guilt-free family feeding

story by | katie lukens pinkie

As moms, the worldly pressures to feed ourselves and our families the healthiest, most nutritious meals seem to be everywhere. The food should be homemade. The ingredients should be local. Or is it natural you are suppose to purchase? Organic? The food “buzz” terms may confuse us. What about the lasagna in the freezer section when you are in the hurry? Fast and easy food over the most local, nutritious homemade meal often wins. But then do you find yourself with mommy food guilt when your friend talks about her homemade noodles and you reflect on your freezer section lasagna?

I have felt mommy food guilt. The headlines grab us and somehow I used to feel pressure to wonder if I was doing enough to feed my family the right food. I think this is a new trend. Food used to just be food, a means to survive. My great-great grandma, Kirsti, was a widow in a sod house on the North Dakota prairie. She depended on food to sustain life for herself and seven children. She would have probably mocked in her native Norwegian tongue at the food trends and buzz words that fly around today. But her food was wholesome, basic and her recipes were passed down through generations. I cherish the recipes and tradition from my ancestors. But I don’t want to go back to the basics that my ancestors once faced.

Our lives move faster than our ancestors did. Technology. Careers. Families. We need convenience while balancing health and nutrition. Where is the median?

I have lived in and around food and agriculture for decades of my life personally and professionally. While raising three children in North Dakota, I have worked in and around food and agriculture from New York to California. I have dined in fine restaurants, shopped all types of markets and grocery stores and visited many sizes and types of farms.

From my experiences, I have over analyzed what I feed myself, my husband and my children. I have thought about my late grandpa’s 60 inch waistline and that if I don’t eat right and exercise I could inherit that waistline. I have thought about how I choose balanced healthy choices while managing a hectic schedule.

I have come to the conclusion that living in the upper Midwest gives us access to some of the most nutritious food the world knows. A 2012 Stanford study concluded that organic food does not have more nutrition than conventionally raised food. Previously in my career, I have worked with a biopesticides company as well as a synthetic pesticides company. I understand that both organic and conventionally raised food have pesticides and fungicides used to grow the food to rid the crops of pests and diseases. I have put my trust in our American food system where we have the most stringent testing and regulations in the world. I have put my trust in farmers to raise food that they feed their families and in turn are willing to sell to feed my family and billions of others. I have rid myself of the food guilt mantra that pop culture seems to put on us as moms and adopted a food choice mantra.

Food choice gives me the ability to choose to buy at the grocery store while having a garden. I have a garden in the summer, not for the purpose of solely feeding my family from it, but for the purpose that it relieves stress for me. Digging in the dirt clears my mind while teaching our kids a little about raising food.

I don’t want to go back to when my great-great grandma had to produce food in her garden in harsh weather conditions to feed her family. She must have had a sense of urgency and pressure. I have learned to can and freeze some of the vegetable produced from our garden. If I don’t get the canning or freezing of vegetables done, I know I can go to my local grocery store where a plethora of luscious food awaits. In the fall, winter and spring months, my one and only grocery store in Wishek, North Dakota might not have all the options of a big city store, but I buy what is available. It is seasonal, coming from other parts of the country or even other countries. It’s not local, as in from my state. But local is relative. We will never grow strawberries in the winter in North Dakota and I don’t know any American banana farmers. Supporting farmers, whether they are in my backyard or elsewhere is important to me. Supporting different types of farmers gives us food choices.

Food choices mean you can buy any food that fits into the latest buzz or trend word that you want. But you don’t have to. You don’t have to feel pressure to fall into the latest trend or category. It works for some, but it doesn’t have to work for all of us.

Through ridding myself of mommy food guilt, I developed some guidelines in my food choices. Not rules, only guidelines, as I cannot always follow them. When I need a mango, I buy it. It’s not local but usually I first support local options. The food isn’t always local, but I purchase it at my local grocery store and know supporting a locally owned business impacts my small town in rural North Dakota. I also buy some local meat from state inspected meat processors as well as preparing wild game that our family hunts like venison or pheasant. The beef, chicken or pork I purchase at my grocery store is American raised. That’s my next food choice rule.

I support American food first. One American farmer today feeds 155 people compared to 25.8 people in 1960 [FarmersFeedUs.org]. If I have questions about how food is raised, I find a farmer in social media that raises it. I go directly to the farmer or rancher and ask a question on a blog, YouTube video, Facebook page or Twitter. It connects me to my food. I understand farmers have pressure to grow more food to feed a growing global population. It’s not something we consider as affluent American moms purchasing food for our family. We have so many food choices. But as a mom I want those choices to continue. And as a mom, I want there to be enough food to nourish not just my family, but those with so much less across the globe.

I assumed most moms thought like me until last summer when I had a conversation with a nationally known mom blogger. When I explained my thinking about food choices, moms being bombarded with food guilt headlines and that it was so much larger of an issue to me because we need enough food to not just feed our American families, but a growing, global, hungry population, she looked at me bewildered. She said, “Oh I don’t care about feeding the world. We need to just feed ourselves first.”

Her statement set me back and I realized food choices mean different things to different people.

To where I am located, deep in the prairies of North Dakota, supporting food choice to me also means we are supporting 32,000 farm and ranch families. Agriculture in North Dakota matters in a way we don’t think about when we are buying a can of baked beans off the shelf at our local grocery store. Agriculture employs roughly 25% of our state. It’s North Dakota’s number one industry. The can of baked beans that you use as a fast and easy solution in a family meal means you are supporting local farmers. North Dakota farmers are the number one producers of dry edible beans. Throw a few cans of beans into that chili. It’s local. It’s nutritious. Not only are you supporting local farmers, you are supporting a local grocery store and feeding your family. North Dakota produces 46 different crops and livestock from honey to canola to beef to potatoes and we lead the nation in the production of 14 of the crops grown. What a gift we have of food grown and raised in our own backyard. did you know

In the upper Midwest, we are the foundation of food choices. I am not advocating for any particular food choice. I am advocating for choice. It’s a beautiful freedom and luxury we have and a choice that billions globally never see. Rid yourself of mommy food guilt and relish in the choices you have to give you and your family the most nutritious, healthy and often easy food choices.