When you are in the grocery store, do you ever look at what other people have in there cart? I find myself doing that.

I see so many women with small children in tow with a shopping cart loaded with sugared cereal, pop tarts, pasta, microwave meals, sugar sweetened drinks, not a fruit or vegetable, or a peice of meat to be seen. Everything in the cart is proccessed, low nutrition, high carb. And at the checkout they buy the kids a candy bar and a soda out of the cooler. SIGH.

My granddaughter spent the weekend with me. When I went to pick her up, her stepmom gave her some kind of liquid fruit flavored candy that you spray into your mouth. I think it was called 'Liquid Candy'. My granddaughter shared it with her less than one year old brother. While his Mom fed him pinches of some kind of chocolate coated snack bar.

My granddaughter knows I want her to eat a healthy diet, and luckily she likes a variety of food. On the way home we discussed candy. She said she was going to stop eating candy, except for Halloween. LOL I told her a little candy was ok for kids, but when she gets older, she will need to quit eating candy. Candy is for kids.

For dinner she wanted a salad, and a hot dog. She didn't eat bread. But she saw a box of pancake mix in the cabinet and said that when I got home from work, I had to fix her a pancake.

I never serve my grandkids kool aid, fruit juice or soda. At my house they drink water and sometimes milk.

But after supper, grandpa made her some kettle popcorn. SiGH. He has a tee shirt that says, "grandpa's to do list: Load them up with sugar and send them home."

The next morning for breakfast she wanted cereal. I told her an egg would be better for her. She said she would eat an egg after she ate the cereal. SIGH again.

She did chow down on some raw snow pea pods that she just loved. And finished off my expensive raspberries! LOL

But I worry about the kids that never put anything in their mouths except low nutrition, high carb foods.

I sneak a peak in other people's shopping carts. I can't help it. Where are the vegetables, where is the meat? Do you look into other people's shopping carts too?

Sandra

What really cracks me up is when I see a shopping cart like that and all its labels are "Fat-free!", "Lite" or "100 Calorie Packs!" and the such. They HONESTLY think they're doing themselves a favor... <sigh>

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Mikeyrat

Sandra, we wonder why our kids in the US are the fattest in the world and we fund dozens of studies.....All we have to do is look in the shopping cart.

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BC
LC Since 1998
Highest Weight 172
Current 104-108

Hamburger Helper, 2% milk, potato chips (they're veggies!), canned pasta, sodas, sodas and more sodas, or faux juice, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, mac & cheese........let's give them the benefit of the doubt - perhaps they have a garden and have really fresh veggies for the kids.

Jamie Oliver has griped for years about the deplorable eating habits of British children, that many of the kids don't know what a carrot is, haven't ever had fresh foods. I think that's pretty much true in any industrialized country, we rely too much on processed foods. Kids will eat veggies if they aren't full of other stuff first. And will eat good meat if they aren't offered processed.

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Nita

I've always looked into other people's shopping carts. Sometimes when I pass by a McDees or a Burger King and I see huge families whose members are all border-line obese all devouring massive whoppers, I just stare and think - Good God, WHY?

I had to bite my tongue at Golden Coral (a buffet style place) yesterday AM. My Husband took me there for breakfast. I was in line to get scrambled eggs made (I don't eat eggs from mixes because of xanthum gum allergy and not sure how the ones on the buffet were made). The woman in front of me was very large (about like I was 5 years ago) and she was getting a wonderful omlette but had hash browns, grits, biscuit on her plate also. My plate had bacon, link sausage and after adding the scrambled eggs...(I also got a bit of salad to go with it) more food than anyone should be able to eat. I wanted to share with her the up side of LCE but KNEW that I would have not liked that when I was that size. Anyway - two and a half hours later when I checked my blood sugar - it was 104. Still unbelievable to me.

