Robyn's Blog

I don’t know if this draft of a letter helps anyone, but please feel free to use any of it for your own purposes. I think the point is to be both CLEAR and COMPASSIONATE. Not CONFRONTATIONAL, which will just cause defensiveness.

Dear Mom,

I love you and I know that you love my children. There are only a few people in this world who love my kids as much as you do, and I will forever be thankful for that! I want to talk to you about something that’s really important to me.

I spend a lot of time, effort, and money studying, buying, and preparing whole foods for my family. If you’re interested, I can tell you more about what I’ve been learning and why I’ve been changing our nutrition.

I know it’s different than what everyone around us is eating, but I feel strongly as a mother, that for MY family, it’s important to take another path, back to the kind of nutrition we had before fast food and processed food. I feel strongly that for my children’s health and their future, that it’s critical we avoid sugar and other processed foods and dairy and meat products. Our diet isn’t “perfect,” but I believe that what we do 95% of the time will determine whether we are healthy and fit, or sick, overweight, and miserable. We have had many improvements in our health because of these changes, and I don’t want to go backwards.

I know that for you, candy and treats are a way to show love. Again, I so appreciate you and your love for my babies! For me, good nutrition is a way to show love. These two things have the potential to come into conflict while you are here.

I feel that candy is not an appropriate reward for children, and it creates a habit, into adulthood, that high-calorie foods are “earned” by good work or good behavior.

It’s very important to me that when you visit, you not use the desire to “spoil” my children as a reason to feed them foods I feel jeopardize their health. Could you “spoil” them in another ways, like reading to them, playing with them, or making a healthy treat?

I would love to provide you with a healthy cookie recipe and buy the ingredients. I will have healthy treats in the fridge and freezer so you don’t have to wonder what to give them.

I would like us to be friends, and not have any strain between us. I know that the way we view diet and nutrition is different, but I am asking for your support while you are here in something that’s very important to me.

We are all very excited to see you! Thank you for honoring this request.

I love you!

Momof3

Momof3, I feel your pain. Been there.

I could give you my usual responses, but I sense you’ve read the Intro to 12 Steps to Whole Foods, and my further comments on this topic, on this blog. You seem to know my ideas on this subject really well. What I hear is deep concern, anxiety even, for what your children are learning as well as what they’re eating in Grandma’s care.

I remember once being at my mother-in-law’s house many years ago, where the Standard American Diet rules and the Standard Health Consequences inevitably do, too. I walked around the kitchen corner to find her hurriedly shoveling chocolate cake in my toddler’s mouth. She startled, seeing me, since I was the one she was hiding the cake from.

I’m sure I stopped short and frowned. I remember she said something in her own defense, to the effect of it not being “normal” that my kids weren’t fed candy and cake and cinnamon rolls like other kids. Refined and processed foods are so ingrained in us, now, as a culture, that it seems some grandmas feel junk food belongs in the Bill of Rights.

Your family may truly feel they are “rescuing” our children from “deprivation.” My friend Jan told me the other day about her friend who secretly took Jan’s kids to McD’s because she felt sorry for them. She tells people her Down’s son, Jordan, is “allergic” to dairy and sugar. I laughed because I did the same thing when my kids were little and I delivered them to a babysitter or a teacher at church.

Jan says, “He’s allergic because I say he is!”

My MIL and I then went through a period of learning to work with each other. She eventually did respect my wishes even if she never had any interest in nutrition, herself. She was the one who taught me, through her reaction, when I was in my 20’s and first began studying nutrition, that people aren’t interested until they’re interested, and not a minute sooner, and sometimes never.

(I had mistakenly thought, in my own reading and discoveries, “Everyone should know about this! I think I’ll undertake a mission to teach everyone!” Mistake #1! Not to be repeated!)

As strongly as you feel about this, it’s time for a frank talk with your mother-in-law. Being short with her, or rolling your eyes, just builds tension—so you’ve nothing to lose by just talking.

Tell your husband that you intend to do it calmly and with love and every benefit of the doubt possible, but you do plan to do it.

I would do it on the phone BEFORE she comes. Or, write her a letter. That way she can mull it over before arriving and clear the air on any “hurt feelings” in advance. I would cover the points in my blog tomorrow, which I’ve written as if I were you.

Thanks for enlisting your child’s quotes to help me write the best nutrition book available for children!

