Nutrition Lady here!

I admit that in the past I have taken pride in feeding my children in a healthy manner, even against their little wills. I have a wheat mill and I am not afraid to use it--although it sounds like a jet engine and we all have to leave the immediate area for the sake of our long-term hearing when it is running. I headed to the grocery a few days ago, just ahead of the arctic air blast that was moving our way, and this was what ended up in my cart:

5 cans of Chef Boy-ar-dee

4 boxes Kraft Mac-n-Cheese

1 bottle artificially flavored coffee creamer

1 box of semi-sweet, mostly nutritional cereal

1 gallon very expensive organic milk

4 pkgs marked down Laura's Lean hamburger patties

2 bags Doritos

10 4-roll packs of toilet paper (it was on sale!)

3 boxes cream cheese (low-fat variety)

1/2 gallon buttermilk

1 box store-brand Ritz-type crackers

6 4-paks of ready-to-eat pudding cups

I did not feel very "low-processed" as I checked out. I am totally visual, so as I scanned my items, I wondered what my friends would think if they saw me taking home all this rubbish.

First of all, they would think we have multiple family members with digestive disorders requiring all that toilet paper. The closest we get to that, is one unnamed family member who, every now and then, has found it very entertaining to wipe with an entire roll or dip the roll into water and watch it expand! This cuts down the paper reserves pretty quickly. To add insult to injury, when I got to my car to unload, the cart kid came by to courteously take my cart and he retrieved one pack of toilet paper that had fallen into the parking lot behind my car. I am one class act!

But back to nutrition--there was not a green vegetable in sight. Not even a canned green vegetable. Can I admit that I grew up on Chef Boy-ar-Dee and tomato soup?? So far, no major health issues. Yes, my mom did make toothpaste for us once, before the rebellion. But as far as I can remember, there was always bologna in the house. And I want to say that they just don't make bologna like they used to. Every now and then I get a big hankering for a bologna sandwich and I have tried several of those packaged varieties and I cannot imagine why those are still being made! Do people really feed that to their kids? I think that is one of those "foods" that isn't really food at all--like Cool Whip. Put it out in your garage, in the summer. It doesn't melt.

But I digress. My cart was a hodge podge of quicky foods that my kids will eat that allows me time to get on to the more labor-intensive tasks I have--like rounding up library dvd's that I never watch and shovelling horse manure. We did have oatmeal several times that week--and I made chicken noodle soup with a roasted chicken from the store and boxed organic chicken broth with a dollop of chicken soup base paste, from the store.

I gotta go, my crown seems to be slipping.