Nutrition Night

Wednesday nights are activity nights for the Young Women (age 12-17) at church. Tonight my friend Rachel is coming to talk with the girls about nutrition. I'm hoping that the fact that she's young and peppy will keep the girls interested and that they will take in some of what she says.

A few months ago, one of the teachers gave a lesson on Sunday about nutrition and being healthy. She asked the girls whether going to McDonald's would be a healthy option. Obviously, the answer is no and we discussed why. Then one of the girls piped in and said, "Well that's ok. I go to Burger King." And she was completely serious. So then we took a few minutes to talk about how all the fast food places are the same.

But that kind of shook me a little. I know not everyone is into nutrition and has the knowledge base that I do. Although I wasn't always as into the whole foods idea as I am now, I tried to be mindful of what I was eating - with varying degrees of success. I shudder to think about the number of Lean Pockets I consumed just a mere 4 or 5 years ago.

However, I always thought that everyone had a certain foundation of nutritional knowledge. Fruits and vegetables should be eaten. Whole grains versus white bread. And so forth. These girls have shown me, though, that not everyone has that foundation. Although we ate a lot of processed food in my house when I was growing up, in many ways my parents made a lot of efforts to get good food into me. We always had fruit around, we ate fried and battered food only occasionally, we ate whole wheat bread. I'm learning that not every house is like that.

After work I'm going home and fixing snacks to bring. Bananas, apples and celery with natural peanut butter dip. Celery and carrots with hummus. Another leader is bringing whole grain crackers and cheese. The goal is to show the girls what a simple and healthy snack looks like, and how easy it is to make.