I got lots of emails through my support team, from moms willing to have their children interviewed. The book is written, recipes are done, and we are planning photography and production.

The daunting piece was interviewing your kids via the phone, so I’ve come up with an easier way.

Email Jenni and Jackie at support123@greensmoothiegirl.com if you didn’t already write us to volunteer and you want your child age 4-13 to participate.

(If you DID volunteer, I have a list and will be emailing you. However, since I thought I’d be calling everyone, I don’t have email addresses for a few of you. That’s Shellie V., Ambre, Amber P., Valerie D., Lisa St., Jennifer Ga., Laura Mo., Amber P., Tina H., Wendy S., and Tiffany L.) If that’s you, please write support123@greensmoothiegirl.com so we have your email.

This is how it will work: YOU will read the questions to your child and capture a few of the best quotes and return it to me.

I think you’ll learn some interesting things from your children! Tell them they will be immortalized in a book so they will sit still for 10 mins. to talk to you.

Just capture the best quotes for me. I am looking for pithy, meaningful, funny, insightful, quirky, and just generally awesome stuff, in the voice of a child, about her choices and how she understands the consequences of those choices. How he uniquely observes the world around him.

If I use your child’s name and photo, it will be just one or two quotes—not an entire interview. No more than a few sentences each. Please record exactly what your child said, unedited.

And if I use your child’s words (I’ll notify those I am using), I will need a photo of her.

The more high quality the photo, the better, as this will be a hardback, four-color, photography-oriented book.

Of course I will send you an autographed copy as thanks for helping me, whether I use your child’s quote or not. Thus my request at the bottom of this questionnaire for your address.

GSG readers Dr. Lauren Clum and Dr. Mariza Snyder are hosting my free class / demo / book signing on Aug. 13 at lunch time. Not only that, but they’re providing lunch AND offering free mini-consultations afterwards. This will be a fun one!

I’m excited to meet readers from the Bay Area! Please RSVP here.

Friday, Aug. 13, Oakland, CA
12:00 noon
The Specific Chiropractic Center
4179 Piedmont Ave.
Suite 210

Quick note about the retreat: I think we will do it in APRIL instead–good point some of you made about snow in Feb. possibly being a problem. And it will be at Noah’s in Lindon, which is a lovely facility. That’s where I live, but more importantly it’s right off the freeway, about 40 min. from the Salt Lake airport. Closer than Provo.

Hotels would not allow us to do our own catering, and Noah’s has a kitchen. And we will have a kids’ room with all kinds of Wii/big-screen games, ping pong, wallyball court, etc.  I will have qualified people there to tend kids while they’re not in their mini-retreat Saturday.

This is edited for length, from “Momof3.” It was a response to one of my recent blog postings and I re-post it here.

I often get long emails like this from readers, asking what to do about the older generation’s visits to our children, filled with junk-food “spoiling.” Parents feel that their hard work to provide good nutrition is being un-done by Grandma.

Today, read her comments. Tomorrow, read my reply:

“I needed a pep talk! The in-laws will be staying for 8 DAYS.

I wish I was making it up when I say my mom in law (when she came after the last baby birth) feeds my kids chocolate chip cookies FOR BREAKFAST. (I came down from nursing baby and sleepless night and the kids had milk and cookies sitting on the table at 7:00 am. Grandma just smiled and said, “I’m spoiling them.”) Maceys giant ice cream cones FOR DINNER!

I asked if she would buy spinach at the store and lemons for a wonderful whole wheat pasta spinach dish. She came home with a chocolate ice cream kong cone at 4:30 pm and Cheetohs.

What adult thinks that is a good dinner for a 2- and 3-year old? Again, she smiled and said, “Grandma is spoiling them, and I’m not that hungry either.” I was not amused. I confronted her about it and she just said, “Grandma spoiled them.”

She also bribes them w/ Smarties to ‘be good’ at the store, I looked over at my son in church and he had a mouthful of Skittles and was munching on ‘fruit by the foot’. Grandma had a list of fast food places w/ takeout every night for dinner and brought it home, then tried to give my babies pop and “diet juice” with artificial sweeteners to wash it down because “diet juice” is “healthy.”

