Year of No Sugar (15 page)

And, yes, those wrappers
were
still coming home, at least in one child's backpack. You see, although I provided the kids breakfasts at home and packed their lunches, Ilsa was fond of having breakfast
again
once she got to school. Sometimes this meant an apple and milk (fine), and other times this meant I found the dreaded
wrappers
.

So I redoubled my efforts. Whereas once upon a time I would've sleepily thrown three or four cereal boxes on the table with some bowls, now I was actively planning a loose breakfast rotation: soft boiled eggs and toast,
³⁹
plain yogurt with strawberries, oatmeal with bananas, toast with cheese and cantaloupe, bagels
⁴⁰
and cream cheese with slices of orange. Occasionally I'd brew some peppermint tea for the girls or have Steve make up the frothy milk drink called a steamer (which we grew to love back when we used to make it with maple syrup), or a warm mug of Ovaltine.

And in fact, Ilsa
was
trying. She actually told me she had been asking the breakfast ladies if the Rice Krispies had sugar in them and that they had told her “no” or “not really” or something along those lines. Ilsa knew a lot more about fructose than the average six-year-old, but the specifics of products with ingredient lists got murky fast, and in fact, who
aren't
they confusing for nowadays? She was doing what we all were—asking. And just like for us, some answers were more, well,
helpful
than others.

So, did I
forbid
Ilsa from getting snacks from the breakfast ladies in the morning? I did not. We talked periodically about the food choices she made while not at home. She got it. She tried to figure it out for her particular first-grade level of understanding of the project. She did her best—and then she let it go.

I couldn't have asked a single thing more of her.

_______

We were very nearly halfway through our year when Greta and I did a short presentation for her fifth-grade class we might've titled “Yeah, like, What the Heck Is Greta's Family Doing, Again?” I was nervous. I realized that for all the talking and reading and thinking and agonizing I'd done on this subject, I hadn't spoken before a group about it at all. Sure they were fifth graders, not a congressional inquiry, but nonetheless I had visions of sophisticated biochemistry questions being lobbed at me by kids who aren't about to give up their chocolate-covered Twinkies without a fight.

Worse, as I made up my notes for the talk, I struggled with striking the right chord somewhere in between being the world's most boring health teacher (“Can anyone tell me the
incredibly fascinating difference between
lactose
and
galactose
? Hmmm?”) and scaring the pee out of them (“Well, according to what I've been reading, sugar causes obesity, heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, prostate and breast cancer, not to mention elephantitis of the pores, rampant yellow toe fungus, the end of the world,
and
not getting asked to the junior prom!!! AIIGHHHH!”)

Most of all, I worried about the same thing all mothers of preteen girls worry about: budding eating disorders. The last, last, LAST thing I wanted to do in the course of discussing important topics like the national epidemic of obesity was to inadvertently encourage some fifth-grade girl
not to eat
. Had I put enough pressure on myself yet?

But I think it went okay after all. I focused on some key terms and statistics I thought might perk their interest: How every man, woman, and child consumes on average 2.7 pounds of sugar per
week
. (I held up a five-pound bag of sugar to demonstrate one person's two-week allotment. Interestingly, the kids were utterly unfazed by this.) What a “Western Disease” is. (Guesses included pneumonia and malaria, so it was good we talked about this one.) And how doctors decide whether a person is a healthy weight, overweight, or obese. I mean, you hear about an “epidemic of obesity,” but what does that really
mean
?

I put the BMI (Body Mass Index) formula on the board: weight in pounds times 703, divided by the square of your height in inches. Amazingly, the kids really perked up at this. There were sudden shuffling noises as kids grabbed for pieces of paper and pencils, presumably so they could calculate their own BMI, although I have to admit that I wasn't about to start figuring out what sixty-six squared is on paper.
I demonstrated how I got my own BMI by plugging in my own height and weight, and whipping out my calculator.

