on the premium shelving in the fridge, in the hopes that my kids will nibble on more nuts – brazil nuts, cashews, walnuts, almonds, pistachios. They’re all stuffed with good nutrients that can protect our health. Omega 3’s are not only good for your heart, their brain food and I’m all about feeding those young minds.

Enough about what I think, what do the experts say? The American Academy of Pediatrics says that children do not need a multi-vitamin when there have been no signs of vitamin deficiency. Still, they haven’t examined my child. How could they know? I’ll give them their point about all the fortified foods these days, but my kids aren’t eating much packaged foods. Except Cheeze-its. Still haven’t managed to get them off cheezeits. I should check if cheeze-its are fortified, because that might save me a lot of money on vitamins. (Addie and I are going to test a “homemade cheezit” recipe this weekend – I’ll let you know how that goes)

What’s a mother to do? Well, this mother gives her children a multi-vitamin that has no artificial colors or sweeteners, a chewable Omega 3 supplement, and 400 IU of Vitamin D (but only during the colder months, October – April). I do believe the big guns, and our septic tank is most likely laced with vitamins, but I’m hedging my bets.

A note on choosing a vitamin. Look for a children’s vitamin that does not contain iron in the form of ferrous sulfate. Many kid’s vitamins are the “gummy” form and this can make them seem like candy. Kids can overdose on ferrous sulfate making them sick, even killing them. So while kids do need the iron (unless they’re big meat and bean eaters), look for carbonyl iron, to be safe.

Another thing to watch in children’s vitamins is the sweetener. Many vitamins, such as Flintstones and Centrum, have the warning PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE, which is a sure sign that they contain aspartame (nutrasweet). Artificial sweeteners and artificial colors kind of counter act the whole point of vitamins. Find a vitamin that doesn’t contain either. It’s a unique child (with a four-star parent) who willingly swallows tasteless vitamins. This makes sugar a necessary evil in children’s vitamins. Look for vitamins with 1 gram of sugar or less. Some have more than others – read the label.

When it comes to vitamins, like so much else about parenting, there’s no clear answer. You do the best you can, with what you know. That’s anyone can ask.

Fast Food Fight

I know this post is most likely point-less. But I’m going to say it anyway. Seeing as it is the season of fast food. And maybe I’m a hypocrite because I’ll confess right up front that during the two road trips we have planned for this summer, we will undoubtedly wind up eating at a fast food joint. And yet, I must carry on with this rant.


Please, please, please don’t eat fast food. I understand that when you have children in the car who are pulling your fingernails out one-by-one with their incessant whining while they wither away to nothing with bloated bellies and sunken eyes in the back seat, you have no choice but to pull in to the fastest food possible. You have no other option. But let’s be honest here, folks. Sometimes we choose fast food because it’s easy. It makes the kids happy. And heck, it tastes good.

But you know what else it does? It makes our country fat and unhealthy. It makes our kids develop tastes for foods that are over-salted, drenched in fat, and coated with sugar. It teaches them that eating fast food is an acceptable choice for their meal, rather than a last-ditch, there’s no-where-else-to-eat, it-might-make-us-sick, kind of option. My three kids will never eat at McDonalds without at least feeling bad about it. I’ve driven the knowledge in to them that when they eat fast-food they are eating food that is not so much food as animal by-products, lard-coated pesticide-enriched, GMO potatoes, and chemically created drug-filled sugar water.

It’s every mother’s duty to give their kids some baggage. And this is one of the carry-ons I’m loading on mine. I think it’s a good one. To be sure, you can occasionally find something nutritionally redeeming at a fast food restaurant. But my guess is your kids aren’t choosing the carrot sticks or fruit cup. And if they go for that baked potato, it’s sure to be smothered in artificially-colored cheese food products. A grilled chicken seems harmless until you ask about the chicken’s heritage and discover it was raised amongst millions of other chickens crammed in a dark, closed-in house with horrible ventilation and hopped up on antibiotics to keep it from dying from the bacterial infections that are common in such set-ups. Don’t be fooled by those lovely pictures of chickens sitting on a fence. Those chickens can’t even walk, let alone hop up on a fence because they’ve been bred to have grotesquely large breasts that prevent them from even moving. Egg to deep fryer in about 12 weeks time. If they live any longer, they’ll die from congestive heart failure because their bodies can’t support their breasts (no lie – I know someone personally who didn’t get his chickens butchered in time and this is how they died!).

