OK, so you’re getting to know a little about me and, I trust, enjoying reading SPICETERIA. You’ve gotten some information, some cooking chops, your love life is simmering, and your nerves, like the Entrepreneurial Consulting Job Seeking Mom WifeÔ, are percolating to a boil- but also like the Entrepreneurial Consulting Job Seeking Mom Wife, you have it all under control – or at least the imitation of control.
Not sure what I’m talking about? Here is a great example of what I like to call “the imitation of control.” Jonathan, Carter and I were at the pediatrician’s office for a follow up appointment - Jonathan allergies/asthma and Carter’s eczema. The appointment goes well – the meds are working, no more wheezing, skin is sort of healing. The boys are happy and putting their clothes back on – we are in the homestretch when the doctor whispers to me that Jonathan still needs his HepB. Doesn’t she know my children hear everything? “What is that? . . . HepB?! That’s a shot!!!. . . I can’t get a shot!!!! I DON’T WANT A SHOT!!!!! The Dr. is giving me a shot?” Well, just as smoothly as she whispered that he was due his HepB she whispered – “the doctor isn’t going to give you a shot” and slipped through the door. This is where the “imitation of control” kicks in. I know that Jonathan is about to freak – I just didn’t know to what extent – but no matter what was about to happen. “imitation of control.” Jonathan is now screaming to the top of his lungs and wailing like I am beating him with hot sticks – “imitation of control.” Carter is devastated, and I must control a 7 year-old who is tearing up the exam room trying to escape before the shot and his brother doesn’t know what to do – he’s just ducking and trying to get out of the way of his way-out-of-control brother. The door opens and three nurses come in to inoculate their normally calm and charismatic patient. The chair and stool are flying and it is taking four of us to subdue a 58 lb, 1st grader. Picture this – I’ve got his arms, one nurse has each leg and one has the needle. We’re assaulting my son! If occurs to Carter that we are mugging his brother and then he loses it – BIG tears! “Imitation of control.” The needling is done and the screaming continues “When are you going to give me the SHOT!!!!” It’s over and he didn’t even feel it! Heads held high we walk through the devastation that is the office and waiting room – children watch in horror and parents admire the “imitation of control.” (I have to believe this or it doesn’t work)
After that adventure making dinner is the last thing on my mind, but the kids have to eat. (I would prefer a drink). While I prefer to cook fresh healthy meals and I usually use Saluda Spice to make them – tonight is not that night. So let’s explore prepared foods.
Now, trust me when I say as a busy, multitasking, often tired, Entrepreneurial Consulting Job Seeking Mom WifeÔ I’m no critic or snob of prepared food- particularly for the kids. In fact, Dinosaur shaped Chicken Nuggets are some of my best friends, but you must know what’s in prepared foods. My trial by fire was having children with significant food allergies. And I’m not talking about the “can he have peanuts?” food allergies; I’m talking truly ‘nuts’ allergies. How bad could it be, you ask? Try no milk, no dairy, no soy, no nuts, no wheat, no chicken, no beef, no potatoes . . . get the point? I swear Jonathan once ate only Quaker Instant Oat Meal Maple Brown Sugar three squares a day for 9 days, and that was after 7 days of rice with chicken bouillon. As a rookie mother, I was obsessed with the right food- all natural, organic, you know the type. His diet was killing me. I actually had to have a pediatrician tell me “with Jonathan’s dietary limitations, the food he should be fed everyday is the food he will eat.” Needless to say, I became a champion ingredients list reader. Fortunately, over the years Jonathan has outgrown most of his allergies, but my interest in what some of those curious ingredients in the food we eat are, still exists. Here are some interesting points I’ve learned. Always wondered what Yellow #6 or maltodextrin were, listen up:
Seeing Red – the color red in food comes from red food coloring, and the primary ingredient in red food color is cochineal / carmine/ carminic acid, which is made from the crushed carcasses of the Conch beetles. Velvet cake is sounding much more appetizing than Red Velvet cake right now, right?
Buff Chickens
Many chicken farms have recently been shamed into better practices including no antibiotics, free range, grass fed. . . .
McNuggets have 38 ingredients! Of the thirty-eight ingredients, thirteen are derived from corn: the corn-fed chicken itself; modified cornstarch (to bind the pulverized chicken meat); mono-, tri-, and diglycerides (emulsifiers, which keep the fats and water from separating); dextrose; lecithin (another emulsifier); chicken broth (to restore some of the flavor that processing leeches out); yellow corn flour and more modified cornstarch (for the batter); cornstarch (a filler); vegetable shortening; partially hydrogenated corn oil; and citric acid as a preservative. Other ingredients on the nugget: there's some wheat in the batter, and on any given day the hydrogenated oil could come from soybeans, canola, or cotton rather than corn, depending on the market price and availability. I won’t even mention the 25 synthetic ingredients – don’t want to freak you out too much. I discovered Bell & Evans chicken nuggets about 5 years ago, the kids love and guess what? There are only 9 ingredients -Chicken Breast, Water, Salt, Breaded with Unbleached Wheat Flour, Evaporated Cane Juice, Dried Yeast, Spices, Paprika. Flash fried in non-hydrogenated soybean oil to set breading.
Living the Fry life
Face it, fries are a kid staple. I am proud that my kids are veggie friendly, both Jonathan and Carter have requested broccoli (cooked with Saluda Spice, of course) for their bedtime snack! Don’t fret – there are still times when they just have to have fries, and there are those times when only McDonald’s fries will do. Other times, Ore Ida.
Don’t feel bad when you have to turn to fast food to feed the kids, please just don’t make it a habit. And if you are a fan of fast food, remember the “Imitation of control.”
Tastefully yours,
Kimberly
