Are Your Kids Eating Enough Junk Food?

Sometimes only artificial flavor will do.

Neither fish nor fowl, here nor there. I realize we clamor for hard and fast rules in which to make sense of our ever-changing lives, but sometimes parental inconsistency makes the best policy.

Obviously when one has really little kids they can't be expected to understand the 50 different rules concerning food, and must accept that cake is not to be eaten for breakfast.

My kids are 8 and 11-years old. So they are being introduced to 1) totally inconsistent parenting; 2) all sorts of food issues and philosophies, often in direct contradiction to one another. This is the challenge of our world, to embrace inconsistency and make order out of chaos.

I try to eat healthy, generally -- dinners have modest amounts of protein, limited starch (except on pizza and pasta nights), and lots of fresh veggies. No child can eat dessert unless he/she has "achieved" dessertness by eating the vegetables.

But then there is the "feast." This is when something moves me to declare the rules that normally apply have been thrown by the wayside and all can do as they please. Usually this is when grandparents are present, we are at a potluck, or it is just too inconvenient for me to monitor what the hell the kids want to eat.

I used to think this was a bad thing, but I have begun to see the merit. The kids need to know what it feels like to eat three doughnuts on an empty stomach, or what clothing looks like after a bag of Cheetos has been consumed.

Looking back I realize I spent more of my discretionary income on junk food when I was young. The little ones actually save their money and rarely purchase junk food.

I worry that they'll find themselves in a convenience store tasked with getting themselves a snack, realizing they lack the background in crap food to make informed choices.

I might have to take matters into my own hands and start a beef jerky tutorial or something similar.