I was minding my own business reading my Facebook page when I came across this story from NPR. San Francisco city council has voted to ban toys in kids’ meals that are unhealthy. They define that as over 600 calories, over 600 mg of sodium, and over 35 grams of fat.

I hate those cheap little toys that Z shows up with.  I end up stepping on them and breaking either it or my skin. Then I feel guilty about throwing them in the trash. Ban the suckers I say.

But I wasn’t emotionally involved until the last paragraph when a person said that this was unrealistic but kids won’t eat any meals that fit the healthy standards.

What??!! 

Z was a fast food addict a few years ago. Through much pain and suffering on all our parts she now knows not to even ask for McDonalds when she is at our house.

How to break your kids’ fast food addiction:

1.  Don’t buy it for them.

Sure, that’s easier said than done. There were days when she flat out refused to eat because we wouldn’t get her fast food. Guess what? She didn’t starve to death. She threw a lot of screaming fits but my ears have recovered. Her father may have diverted a lot of fits by telling her that sometimes all the McDonalds in our town were closed for health code violations.

“They look open Daddy.’
“Those are the workers trying to clean up the mess.”

He also invented my deadly McDonalds food allergy that will kill me if we even set foot in the restaurant. Someday he’ll probably get in trouble when she figures out what a liar he is.

She did ask us once why we insisted on being so mean to her. It isn’t our job as adults to make her happy. Our job is to make her healthy.

But, she eats better now. She is nowhere near perfect. She still refuses most food without benefit of trying it. She will eat baked chicken now which she used to refuse because it didn’t look like nuggets.  Vegetarian me wishes she would try more veggies. But it is in no way impossible to get kids to eat healthier food.

/rant