_______

_______

The other most popular part of the hour was more predictable: when Greta distributed my most recent dextrose dessert effort: cocoa brownies. I was delighted to see that everyone ate their entire brownie—everyone!—which to me equals baking success. Heck, some of these kids may very well view sugar as its own food group. That's one of the things you can still say about kids at this age—they haven't learned to varnish their opinions yet in the name of politeness. Most fifth graders aren't about to eat a yucky brownie just to be polite to someone else's mom.

And then the talk was over. I'm not sure how much of it any of them actually retained, but I figured at least we started the conversation. If we managed to plant even one seed of an idea, then how great would that be?

_______

If I had any fears that I was over-exaggerating the state of our current sugar-addiction epidemic, they were put to
rest on the last day of school which, surprise! Abounded with sugar.

Not only do we love our daughters' school, but furthermore, we have been lucky enough to love every teacher either of our two daughters has had so far—which is really quite impressive. (By the time
I
got to sixth grade, I seem to recall having had my share of doozies in the teacher department, including Mr. Major who liked to have the girls sit on his lap and “give him some sugar.” Oo! Do you think that's where this all started? Hmmmm.)

We especially loved Greta's fifth-grade teacher. Mrs. Roberts is the kind of teacher who seems to take each student under her wing in some protective, affectionate, almost aunt-like or grandmotherly way. To celebrate the end of the annual school-wide reading program, she invited the
entire fifth grade
over to her house for movies, a picnic, and swimming. I mean, can
I
retake fifth grade but have Mrs. Roberts this time?

Like any treasured aunt or beloved grandmother, Mrs. Roberts gives the kids treats—hot chocolate in the winter, candy at Halloween, Skittles if a kid is having a particularly hard day, and Twizzlers on the last day of school. But what astounded me on the last day of school wasn't the fact that Mrs. Roberts had given out Twizzlers, but rather the Hershey Company's savvy marketing of Twizzlers as a way to practice
fractions
. Yes, in fact, there was a whole book about it, which Mrs. Roberts was kind enough to let me flip through in my astonishment.

The book-directed exercise went something like this: if you have ten Twizzlers, and you eat three of them, what
fraction represents the amount of Twizzlers you have left? Voilà! Twizzler math.

Really, the marketing possibilities are endless. Coming soon to a classroom near you: M&M's addition, Sour Patch subtraction, jelly bean geometry…

Actually, we did fairly well at the Last Day of School Picnic. Every year, each grade is assigned a food to bring, while the Parent Teacher Organization provides the volunteers and hot dogs. In addition to the dogs (probably okay, but being strict, hold the bun), there were chips (go for the Smartfood, skip the SunChips and Doritos), macaroni salads (skip these—mayo has sugar), tossed salads, watermelon, and chopped veggies (yay!). All in all, not a communal meal in which we need fear starving to death. Of course, there was dessert, and I had the watermelon while my kids opted for the little paper cups of ice cream,
⁴¹
but I did manage to steer them away from the lemonade and in the direction of water or milk, so I figured we had done
okay
.

But a funny thing happened. In addition to my green salad contribution, I brought along a bottle of my homemade lemon juice and olive oil salad dressing, mainly for our family's benefit. I placed the bottle on the table with a whole regiment of other bottles, every other one of which had come from the store.

Here's where it gets interesting. As I helped one of my daughters add items to her plate, one of the volunteers was asking kids what kind of dressing they wanted to dip veggies
in. Did they want ranch? Thousand island? Blue cheese? Then she came to my bottle, picked it up, and paused, eyeing it with suspicion.

“I don't know
what
this is,” she said dismissively.

!!!

I know, right?

I could have pointed out that “this” was homemade, whereas all other options were store bought. I could have mentioned that “this” had four ingredients, whereas all other options had about forty. I could have mentioned that, of all the bottles on the table, “this” was the only one without any unpronounceable or unfamiliar ingredients, including stabilizers (diglycerides on your salad, anyone?), MSG (check your ranch!), or (need I even say it?) sugar.

