The Teenagers

Several people have asked what we are feeding the kids.

For the most part they eat what we eat. When we started vegan low fat wholegrain eating (we actually should call it nutritarian eating) Noah, 17, enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon. He had been lecturing us about our diet coke habit for years and had mentioned his desire to go vegetarian so when we presented the plan to the boys he was all over it, ready to try new foods and eat as many veggies as his 6'5" frame can hold.

Ike, 13, was a little more wary. Can't really blame him, we hadn't done much in the last 13 years to make vegetables a part of his life and most of his favorite foods involve cheese. He still drinks milk with his cereal and has yogurt, eggs, and cheese (on occasion, cheese isn't very good for you - not a lot of nutrients). He  can't stand a salad. Our main dish at lunch and dinner is a big dark green leafy salad. But he doesn't complain, he just eats what he wants from the meal I've made and he knows he can always have a bowl of cereal or a peanut butter honey sandwich. He usually likes my side dishes (veggie lasagna, bean burgers, shepherd's pie, burritos) and pounds down the fruit and whole grain breads and generally is a pretty good sport. But the only thing green that he likes is the spinach smoothie.

Our college students, Hannah and Gabe, are proud of us and the changes we are making. Hannah eats mostly healthy vegan and last summer she did a a few months of a raw diet, so she loves to talk about it with me.

So mostly - they are on board. Although, we just had a dinner of steamed veggies, pineapple, and shepherd's pie and they wanted ice cream afterward. So Noah drove Ike to the store and they came home with cheese, tortillas, and Reese's Peanut Butter ice cream.

Sigh.

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What I ate today (no Reese's ice cream- not even appealing):

• 6:30 Oranges and grapefruit, 5 prunes soaked in soy milk
• Ran at Garden of the Gods (so hilly! killer!)
• 11:00 Banana, big green salad with apples, walnuts, and balsamic vinegar
• 3:00 Small kale smoothie (same as spinach , just add kale instead)
• 6:00 Steamed veggies (kale, onion, mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes), shepherd's pie, pineapple
• Later tonight - peppermint tea!