MAKING AND BREAKING FAMILY FOOD RULES
A Parent’s Quest to Do the Right Thing
by bethany saltman

Michael Pollan’s new book, Food Rules, is a pleasure. In it, he comes up with 64 pithy rules to eat by, and, as I read each one, I felt like I was biting into some super-wholesome, delightful dish, say a lemony brown rice and spinach gratin, topped with top-shelf Parmigiano-Reggiano: toothsome, tasty and satisfying. Here are a just few of his rules:

#19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.

#39 Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.

#8 Avoid food products that make health claims.

They all make so much sense. I love rules, almost as much as I love food. Both make me feel so safe.

As I moved away from the book, though, my security began to fade as I began to think, particularly, about the complexities of feeding a family. Some of his other rules circled through my head:

#61 Leave something on your plate…

#27 Eat animals that have themselves eaten well…

#17 Eat only food that has been cooked by humans.

In terms of leaving something on your plate, I happen to know my good friends Grace and JD Louis stand firm that their three-year-old daughter is not to waste a single ounce of animal protein that is on her plate, and they are not shy in describing the reality of that animal giving up its life for her. That’s not exactly my tactic, but I see the point.

In any case, I certainly prefer for my little family (me, my husband and our four year old) to eat only animals that have eaten well. Don’t I? But what about chicken fingers from a diner? Even Jessica and Joshua Applestone, co-owners of Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats in Kingston and parents of a toddler, have what they humorously refer to as the “Asian food dispensation,” which allows for the occasional enjoyment of non-organic chicken feet or any other dim-sum delights, regardless of their source.  Can’t the sentiment or pleasure of some foods override our more noble, greener and ethical goals?

And food cooked by humans…hmmm…. How much face time has peanut butter and jelly had lately? Noodles? Nutella?  Hoisin sauce? As much as I might hope for all my food being prepared solely by heart-beating bipeds, there are many mainstays to our diet that have most definitely been brought to life, or at least stirred and jarred, by machine. Even the most steadfast ideologues often find themselves compromising on particulars—choosing their battles—once they encounter life with kids.

To be fair, Pollan’s final rule is “break the rules once in a while,” which is a nice reprieve for most of us family folks. As much as I appreciate the intent and flavor of these rules, I just don’t think I would follow all of them even if I had the budget or willpower to do so; I guess his table is just a little too ideologically tidy for my taste.

Emotional eating gets a bad rap, but for those of us in a position to carve an identity or a set of values out of what we eat, we tend to make our food choices based on our feelings. In trying to make my decisions, then, about how to feed my family, I find it helpful to uncover some of those feelings and try to see what, beyond the basic goal of keeping my child alive, I am trying to accomplish. Out of curiosity, I asked some local families to chime in on the topic, wondering about their guiding principles.

Ani Schaeffer, a Hudson Valley teacher and mother of two small children, and her husband, Troy Gangle, choose to eat organic produce, as well as farm-raised, grass-fed meat, pretty much exclusively. They also have their own garden and try to eat as locally as possible.  These are all values that they hold dear, but Ani told me that the most important thing is this: “Whatever is going to make me the most loving, present mother, that’s what I do. So if we have to eat Chinese food once a week, buy bread instead of make homemade, use a mix instead of bake from scratch, yes, and yes again. Because if they eat well but I’m too harried from all the prep, where does that leave us?”

Another local family, Kelly and Tim Peck, and their two young daughters, also try to make food from scratch and serve a varied diet. But the very act of simply sharing a meal brings its own rewards. “What we value first is spending time together as a family at the table as often as we can. We begin with what we’re thankful for and then we remind each other to take our time. Each person gets a turn to talk about their day.”

For the Lathrop family, consisting of Kayti, Sean and five children between the ages of 2 and 10, the main focus in feeding the children is “helping them have a healthy relationship to food. We try to help them be aware of how eating is connected to their overall health and feeling of well-being. During the meal and afterward, we ask them to feel the subtle feedback from their bodies so that they can learn to recognize when they have had too little or too much, or maybe a kind of food that does not agree with them personally.”

Jason and Elizabethanne Spiotta also focus on helping their children to develop a healthy relationship with food. They feel strongly that their three young boys try new foods because “they wouldn’t eat anything if it were up to them,” Elizabethanne says. “It’s my job as a parent to introduce them to food that they like and is good for their body, but choice is a luxury. Really. Food is to keep our bodies going.  We try to help our kids make the right choices with food by empowering them with information about what it does to their bodies.”

At the Asada family table, there is a commitment of a different sort. Yuki and Kats Asada feel it is very important that their daughter Coco eat traditional Japanese food almost exclusively. “What you eat is what you are, not even the quality, but culturally,” says Yuki.  “Food is very important to us, and it’s part of our culture and our custom and everything revolves around food.” Yuki realizes that, in Japan, many people are becoming less traditional, but since she and her family live in the States, they have to put more effort into preserving their heritage. In their home, food and culture go hand in hand.  In fact, Yuki says, “living in the U.S., we are becoming more and more Japanese.”

Other people have told me that, for them, food is a celebration, a way to connect with the earth, or themselves. Some are working toward more mindful eating in their homes, while still others want to grow a gourmet, subvert the dominant paradigm, use food as medicine, help their child fit in, or make sure they don’t run into health problems later on. I think we all recognize that food is food, and try to remember that it is a privilege to be in a position to have so many options about what and how to eat. And everyone I spoke with seems to agree that cultivating gratitude ought to be a big part of our family meals.

Talking to other families about food and their food traditions has been inspiring. It never would have occurred to me to speak so frankly with my daughter about why an orange in the middle of a New York State winter is such a treat, especially since my toddler is just growing out of a long phase of seriously picky eating, coupled with super sensitivity to low-blood sugar (in a word: tantrums!). Our family focus has been understandably fixated on encouraging calm mealtimes where she can relax, just eat, and try some new things. Now that my daughter’s requests for favorite foods include things like manchego and flax seeds, this food-obsesser is happy and relieved, and ready to move on to the next phase, which will most definitely include an awareness of taking just the right amount for her body, her appetite and all the different kinds of hunger she will encounter.

But when I look closely at the passions that fuel my family food rules, I have to be honest with myself: While developing an awareness of our carbon footprints is most definitely important to me, it is not the main thing. I grew up in a family with zero political or global awareness, but that loved to eat. As a young girl I cooked meals by myself, for myself, as a way of finding some solitary pleasure. As an adolescent, my dad and I could talk about why the hollandaise needed more lemon, and that was about it. And now, as a working mom, the biggest break I give myself is pulling away from my computer at three o’clock to prepare dinner before picking my daughter up from preschool.  I am incredibly fortunate that I am able to take care of my family by doing something I so deeply love.  It’s that simple, really. I love food and the way it helps me give and connect to other people. I know that health is important, that the environment is toxic, that factory farms are disgusting and that our kids should be mindful about how lucky they are. But when it comes down to it, what I really hope to offer my daughter is just a long life of happy eating.