Mean Aunt Linda

By Linda Patton – July 2, 2015

Kids are so amazing. You just never know what they are going to say. Last night, we had a last minute sleepover with my nieces and nephew who range in age from 4-13 years old. In one of my summer classes, we are discussing chronic disease prevention. After reading the chapter on Cardiovascular Disease, I decided that I was going to have to make some changes in the way my family eats. It doesn’t matter how many vegetables I fix, my husband still doesn’t eat them.

Yesterday, we had a discussion and made a plan to correct this.  When suppertime came, I gave everyone, including the children, a salad to eat while dinner was cooking. “Is this all we are having?” the eight year old asked.

“No,” I replied. “We are going to start something new. This is our clean food. Foods that we eat to help our bodies prevent disease and keep us healthy. We are going to eat it first and then have our supper.” I sat out fresh vegetables and even their favorite dip and salad dressings to make it fun.

Out of five kids, I heard a variety of excuses. “I don’t really want any.” And “I don’t like carrots.”  And my favorite, “I’ll just have french fries.” The more they complained, the more I talked. That’ll teach them. It wasn’t long before they lost track and ate all of their veggies, and some even asked for more. They had a blast thinking they were on a mission to eat clean food. We discussed fiber, and how to make choices, and get a good balance of foods that will help your body do its job.

The game continued this morning at breakfast. After much discussion, we decided on oatmeal with raisins, and Fiber One waffles with nuts added in. We would have to eat our oatmeal first, before we could eat waffles, because oatmeal was our clean food. We giggled and had a big time before they returned home to their parents.  

Their mother came to visit this evening. When the subject of our game came up, she laughed and said, “Well, Everett wouldn’t eat his chicken tonight, because he said it wasn’t clean and it didn’t have fiber in it. He decided that he would just eat beans and corn.” I love these guys so much. They aren’t likely to forget this lesson, I just hope someday we get them to understand what the lesson actually is.