We have acquired a new standard. Hurray!
Now, as a family, we have stayed away from grains, sugar and to a large extent also dairy products for a few years. Today, we do what we can to eat as nutrient-dense and non-toxic as possible. One day a month we treat ourselves to "eating like people". This means that it is the day we have pointed to when someone in the family has said - Oh, how good it would be with lasagna. The wishes rained in the beginning but now time has passed and yesterday when it was time to "eat like people" again there was not a single wish. Fantastic! We have simply changed the norm and the pizza or bread hype is finally done away with. What did we eat then? Well, sandwiches for breakfast, ready-made meatballs and mashed potatoes for lunch, a coffee at a delicious cafe and warm sandwiches in the evening. Plus some snazzy stuff. The kids had cheered about this a couple of years ago, but now? Well, now it seems to be mostly about the hygge in gathering around something. Interesting, isn't it? We have taken back the power over food, bucked what is expected to be normal and we never thought that one day we would sit and be quite indifferent to what we would actually eat on this particular day. Well, we go to a pub or cafe and it is naturally much easier when you eat like people and don't need these whole menus.
At some point there was a reader who bounced over the expression "eat like people". Just as if I knew what people eat. I understand that the person in question was confused. Well, that expression is rather something I write so as not to wear out the word norm. But to make sure I don't use it in the discussion at home, I checked with our youngest boy this morning and when asked what that expression meant to him, he replied "eating well with a knife and fork" and "eating well" is really nothing that we get up to.
It was the case that when we decided to change our diet a few years ago, it became clear to everyone in the family that it was not entirely easy. We did it on a summer holiday and the difference in the children's well-being in everything from body, bud and soul was so great, there was really no way back. Since we, ourselves, the father and I are consistent, we also make it work once we had made the decision, we realized that it was quite a chore to parry life after a summer holiday if we wanted to stick to the good habits everyone had been given . The children are today 12, 14 and 19. Three children with completely different needs and different conditions. What they do have in common, however, is that they feel bad when they don't eat nutrient-dense food and skip what they don't feel good about, just like all people. Now we've been doing it for a few years and the kids know the difference and happily choose foods that don't add anything. They simply have the experience at this point. They are extremely aware that the choice is active and that it is not entirely easy when the norm is something else. The so-called norm becomes very clear when the children, for example, reach school age.
When it comes to talking to children about food, I think it is just as important to discuss this as it is to talk about, for example, traffic.
Instead of talking about what you shouldn't eat, we should focus on what gives the body what it needs and how to get it.
Why do some of us now struggle with eating, for example, liver? Well, we do it so that the food will be more nutrient-dense and we want to supply the body with what the body needs. Quite unusual, but I think we are making a huge effort just by raising the subject and if more people do the same thing, a change will happen. And who knows, we might even get a new norm. We are all consumers and our stores pretty clearly reflect which products are selling the most. Liver is probably not immediately a big seller, especially not with the younger generation who have no experience of eating offal and far from everyone knows why it is useful.
It takes an enormous amount of a person to make sensible product choices in a store today. If you are going to make choices that benefit you and your body, knowledge is required, and therefore I think it is important to talk about why and what is good for your body. Then it becomes obvious what and why other things are not good for you and thus become typical durable items.