I have so much hope as I wander the aisles of our local health food store, admiring the families, all clear skinned and sparkly eyed. While the grown-ups shop, the children gnaw contentedly on rock-shaped cookies sweetened with apple juice. I imagine these children returning home to play nonaggressive, educational board games and write letters to their congressmen.
Surely, they don't own a television, which protects them from many food seductions. I, on the other hand, return home to starving children who rifle through my grocery bags and loudly complain that I haven't bought them anything to eat. What they mean is: I haven't bought them food packaged in primary colors with the word SUGAR high on the list of ingredients. The next time I go shopping, I find "Junk Food!!!" scrawled in a child's handwriting across the bottom of my grocery list.
A parent's lot is one of compromise and preparedness. It's an undeniable fact that, faced with the choice between a baked potato and a pink-frosted cupcake, your kids are going to choose the cupcake every time. My husband goes so far as to declare sugar an evolutionary necessity: "We crave it because we need it." As I see it, my job is to approximate the sugary cupcake while protecting my family's digestive systems.
