It's just for play

I absolutely love creative and imaginative play when it comes to my toddler. She isn't the dress up type of girl but she enjoys being immersed in toys and atmospheres that can strike up her imagination. A couple of weeks ago I wanted to find some fake food items for her to play with. This goal was really two-fold because my fifteen year-old also happens to love playing with fake food and toy kitchens. 

I find it rather fascinating that the toy versions have more appeal than actual cooking. When she turned thirteen my wife and I started teaching her how to cook. What once was curiosity and always wanting to help prepare dinner soon turned into an all out ban on the kitchen and now we're lucky if she can contribute one meal for the entire year.

Isn't she just brimming with excitement!? Ha!

I went to my local Toys 'R Us and searched for play food and pots and pans. The cookware set was easy to find and I was lucky to come across one that looked similar to the set that I use. I figured my little one would get a kick out of having matching cookware sets. Now time to look for some food. This was where things got disappointing for me. 

It wasn't as if I was having trouble finding play food. I guess I was just picky about the type of food I wanted to buy. There were packages that had unrealistic looking fruit and monochromatic meat in them, but they also had boxes of cereals that we don't buy and processed foods that we don't eat. One large package was geared specifically towards Old El Paso tacos with the company logo plastered on every item in the box. 

Don't get me wrong, my family loves tacos and I make them on occasion. However, when I make tacos I make the guacamole myself, we don't eat beef or cheese and and I mix my own seasonings rather than buying pre-packaged seasonings. I know that this is only play food but why was it so hard to find plain old fruits and vegetables?

I'm not the person who harps on other people about their eating habits or tells them that their kids need to eat better. I was once a single parent with a limited income so I fully understand the hardships that come with eating healthier. Now with farmer's markets popping up all over the place, it's much easier to find fresh food at cheaper prices. All I wanted to do was find something similar to what I make and what we eat. 

It took us a while as a family to get to this point in our eating. We used to go to fast food places and eat out a lot, but we had to start making fundamental changes. One of the reasons we were very adamant about changing our diet was for the health of our oldest daughter.

Ever since she was a baby she's had high cholesterol. Yeah that tall, slender young lady in the tank top pictured above has high cholesterol. Her doctor's never suggested that she take medication and if they did I would've declined anyway. All we were consistently told was to make sure she was eating healthy foods and getting some exercise. 

You would think that as her parents we would follow those rules, but we didn't. We kept telling her that she needed to eat better and be more active but we weren't setting the right example for her to follow. We were eating foods with tons of saturated fat, high in empty calories and filled with sugar. Why would she listen to us if we weren't doing the things that we asked her to?

We started little with easy things like buying more fruit and having salad with dinner. We stopped drinking fruit juices and drank only water. I started cooking more and trying new recipes. The change didn't happen over night but before I knew it we were eating out less and exercising more.

So now you understand my predicament when it came to finding play food for my toddler. Where would we get plastic food that mirrored the real food on our plates? After searching a couple of stores and digging through the shelves I found exactly what I was looking for.

You might be reading this and thinking Goodness, what's the big deal? But I gotta say that starting early with good eating and healthy living is a lot easier than having to change all of your habits after you've gotten accustomed to them. When you know better, you do better and I plan to do much better with my kids so that they can keep these healthy habits well into adulthood.