Prior to arriving to my parents’ house I’d mentioned that I had little faith in my dad making it through his 10 Days of Real Food pledge during our visit. Well that was just too easy to predict. Not only did I doubt he had even read the rules prior to starting, but I never once saw him read the ingredients or ask questions before eating something. So on day 3 of his “attempt” to play along with us he announces “I am going to have to stop my 10 days because they have short ribs on the menu at the restaurant tonight and I really want them.” I don’t know if it bothers me more that my mom can’t even imagine trying to do the pledge with us or that my dad doesn’t at all take his attempt seriously. Regardless, we are continuing on day 41 of our journey with or without the support of my parents even while we are staying at their house. It is unfortunate that they didn’t want to gain anything from a first-hand and eye-opening experience of what it is like to seek out real food in our processed food world.
On a lighter note, our children thankfully seem to be doing just fine with what I have been feeding them on our trip. I honestly don’t know if it is because I’ve 
been doing a good job of shielding them from the forbidden foods or if they are starting to not care about those foods as much. Two nights ago we went out to dinner to Ocean Club on our boat trip and I attempted to simply order off the menu without bringing anything in my purse to supplement the kids’ meals. One thing I have learned since starting our pledge is that I can never order off the kid’s menu anymore…it almost always contains highly processed foods or foods made with highly processed ingredients! I was pleased that this particular restaurant was flexible and allowed me to create a plate of the adult side items for my girls to share. Pictured is what we ended up with…some peaches and toasted pine nuts that I saw offered on a salad and side items of both potato gratin and green beans (they just threw the asparagus on there without me asking for it). I am not going to lie and say they scarfed it down, although they did like some things more than others. What they didn’t eat us adults finished for them, and we thought it was pretty good!
Yesterday we had a very late lunch of PB&J so my girls weren’t too hungry by the time dinner rolled around. Regardless, I decided to boil some whole-wheat
pasta and make some spaghetti sauce for them. I recently tried making homemade spaghetti sauce (from fresh tomatoes) for the first time and it is surprisingly easy and delicious. When I say “easy” please note it does require some of your time, but not much skill. The adults supplemented their spaghetti with some fresh caught seafood that we bought on the island, and it actually turned out to be a delicious combination. Just a few more days up north before we head back home!