But I didn't. Instead, I just felt keenly how topsy-turvy things have gotten when we are suspicious of foods for not being processed or manufactured
enough
.

When we got home from the festivities that afternoon, I literally poured our kids' backpacks out on the floor—papers, workbooks, projects, bottom of the desk dregs, and art class masterpieces were everywhere. Not to mention flyers advertising summer library programs, suggesting summer projects, and the Mother Myrick's Summer Reading Program Sheet…I saw that last one and my heart sank.

It sank because we've done the Mother Myrick's Reading Program for the last few years; Mother Myrick's is a nearby bakery and confectioner of some renown, and they offer special prizes to kids who bring in lists of the books they've been reading over the summer.

It's a great idea. It's also very generous. It's also a whole freakin' lot of candy. For every two books a kid reads, there is a corresponding little bag of candy and maybe some plastic toys or stickers. Last year, we actually made it to all five levels and Greta was up to her eyeballs in chocolate this and gummy that. It was a little overwhelming, but who was I to question the rules of the Summer Reading game?

However, this year I was the Sugar Nazi, and the Sugar Nazi questions bloody everything. I was in a bit of despair about having to sacrifice yet
one more
fun thing to the Gods of No Sugar, but I smiled and proposed an alternative to the kids: how about we make up our
own
Summer Reading Program? That was all they needed to hear—within minutes, Greta and Ilsa had found a large sheet of paper and were brainstorming prizes: How about berry picking? We could get a book at the bookstore…Swimming! No wait—bowling! Ooo! How about going to the
amusement park
!? They were giggling and squealing over the endless possibilities.

All at once I was relieved, impressed, and kind of humbled too.
Look at them go,
I thought.
They're taking on the challenge of retooling their world, their habits, their rewards system—they're excited about it!
We grown-ups, I think—so often stuck in our store-bought salad-dressing ruts—would do well to take a page from their book.

_______

When school started up again in the fall, it was soon time for the sixth-grade overnight camping trip, which I had agreed to join Greta on. Immediately, I commenced worrying about the food situation.

Now,
could
I have brought my own food? Certainly after
everything we've learned this year I might've anticipated the upcoming sugar fest a mile away and packed a separate set of meals to bring. However, beside the not-insignificant issue of the bonding and group camaraderie (which, after all, was the point of the trip), there was a much more dire factor in my decision not to bring any food with me on the overnight: two of the girls in Greta's sixth-grade class have life-threatening food allergies. If I were to bring any food at all, I could have unwittingly posed a threat to these girls, way out in the Vermont wilderness. It was a nonissue; as far as I could tell, Deathly Allergies trump No-Sugar Experiments every time.

But that didn't mean we had to have dessert. No, sir. After months avoiding scores of sweets of every shape and size, I felt Greta and I were surely up to this paltry challenge. That was, of course, until I learned what that camping trip dessert was slated to be.

S'mores.

Oh
no!
I thought. Not…
s'mores!

You see, when you're finished with this book, you will officially know all my Achilles' heels. A nice glass of red wine. A tiny but perfect little scoop of Italian gelato. Anything at all that combines chocolate and peanut butter. And, my goodness, that flamboyant love child of camping and convenience food, the s'more.

I have a deeply ingrained memory of my very first s'more: it was at sleep-away camp. I was eleven and desperately homesick. One night, we had a campfire in the center of our ring of canvas tents, and it was chilly and pitch dark. Since I was a s'more novice, a fellow camper showed me the proper technique for melting the chocolate rectangle on top of the graham cracker square by balancing them on a rock near
the flames while you toasted your marshmallow on a stick. I scraped the hot marshmallow onto the ever-so-slightly melted chocolate with the help of the second half of the graham cracker and took a bite of what I suddenly realized was the single most delicious thing in the world.