If my ranting and raving isn’t enough to make you steer past those golden arches and smiling freckled-faces, consider these facts:

“With 250,000 quick-serve restaurants to choose from, Americans fork over more money on burgers, burritos, and bacon-topped sandwiches each year than what we spend on higher education, new cars, and computers combined.” (Hyman, Ultrametabolism, 60)

“The average weight of a ten-year-old boy in 1963 was 74 pounds; by 2002 the average weight was nearly 85 pounds. The average weight of a ten-year-old girl in 1963 was 77 pounds; by 2002 the average weight of a ten-year-old girl was 88 pounds.” (National Center for Health Statistics, October 2004.).

“One Big Mac is equivalent – in terms of grain produced and consumed – to five loaves of bread. But instead of feeding the hungry with grain, a lot of it is going to the waistline of people in wealthy countries – often to their detriment.” (Bittman, Food Matters 2009)

Heart disease is not only the number one killer of adults; frighteningly, it’s also the second leading cause of death for children under 15. http://champsforlife.org/whatishcm.html

A person would need to walk 9 miles (14.5km) to burn off the 923 calories found in Burger King’s Double Whopper with cheese.

So what’s an overloaded, stressed-out mom to do? Here are a few suggestions to get you through:

- If you’re in town, go home to eat. A peanut butter sandwich or a frozen pizza are healthier choices. Besides, they’re just as quick and cost less.

- If you’re traveling – pack food. Stuff a cooler with fruit that travels well like cherries, apples, bananas, and blueberries. Toss in several bags of baby carrots. Wheat crackers, raisins, craisins, apricots, nuts, and cheese sticks are easy too.

- When all else fails, remind yourself and your kids that HUNGER IS NOT AN EMERGENCY. There are very few people starving to death in the US. Your kids can go several hours (at least) between meals. Hunger will pass and many times it’s actually habit and/or boredom that drives us to demand food.

- If you must stop, look for a place that serves fresh food quickly, instead of processed food. Chipotle Grill is one of my favorite stops and it’s quicker than the average fast food. Stopping in a Mom&Pop type place can also be quick, if you tell the server you’re in a hurry and ask what can be prepared quickly.

- Find a restaurant with a good salad bar. Don’t forget that many of the newer supermarkets have salad bars. You can even get a pound of shrimp steamed quickly and enjoy a decadent treat instead of a mashed up hamburger that will make you feel ill hours later.

- If you know you’re going to have to stop and you can’t bring yourself to pack food. Remember you have other options beyond fast food. The internet gives you the power to find restaurants on your route that serve healthy fare. And in a pinch, an iphone or GPS usually can give you information on restaurants nearby.

Here’s my bottom line. Fast food won’t kill you, if you eat it once in awhile. (It will kill you if you eat it daily – see the movie Supersized if you don’t believe me!) What’s most important is teaching our children that this is not a healthy way to eat. When we swing through the drive-thru on a regular basis, we are training our kids for a lifetime of unhealthy eating. Every mom I know loves her kids too much to want that for them. I know fast food is easy. I know our children love it (they love candy and potato chips too). But this is one of those things we must do for our children (like driving the speed limit and being nice to rude people). This is the point when we need to stop saying it’s OK even if everyone else is doing it.
Besides the health issues raised by consuming fast food, I’d like to raise another point. When we eat “fast” we are not respecting the place food has in our life. It is our sustenance. When we choke down something in a wrapper while our children duck in and out of the playland between bites of ground up chicken-parts coated in bread and fat, we aren’t paying attention to the food we eat. When we sit down and face one another and eat good food together, it is a form of communion. We need to teach our children to taste their food, to appreciate where it came from, and who prepared it. We need to teach them the power they have in choosing what to put in their bodies and about the power food has to make our bodies healthy or unhealthy. Whatever decisions they make will be apparent at some point in their lives on the bathroom scale or the doctor’s table. Teach them to make healthy, empowering choices for their bodies and their lives.

We only get one shot at raising our children. This is our one and only chance to teach our children about eating healthy and being healthy for a lifetime. It’s more than a meal and much more than fast food.

Be My Valentine

I just finished making my Valentine’s cards! No, I’m not in 2nd grade. But do you remember what a thrill Valentine’s Day cards were in 2nd grade? I loved walking home with my brown paper bag decorated with doilies and stickers and stuffed to bursting with valentines from all my classmates. I couldn’t wait to lay them all out on the kitchen table. I’d study them while I sucked on a lollipop that came affixed to the card from the rich kid. These days my kids come home with their cards and tend to open the ones with candy first, which is most of them.


My daughter is the child who brings in the homemade Valentines Day cards. You know the one. Barely legible, with puffy stickers all over the front. You roll your eyes and think “overachiever”. And she is. But she makes those cards because she likes to and not because her mother makes her. My youngest son is happy to fold over the Harry Potter valentine and choose a sticker to close it with before scrawling his friend’s name on the card. Done. My oldest son never went in for valentines. I made them for him in kindergarten and I’m fairly certain he’s never given out a valentine since.

