I think you’re right in that if our kids learn to understand food, they probably won’t veer too far from a good course (pun intended). It’s probably a lot like learning to love learning …

But I also think that some of our kids may never catch the desire to understand food. And they will eat Cheetos on occasion, and (horror of horrors, seriously, it scares me to death) they will worry about their weight and go on a Slimfast diet. And we’re gonna have to be OK with that. Or at least not let them know that they’ve committed the unpardonable sin.

I think it’s funny that what I’m most concerned about right now is not healthy eating habits, but my son’s play-acting about guns. Everything becomes a gun. And according to him, the gun (or cannon, or rocket launcher) smashes and breaks things (and people) into pieces. And this horrifies me deep down in my gut. I feel completely out of control, like, how did I let this happen? What am I doing wrong? Where is he getting this? This is not my beautiful son. Damage control, inDEED.

If anything, I could see my kids turning to vegetarianism. But take a hard left, and head down the road of total junk food and sugar? I don’t know, maybe. That would be the perfect setup, though, for me becoming the Meddling Mom from Hell.

And, C, you know — you, too, are free to eat bacon ; )

I think that our peers have more influence over our eating habits than we’d like to admit. But maybe there’s still hope. With the growing awareness about the food industry, and the widespread push to eat more local/organic/seasonal, maybe our kids will have more opportunity/desire to eat in a healthy way. It’s obvious that young adults are a lot more conscious about it now than my generation was.

The more I think about it, I realize I’m more upset about all these school kids being taught the pyramid (more so than being worried about my own kid — this, I know, we can counter at home, even if it’s hard). As a person who grew up knowing absolutely nothing about food, it was hard to un-learn all those “facts” that were, in fact, wrong. Nutrition science is so steeped in trends that end up being “wrong” — think margarine, fat-free, aspartame, etc. — I just wish there was a way to teach more tradition-based nutrition in schools without it seeming completely irrelevant (i.e., when a kid is making his own dinner at age 8, does grass-fed beef really matter? probably not — but what true nutrition information would stick with him and help inform his choices?).

I talk a lot about food with my son and even though he doesn’t seem that interested most of the time I inevitably hear him repeat some of the things I’ve taught him to friends or other people.

I really do think kids listen to their parents more than they do to things they learn at school. Just keep teaching her what you know about healthy eating and I think it’ll get through.