Thursday, September 6, 2012

Why I'm Always Hatin' on Sugar...Plus, Healthy Ice Cream



Our version of icecream is simply blended frozen bananas. This particular concoction is two frozen bananas and about a half a cup of blueberries.

The bananas are what give it the ice cream texture but any other fruit can be added for different flavors. Get crazy and add some spinach in there. You won't be able to taste it.

Don't forget to peel the bananas before you freeze them. Just trust me on this.

Does Evie know this is not "real" icecream? Heck no, and she loves it. Am I saying she will never get "real" icecream? No. I hate to break it to ya, but that crap on the grocery store shelves is not real icecream either. Take a look at the ingredients.




When she gets older we will have real homemade icecream. Why not now? What's the big deal about letting her eat sugary snacks?

We all learn our taste preferences. Taste buds are trainable. If I give Evie really sweet things at this age, she will develop a sweet tooth. The longer I can hold her off from tasting things like whipped cream, cookies, cake, etc. the more likely it is she will find the these things to be too sweet. Same thing with whole wheat stuff...I hope the day she tastes white bread she thinks "Ewww it's so mushy and bland!"

Her dad and I both have major food addictions and we have both struggled with our weight our entire lives. I was very obese from about 2nd grade through high school. I remember the humiliation of shopping and not being able to find clothes that fit, being twice the size of all my classmates, and feeling like everyone was staring at me and keeping track of how much I was eating at lunch. We only had gym 3 days a week in elementary school and I would lie awake every night before gym and worry. Sometimes I cried. I hated my body and I was mortified to have people look at me while I tried to maneuver it. I also remember devouring sweets as a way to deal with my feelings. It breaks my heart to look back at myself in those days.

I'm not saying you can't be fat and happy or fat and healthy or fat and sexy, because you definitely can. But I wasn't.

I want Evie to be healthy and enjoy nutritious foods for all the obvious reasons, but I also don't want her to ever feel like I did as a fat kid. I don't want her to grow up to struggle daily with "I want to eat that but I shouldn't." I want her to love and enjoy her body.

She already has genetics against her. She comes from a family of overweight over-eaters. I don't know how much of that is inherited and how much is learned, but I'm going to do everything I can to help her have a healthy relationship with food.


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