Lick it up, baby. Lick it up.

Of the many things my mother admittedly regrets about my formative years – one of them was our lack luster dietary habits. She openly acknowledges the fact that she wasn’t a pro in the kitchen and I have spent years despising even the sight of Hamburger Helper Beef Stroganoff. Just typing the words conjures the smell of the boxed meal and brings my gag reflex up to attention. We drank Diet Coke all day (to the dismay of our dentists) and threw saltines with spray cheese in our bags for lunch. I reminisce over a long summer week spent with a grandfather who indulged us in meals of macaroni and chocolate ice cream. Mmmm. Now – some twenty odd years later – I’m unlearning those bad habits.

That’s not to say that I long for the other end of the pendulum swing. Not for one minute would I have wanted to live under the scrutinous eye of a microbiotic mother.

This is why I really enjoyed Laura Bennett’s commentary on “Food Nazi Moms” on AlterNet. Apparently – in conversation with a fellow parent – the other mother went on a tirade about her ex-husband’s gross negligence in packing their children’s lunches. Specifically:

He had packed a non-organic lunch for her sons. Seriously. She went on to describe the brown bags loaded with Cheetos, Go-gurt, and a sandwich that was made with white bread.

[...]She went on and on about the dangers of food additives and how they had exacerbated one of her boys’ ADHD. She talked about how each morning when her boys are in her care she takes the time to poach Amish-raised, free-range chicken and then stuffs it into a whole-grain pita with hydroponic tomatoes and micro-greens and that her ex was obviously not fit to spend time with the kids because he was willing to put their health in such grave danger.

After a colorful vision of Go-gurt bombs – Bennett makes an interesting point:

I just want to let the food Nazi moms in on what happens when your kids come to a house where junk food inhabits the pantry. They have no decision-making skills or sense of moderation when faced with the forbidden fruit roll-up. Like deprived animals, they are determined to consume the lifetime allotment of sugar they have been denied; all before pickup. I have seen one such child eat Swiss Miss Cocoa with a spoon directly out of the family-size container, only to move on to conquer a box of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts. When faced with not one but three brands of chips, they become apoplectic and run from the kitchen clutching bags of Cool Ranch Doritos and French onion-flavored Sun Chips, later to be found in a corner curled up in the fetal position surrounded by wrappers, unable to state their name.

So yes. Score another point for rational thought and exercising moderation.