i get frozen berries in bulk, so my kids always have their wholegrain cereal with raspberries or blueberries on top. i also give them yogurt or cheese or some other protein in the morning to make sure they are not sugar-wild! but i don't make them eat an egg for breakfast, as they are active, slim (naturally, SIGH) kids who love their weetbix and raisin bran mix, with berries for breakfast. however, NO fake juice, very few treats, (like cookies), and no candy lives in our house. ever.

meanwhile, that's mainly because i would eat it!!!!!

i think we have to look at our kids and judge sometimes what's good for them specifically. my daughter has my husbands metabolism and body type (lucky girl!), so i know she will not have a weight problem, but i definitely feed her fibre-filled cereals (not the sugar-filled, like i had growing up), and lots of healthy veg with proteins. my son's looking the same (he's 3), so i give him those things too. my cart would be pretty boring to a kid i think!

I agree tracyred. I have a granddaughter who, at age almost two, is very tiny. Just like her older brother. Except for feeding her healthful foods, I let her have her choice. One time at my house over the weekend she ate a whole container of blueberries. Everytime I opened the fridge, she was begging for a few blueberries. When I showed her mom how much she loved them, her mom began to buy blueberries for her.

I have another granddaughter age 7 who gets entirely too many sweets. She had to have caps put on her teeth when she was five due to tooth decay! She is not fat, but has that potential as her mom used to be overweight (her mom went through a period of being bulimic). Her dad (my son) is a big guy. He is very tall, but he is also very overweight. I try to limit Astonish's sweets and startches. Her Dad has admitted that sometimes all she eats in a given day is Fruity Pebbles cereal. He says that is what she asks for, so that is what he gives her.

She does like a variety of foods, and does like eggs.

On the other hand, I would never force a child to eat something they don't like, or to finish what is on thier plates. With such a variety of food available. Surely I can find something healthful that a child will eat. Sometimes is a matter of finding something they like in a healthier form or choosing between something really bad "kool aid" for example, and something a little better "fruit juice for example". I would even choose a fruit roll up made with real fruit over other sugary snacks, if a kid won't eat the actual fruit. For an active kid, the few extra calories and carbs are trade up from no nutrition what so ever.

randysgrandma

man! only fruity pebbles ALL DAY?!?!? that's wild!

I had to laugh when I saw the title of this post.......my husband and I do this all the time! Look in people's carts. Like Dr. Atkins said in his book (that I just finished reading last night.....read it completely in 2 days), heart attacks were practically unheard of before sugar and processed foods became such a big part of our diets. I don't buy anything that is processed or over packaged. Now if organic meats were just cheaper I would be content.

I am not really starting this LCE until next week when I go grocery shopping. But am trying to eat this way with what I have in the pantry. No processed foods to get rid of, so I am just collecting recipes and making a list.

katlupe

hey - one of my fave snacks is: slice some cheddar cheese into squares, fry them, with some flax meal sprinkled on top, then grated parmesan (did that make sense? so, it's a square of cheddar, then some flax meal, then some grated parmesan) let er fry until you can turn it easily, then a little longer on the other side. you'll see all that lovely fat cook off (you can drain it when the "crackers" have cooked a bit, so they won't slurp out of the pan, or just tilt the pan, take them out, then blot like mad. these are quite tasty...

My DH does the shopping so I don't spend much time looking in other people's baskets. I do however spend time examining the quality and quantity of other's plates. It's amazing to see the amount of food that some people put away. At a Christmas reception a few days ago there were dessert plates. One man had his plate so over filled that he was holding the cookies on top to keep it all from toppling over. I couldn't believe that all that food was for only one person. At least he wasn't obese......... but at that rate he will soon be having problems.

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Judy
Goal = <135, Current status = RIGHT ON TARGET!
Never give up. Never never never never give up -- Winston Churchill

Judy, when I go to some of our state and regional meetings, the desserts are usually buffet style, and some of teensiest women have plates piled high with desserts, after having finished off a huge meal that would have be waddling. I know 2 women in particular who are tiny little things, and eat like horses. My stomach wouldn't hold that much food! I'm not sure where they put it, unless they both have a hollow leg.......

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Nita