Do any of you ever get frustrated with the food choices available when going to a party? I know I certainly have…
Think back to the last holiday, or birthday party, or graduation. Now, what type of foods dominated the buffet line? Was it Pizza? Greasy casseroles? Chips? Soda? Juices loaded with refined sugar? I have a feeling some or all of those foods were splayed out.
What do those foods make you feel like after eating them? Maybe like you need to unbutton your jeans and get into some yoga pants, STAT!? Or maybe like you need to dive head first into a king size bed to pass out in a food coma? Either way, neither of these choices seems desirable.
A couple of years ago, my oldest son got pretty sick after a party. He was out of my supervision most of the day…it was a free-for-all at a graduation party with his cousins. Laying down for bed he told me his tummy hurt. He had never uttered those words to me before. About 30 minutes later he was asleep and I began to smell the worst stench I’d ever smelled (and I’ve smelled bad odors as a nurse). I mean it reeked of a dumpster…like maybe someone tossed a dead animal carcass in. My traumatized nasal passage was trying to figure out where the horrid odor was coming from. Surely that smell couldn’t come from my precious 5 year old boy. I searched under the bed sheets, and sure enough, there was diarrhea everywhere. Foul AF. He slept through all of it.
A couple full trash bags and 20 minutes later, the room was mostly sanitized. My sisters and mom were gagging in the hallway at the foulness. We refer to that event as the “shit-uation.”
The next day my brother-in-law informed me he saw my son chugging lemonade after lemonade, and eating cupcake after cupcake. After talking with our pediatrician, she confirmed he had a bad case of (gut dysbiosis). Dysbiosis is essentially a microbial imbalance inside the body…and I have a feeling all the food dyes (from slurping down all the frosting on the cupcakes) and refined sugar may have played a big role.
Now, I’d like to talk about the food at the last party I attended. My good friend invited us to her family’s Christmas. I went there expecting to have all the typical processed food and gut-bomb galore options that most big family get-togethers usually have. Man, did I assume wrong! To my surprise, most of her family members had very clean eating habits. They brought dishes and desserts that complied with paleo or Whole 30 (I don’t subscribe to one specific style of eating – I just think you can’t go wrong with eating clean fruits and vegetables). Let me tell you, the food options at the party were phenomenal.
Someone brought the yummiest chocolate torte and pecan pie. Seriously good food – you would never know that it was all whole foods with no artificial ingredients.
It was awesome to be gathering with friends and family that chose to stay on their healthy eating path, even on a holiday. On more than one occasion I’ve heard from mom friends that their kids tend to get tummy aches or projectile vomit after a party. Then, they continue on that maybe it was because their kiddo was knee-deep in m&m’s…yea, good possibility!
What if we could change this? Change our food culture. A culture where bringing clean food to a party is the standard. Our current food culture leads many people to feel as though they need a month-long detox after the Christmas holiday. Just think – no more having to slap your kids’ hands away from the snack line. No more getting weird looks for being the only person that brings a healthy food option. And most of all, no more shit-uations!
I’m doing my best in here in my neck of the woods to share my love for clean food. If you have the same passion, I encourage you to share your thoughts friends and family.
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