Here’s why I still make Valentines Day cards even now - I like to. I still get a thrill out of sparkles and glue and paper and pink. I know there’s therapy for that. Or maybe it is my therapy. The bigger reason that I make valentines is that it’s a chance to tell my kids how special they are. When I talk to relatives or friends I haven’t seen in awhile, it’s easy to tell them how amazing my kids are. But I don’t get enough opportunities to tell my kids themselves. And I know they need to hear it.

In a previous life, I had a job that involved working with teenagers and their families. I made a point of telling parents how amazing their kids where while their kids were standing right there. And if a teen asked me to write a recommendation, I always gave them a copy of what I wrote. I wanted them to hear why I thought they were so special. I don’t think kids hear it enough. They hear so many negative messages all day long from themselves and from their peers and maybe even from some adults. Countering those messages is important.

I worry that I don’t tell my own kids how special they are often enough. I guess it just feels awkward to come out in the middle of passing the broccoli with, “You’re such a kind person – that makes me so proud!” So I look for opportunities that present themselves. And Valentines Day does that.

You don’t have to make homemade cards. There’s plenty of them for sale at the store or maybe you even have leftovers in the basement from years gone by. I pulled out the leftover Transformers valentines for my hubby to give the kids. Bigger Valentines are good though. There’s more room for all the mushy stuff you want to say.

I hope you use this Valentines Day as an excuse to tell everyone around you how much you love them. We shouldn’t need an excuse, but it does provide perfect cover from skeptical kids. They can’t wonder why you’re saying this now. It’s Valentines Day after all! However you do it, be sure to find ways to tell your kids what you love about them. They need to hear it and we need to say it.

Eating Your Beliefs

My Groupie obligations led my kids and me to attend a church in Maryland this past weekend. After considerable WTB (Whining, Threats and Bribery), we cleaned ourselves up and headed down 83 to attend the service because dear friends were singing in the service, and I rarely pass up an opportunity to hear them sing. They sing as a family (think the Von Trappes with all grown up beautiful children). I can’t imagine my own children singing the same song, let alone standing so near each other. My kids were mildly impressed (although they were wildly impressed by the donuts – with sprinkles!). I thought they were great (the singers, not the donuts).

Anyway, during the children’s time, the church highlighted their children’s camp held the previous week. The theme was making choices about food that impact the world. I’m sure you can imagine my delight.

As committed as I am to sustainable living and organic food, I have never considered it from a spiritual perspective. The premise, I imagine, put forth during this camp was that our faith is reflected in the choices we make about the food we eat. How basic. We have an opportunity several times a day to enact our beliefs.

If we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all individuals, that should include the farmers who work hard to raise healthy food. We can choose to pay them a living wage for the food they produce. Sometimes that means paying a little more at the register or seeking out the farmers themselves so we can buy direct. It might mean supporting our farmers markets or requesting more local, sustainably grown food from the stores where we shop. It can mean reading labels about how a product was produced before we put it in our cart.

If we believe that we are responsible for the other living creatures that inhabit our planet, then we can choose to buy from farmers and manufacturers that treat their animals with respect and care. We can buy meat that has not been grown in feedlots. We can support legislators and legislation that restricts the increase of these operations and questions the conditions in which these animals are raised and our food is processed.

I am not a vegetarian. I believe our bodies were designed to eat meat. At the same time, I feel strongly that we owe our gratitude and best care to the animals raised to support us. Choosing to buy meat directly from farms where animals are raised on grass and treated with kindness helps me to live that belief.

We raise our chickens ourselves and give them the best possible life we can because they produce the eggs we eat. As much as I joke about them, they are important to our lives and we treat them as such. Next week, I am taking my kids to the farm where the cows live that provide our milk. I think we need to say thank you and see for ourselves that they are living in happy and healthy conditions.

And here’s a powerful motivator for eating healthy - if we truly believe that God created our bodies as temples, then we will treat them as such. We will take care with how we nourish it. We make a decision about the value of our bodies every time we put something in our mouths. The next time those campers reach for a bag of Doritos, perhaps they will pause before they consume the entire bag. And when they open the fridge (and stand there for what seems like hours letting all the cold air out and running up the electric bill), maybe they’ll take a gander in to the fruit drawer and consider their options.

I’m impressed with a church that recognizes the personal power that our food decisions grant us. I’m even more impressed when they find it so important that they plan an entire children’s camp around the theme.

The service we attended was wonderful – beautiful music, a strong and important message, but it was the children’s time that really challenged me and made me think. (I think this is the case at many services, yes?) As you do your shopping this week and as you plan your menus, consider whether you are living what you believe. When we eat our beliefs, we eat well and we make a difference.