Skirmishes in the Food Revolution
Posted on | April 19, 2010 | 2 Comments
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
I’m on Twitter and follow a lot of other ‘Blogger Moms’ and writers. Lately, there’s been a lot of talk going on about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution – love it or hate it, it’s definitely got people talking about what we (and by ‘we’ I’m mostly talking about those of us from the US) eat, what we shouldn’t eat – and most importantly, what we feed our kids.
Living in Peru, it’s very easy to feed my kids healthy foods. Processed foods aren’t as widespread as they are in the US, and there’s an abundance of fresh foods at the markets. I can go to a city market and buy fresh cheeses, vegetables, fruits… and even have dudes with carts full of fruits and veggies that pass right by my house every day.
I cook most of my food from scratch. I’m not above pulling out a blue box of mac n’ cheese occasionally, but generally our food is made from fresh ingredients. I don’t use canned vegetables, even. There isn’t much of a choice here to start with, and what there is, like canned tomatoes, is super expensive.
So it was with interest I watched the unfolding of a minor battle in the Food Revolution this weekend. It seems that while Jamie Oliver was on TV, there was a Twitter party going on about a food product that many consider one of the worst things you can feed your kids. (I won’t name it, but it’s a lunch meat product that rhymes with punchable) From what I understand, some of the mom’s involved are the same mom’s who are all tweeting about ‘viva the Food Revolution’, and it came across as hypocritical to some.
Apart from whether you should or shouldn’t be feeding your kids this food product, I think it was an important look at the reach mom bloggers have, and how much importance advertisers are starting to put on them. And sadly, at how easily some moms can be caught up in the excitement of free products and supposed ‘philanthropic’ motives of the companies they are willing to promote.
I saw mothers who said that they would never feed this food to their children, but were willing to advertise it because the company was giving away field trips to classes across the US. What??? I compared that in the comments here to having RJ Reynolds (the tobacco company) give branded back packs out to kids. If I don’t want my kid smoking, I’m not going to let him run around wearing Marlboro Man gear. If I don’t want my kids eating junk, I’m going to do everything in my power to keep them from associating that food with ‘fun’ or as being the right thing to do.
It was disappointing to see some mom’s falling for what really was just another marketing ploy, disguised as a nice gesture.
Link: Top ‘Worst Snack’ may be in your kid’s lunchbox
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I got tired of life happening while I made other plans, so I quit my job and came to Peru. I live here with my Peruvian husband, two sons, three dogs and various other family members, depending on the weather.
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April 19th, 2010 @ 10:17
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April 19th, 2010 @ 11:24
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