Plus, I guess, my freezer full homemade smoothie bars did not seem to be a good summer treat because grandma decided they needed a huge gigantic bag of popsicles instead. (I had made smoothie bars before going to the hospital and pointed out there were lots in the freezer along with all my other healthy snacks.)

I will get through this. I can do it. The kids WILL thank me someday. I KNOW I am fighting the good fight! I can do this even if my in laws (not to be rude, they are good good people and loving grandparents but they are morbidly obese) will try to sabotage me where I live. In my own home with my babies. I WILL be strong. I will not cave. I quietly will go about my ways and quietly do my thing with my babies and self and hubby and the world will stay right. I will do right by my family. I will do it as kindly as possible, but I will be kind but firm. Any suggestions?

What happens when I’m outnumbered 3 to 1? (Hubby and parents against me? especially when hubby’s mom is making all hubby’s ‘favorites?’) When it’s not just pop culture trying to sway our children…but loved ones too? The kids see the Twizzlers, soda, Captain Crunch, potato chips, Cheetos, big pink Grandma cookies, pimento olive bologna loaf, white bread, big greasy Costco muffins, hot dogs, M&M’s, milk, fake peanut butter, Cream of Chicken soup casseroles. This is what my in-laws buy and make and eat at our house. Of course that is what my kids want instead too.

It doesn’t work to have meals and menus ready and food bought and planned. They SHOP for ALL their favorites when they don’t find them in my cupboards because they won’t eat what I make. (They say it ‘messes with their digestion’ to eat whole grains, legumes, greens, and so much fruit and veggies.)

Even when I plan it all out, “cookie salad” (nothing salad about it) gets whipped up or something like it and stuck on the table. Unfortunately, if it’s in the house (or in Grandma’s purse) it finds its way into my children. It’s such a sporadic encounter because they live out of state that it’s difficult to just go off about how EVERYTHING they buy and eat for the 8 days is just unacceptable to feed my kids.

But, the BIG no-no’s for me Grandma tries to feed to them on a large scale: processed lunch meat, artificial sweeteners, soda, milk and ooooodles of sugar constantly. I don’t want to feel like the bad guy for 8 days, but they really are over the top with their terrible eating habits while staying at my house and feeding my children. More pep talks please! I’m in serious anxiety mode. Family pressure is intense!”

So I am going to do the first-ever GreenSmoothieGirl.com retreat and it’s going to be a BLAST:

Overthrowing the Standard American Diet

One Family At a Time

GreenSmoothieGirl Parents’ and Grandparents’ Retreat 2010

I spent some time brainstorming what the sessions will be, what I think you’ll want to learn about. (I’ve a pretty good idea, reading a lot of your comments on this blog, and emails, the past few years.) But tell me so I know for sure, okay? What can I do for you, to make your parenting or grandparenting job easier?

The retreat will be in Utah, for two days, Friday and Saturday, February 25-26, 2011. Somewhere fabulous (and local, this first year, since my biggest core of readers are here): Provo Marriott, Midway Zermatt, something like that. We’ll check into it and let you know. Ideas welcome.

There will be a mini-retreat WITH YOUR KIDS AGE 5-12 (optional to bring them), for half a day on Saturday. We’ll have whole-foods tastings and ratings, awards for the kids as they open their minds and taste buds, a nutrition class geared toward their level of understanding, a hands-on try-it-yourself clinic to learn to make food for the family and learn to be leaders and helpers in your home.

On Friday and Saturday, I will teach some of the sessions on the 12 Steps to Whole Foods program.

I hope to release my kids’ book Green Kids Rock Out Loud that weekend and send everybody in attendance home with a signed copy.

I already have 3 parents I know who have been WALKING THE TALK for up to 30 years, who have agreed to speak and sit on a panel to answer your questions. Ask away, because they have fed their families a mostly raw diet for many years and their personal stories are AMAZING. Between the three families, they’ve beat cancer, heart disease (pacemaker), cystic fibrosis, and more. Shelley Abegg, Ruth Holmes, and Denley / Jan Fowlke . . . some of my personal heroes! I’m ecstatic that they’ve agreed to prepare, come, and share.

I want you to meet other parents who are doing this and have some opportunities to mingle and to share your ideas and energy, and send you home with a transcript of the ideas of this community of parents. That by itself will be worth your time because GSG READERS ARE AMAZING. Nobody requires your presence on this site and blog that explore living a quality life. So it tends to be truth seekers, creative parents, top-notch people who gravitate here. I personally can’t wait for that community to come together.

