Becoming Me: 5 a day

This is amazing. I have a daughter who eats peas like most people eat potato chips. Really. I need to take a video. I put a bowl of peas in front of her and she grabs handfuls of them and shoves them in her mouth. She is pretty good with lots of other veggies and fruits too. We've slowly introduced "favorite" kids foods like grilled cheese, goldfish and graham crackers and many times those are thrown on the floor the moment I give her peach slices, bananas or strawberries. Everyone says this will end soon so I'm loading her up with tons of fruit and veggies now.

Even though I grew up in a kind of vegetarian household--my mom didn't eat meat so she didn't cook much of it, but we'd still go to McDonalds or get TV dinners occasionally--I wasn't much of a fan of veggies or fruit. My parents often disagreed about my choice of nutri-grain cereal or cheerios every night for dinner. As I got older I got less picky, and was a strict vegetarian for about 7 years. But as I often point out, vegetarianism doesn't necessarily mean healthy. Cookies and cheese are vegetarian. I also am quite lazy so in college I lived off of salad (lettuce, tomato, fake chicken nuggets), tomato soup, cheese sandwiches and cereal with bananas. Very little variety in my day to day diet. Since I married an amazing cook, he does create a lot more variety in my diet, but I defintily don't get 5 a day of fruits and veggies.

Last September I saw research that showed the # of Americans eating fruits and veggies has not gone up in the past 10 years despite the educational push by the federal gov't. I don't have the study so I can't quote the exact percentage, but it is really low. So I started working on getting 5 a day. It is hard for me! I think a lot of my problem is that I often overcount my servings, i.e. a sprinkling of blueberries in my oatmeal, the lettuce and tomato on a sandwich, some green beans at dinner, a slice of carrot cake (joking about that one). I'm sure every little bit helps, but if you actually look at serving size of fruits and veggies sometimes you have to eat a lot compared to the serving size of chocolate! I'm not trying to put restrictions, for instance a tablespoon of cool whip on 3/4 cup of blueberries gives it a little more zing or peanut butter with my apple slices.

The problem is that there are so many foods I don't like. Okay, I know this following statement is going to be a shocker and people often question my belonging to the human species... but I don't like strawberries. Not sure why people take this as a personal attack. I always get a "YOU DON'T LIKE STRAWBERRIES?! here try these ones! You'll like these!" Why is it okay for all those seafood haters to live in peace, but a strawberry hater must explain herself over and over again? I don't mind eating the ones in the middle of winter that everyone says have no taste. Any other time they make my face scrunch up and my jaw lock. Same with oranges, clementines, grapefruit, raspberries, kiwi, cherries... I saw some food person on the Today show advising parents to feed kids a new food 10 times. By the 10th time they will have acquired a taste and like it. I thought "If I'm going to try this with Penelope, I better do it myself." Well, I'm on taste 15 of strawberries since the beginning of the year, and nope, no taste acquired. Thankfully, I like tons of veggies. I'm trying to be more diverse with all veggies and whole grains...let's just say there's a reason McDonald's doesn't replace the french fries with lentils or coucous. Definitly acquired taste. Chris and I have been cooking all sorts of different soups and stews this winter...great way to get veggies and try things like parsnips. I also found out that I like cooked beets after a good Rachel Ray recipe.

So anyways, this is a goal I've been working on for a while so hopefully I can be healthier and a better role model that reaches for an apple instead of a cookie at snack time...anyone else find trouble eating 5 a day?