PLEASE DON’T FEED MY MONKEYS

I spend a lot of time thinking about what our family eats.  We raise our own meat, we have a veggie share from a local farm during the local growing season and I preserve whatever we don’t eat.  We even grow a tomato garden and can our own tomatoes for winter.  I read the back of almost every package we buy in the grocery store (though we try to avoid packages if at all possible).  I put a lot of effort in to this and my children understand why.  It’s conversation for us in the grocery store and at the dinner table.  We value putting high quality ingredients into our body.  So this is why I have such a hard time when other (well intentioned) people give my beautiful boys candy.  It’s a treat for helping around the farm, a treat for getting together at a cub scout event, from friends for their birthday, from their teacher because they did well in school (!?), from their friends on Valentine’s Day and Halloween.  “Treats,” people say.  “It’s only one day,” people say.  Here’s my perspective:  These “treats” contain sugar, artificial colors and artificial flavors that I believe (from the research I’ve done) are VERY BAD for my kids’ bodies.  So I actually don’t consider most candy “treats” and I don’t call them that in our house.  But I don’t like to say no to my kids.  It’s hard to take candy out of their mouths.  Please don’t make me have to do this.  Please value my kids as much as I do and don’t feed them junk food with poison in it.  And I promise not to feed yours these low quality ingredients.  I’ll show my love and appreciation for kids with hugs and kind words than toxic chemicals any day.  I mean, look at these guys.  I only want the best for them.

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