I want you to leave energized, empowered, and ready to take on the world. And I want you to leave really well fed. (Of course we will feed you fabulous whole-foods meals.)

You probably want me and my friends to cover some of these topics:

1. Infant/Toddler/Nursing mom nutrition
2. How to eat whole foods while traveling
3. That awful subject . . . school lunch!
4. Peer pressure for kids
5. How to bring the spouse and kids on board

But that’s just what I want—or what I THINK you want. I’ll have a registration page up soon, but what do you want out of a retreat? Please tell me here.

My kids and I are home from 12 hotels, 13 states, in 14 days. What a wonderful historical experience—but I am now doing a much-needed “Nothing But Green Smoothies” detox this week! My goodness, we did what we could, but we had little control over when and what and where we ate. I will tell you some fun stuff about my trip over the next week or so, with a few more photos.

But first, two things.

First, I want to post something by “Mom of 3” tomorrow and address the interesting issue she raised, of what happens when Grandma Comes to Town. (Wow, that sounded sinister.)

Second, I want to express my regret about having to cancel the class in Manhattan. Here’s the deal. We had 70 people RSVP’d. I had never been allowed to talk to the manager of the health food store hosting my show despite repeated requests.

Because of that, I got the sense, confirmed only later, that the rooftop where we’d be meeting could hold 25—if some were standing! Further, no electricity—thus, no demo possible. The “in-between” person who brokered the situation had never been to the location, it turns out.

Plus, you had to climb 8 flights of stairs to get to the rooftop. And it had poured rain all day, the forecast 80% rain through the night. (Remember, the venue was outdoors. The in-between said we could meet in the kitchen—it’s 90 degrees in there and holds only 25.)

We were between a rock and a hard place, my friends.

Well, after I made the call and had Chris send out an email to those RSVP’d, of course it stopped raining. But all the other factors still applied. Over 30 people did not get word and showed up, including some ladies who drove 6 hours from Connecticut.

I feel terrible about this, have never canceled a speaking engagement before. (Connecticut friends, Denley got your contact info and I am going to make it up to you.)

Anyway, I’m so very sorry. I hope I have the privilege to visit NYC again and speak in a different location. Please forgive me.

A couple of photos here: attending church in the District of Columbia, at the Smithsonian statue garden, and my children on the banks of the Susquehanna River in PA.

I posted lots more photos on my personal facebook page. (Most of my friends there are actually GSG readers, so come on over! Don’t forget to also “like” the GSG fanpage.)

You know I love Jacob’s Cove, my friend Dale Allred’s new local year-round organic farm. Quite a few of my readers bought shares in his CSA, now supplying Pizzeria Seven Twelve, as well as the new La Jolla Gardens.

Here’s a link about tonight’s dinner by Pizzeria Seven Twelve at Jacob’s Cove using their produce–it’s only $5 in advance!

http://www.eatwhatsreal.com/5-dinner-club/

Once on this blog, I posted a Hot Fudge Pudding Cake recipe, and reader Paula has converted it to gluten free with interesting ingredients like teff and sorghum. Here’s here post, running again here so it’s not lost and buried as a comment to an older post. Thank you Paula!

“I just tried the Hot Fudge Pudding Cake recipe, but converted it to gluten-free with the whole grain flours I had on hand. It turned out great! I used agave for the sweetener, and I did NOT cut down on water because teff is VERY absorbent and needs even more liquid.”

Gluten-Free Hot Fudge Pudding Cake

1/3 c. teff flour
1/3 c. coconut flour
1/3 c. sorghum flour
1/4 t. xanthan gum
2/3 c. agave
3 T. organic cocoa
2 t. baking powder
½ tsp. Original Himalayan Crystal Salt
3/4 cup filtered water
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix & blend together in your high-power blender or using a hand mixer. Pour into 9″ square or oblong glass or non-teflon baking pan. Double recipe for 9×13 cake pan.

1/4 c organic cocoa
1/2 c. agave
1 3/4 c filtered hot water
½ cup chopped nuts (sprinkle over the top, optionally)

Combine this mixture & pour over batter. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 40-45 min until done. Serve warm or cool.

Want more recipes? Click Here 12 steps to whole foods.