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Over the last thirty years grocery stores have been transformed from sedate outlets for ingredients
to a dizzying Disneyland of processed snacks disguised as meals. The shelves are lined, floor to
ceiling, with supposedly kid-friendly foods. Most are shrink-wrapped and packaged in countless clever
ways with shiny, colorful, and crinkly foils and plastics. Frozen foods are marketed as timesaving,
healthful options for "families on the go." And ready-made cereal bars, juice boxes, and pre-packaged
school lunches are now staples in the average busy American household.
"Fast food" has come to mean more than just the occasional "Happy Meal" picked up from the drive-thru.
A reliance on convenience now anchors the entire industrial food production chain that mass produces
and mass markets processed, nutrient-deprived food for young consumers. It is a devastating fact that
children are most directly impacted by our societal disengagement from our food sources.
In particular, the pervasive micro-packaging of children's food into single-serve items fosters, from
an early age, a false sense of individualism that the capitalist market economy is dependent upon.
These marketing strategies not only strive to make loyal consumers of young children, but also ensure
an immediate distancing - physical, emotional, and psychological - of children from whole food sources
and non-industrial food production.
Introducing children to the concepts and practices of local organic food and food production should
include lessons about sustainability. A huge push has been made throughout the last decade to teach
children about the importance of recycling and the benefits of taking care of the environment. The
next step is to teach children (and their parents) about the connections between food production,
packaging, and consumption practices.
Here are some ideas for pro-actively fighting the commercialism of children's food:
Get dirty. Dig in the soil with your kids and start or replenish an organic garden -
even if the garden consists merely of a few small indoor pots. You can also see if your community or
neighborhood hosts communal garden plots. Teach your children about the different planting seasons and
about the life cycle of edible plants from seed to table.
Join or renew a CSA. Use the LocalHarvest website to locate local farms that offer
CSA programs. Encourage your friends, family members and neighbors to do the same. You can also contact
these participating farms to see if they offer family tours of their farms. Give a CSA subscription as
a gift.
Create a weekly ritual with your kids of visiting your local farmers' markets when
they are in season. Introduce yourself and your children to the vendors and encourage your children to
ask questions about what's in season and about growing and harvesting practices.
Buy local whenever possible and visit local meat and dairy farms and talk with your
kids about where their food comes from.
Go organic for sustainability and talk to your kids about making sustainable food choices.
Cook with your kids. Choose a few pre-packaged items from your pantry that your
children eat frequently and which can be reproduced in your kitchen. Such items could include granola
bars, granola cereal, cookies, trail mixes, etc. Make a batch of at least one of these items to sustain
your family throughout the week.
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Photo by IHeartFarms.com
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