Tradition – Moms’ Rules
How many of you grew up in a family where mom always said, “young
man/lady - finish what’s on your plate” or “you
should be so lucky to have a good meal” or the many other
wonderful pieces of advice mom gave us about food...
So how many of you followed diligently what mom taught? How many
of you still follow that advice? Ok, now how many of you are overweight
adults or have overweight kids? I thought so.
Mom had good sense, and taught us the essentials that we needed
to help us through some tough years growing up – but now
we’ve grown up and it is time for us to make our own decisions
and to re-think some of things that were taught when we were growing
up. If we don’t make these changes to our lives right now,
we’ll bring up our own children the same way. Don’t
get me wrong; there is nothing that our parents taught us that
did us any harm. But we need to decide, at least when it comes
to food, what is good and bad for us.
In my house, growing up we always ate what was on our plate even
if we couldn’t. The result has been disastrous. Both my
younger brother and I are overweight, and have been dealing with
weight issues for some time.
Waste Not, Want Not
Cooking can be a passion for some, or a necessary evil for others.
Luckily my wife enjoys it. But she grew up in a family where there
were 5 brothers and 4 other sisters. Her older siblings had children
– and as such there was always an extended family. In a
family this size, you always cooked a lot. Thankfully my wife
knew how to portion and cook less – but we usually cooked
for several days at a time.
That resulted in the same dish for several days – blah,
boring. That would also mean that we’d eat more of what
was made, even if that meant filling our plate up with more than
we should have – remember what mom taught us about not throwing
food away?
When my doctor told me in no uncertain terms “Do or die”
we drastically changed our eating habits at home. Cooking for
one day was a lot of work – but it meant that my wife made
less, usually enough for the both of us and maybe a little extra
for lunch the next day. You know, we started to both enjoy food
much, much more! There was more variety every day. I didn’t
eat Curried Pilaf with Chicken for three days in a row, but had
it one day, then the next it may have been Okra Curry, or Karela
Curry, or perhaps a low-fat, low-sodium version of Chicken Curry
with low-fat, low-sodium rotis, or a tasty Chicken or Beef Roast
with carrots, tomatoes and potatoes. Variety is the spice of life,
and we were getting a lot of it!
