Chocolate makes you fat.
Is this fried? Fried stuff isn't good for you.
Does this have sugar in it? Sugar is bad.
Will this make me stronger?
Suddenly my six-year old is a health nut. I blame his school. Clearly they are teaching him good eating habits, which in turn has him questioning every morsel of food that comes near him.
I should be thankful, of course. Good eating habits are certainly a good thing to be learning and school, and clearly, my son is taking this lesson to heart. He thinks about - and talks about - it all the time.
And if I were a healthy person, I would probably appreciate it more. But as it is, I come from a good Southern family who likes to batter everything and then throw it in the deep fry. I'm also partial to adding bacon grease to just about everything. And my sweet tea, well let's just say there's a little bit of tea mixed in with all that sugar.
So Connor has suddenly become the food police. It started out with odd, unconnected questions and statements. But the truth hit me the other night as we sat around the table eating dinner.
What were we having, you ask?
Fried pork chops, batter dipped with egg and flour and cooked in (canola at least) oil. Fried potatoes with onion cooked in (let's be honest) bacon grease. Green beans with country ham, onions and, yes, more bacon grease. And a little bit of that sweet tea.
Healthy, no?
The kid questioned every single bite. He told me I should have baked the pork chops - no oil. Then he told me that baked potatoes would have been better for us, too. And he doesn't really like green beans, so he didn't have any bright ideas for them. But the tea he didn't complain about. He likes it just the way it is, though he did ask about the sugar and then commented that it certainly wouldn't make him stronger. Not that he was asking for white milk, you understand, because he doesn't really like that anymore.
Of course, none of his comments stopped him from actually eating that night. He had two pork chops and two helpings of fried potatoes. And I don't even remember how much tea he drank. But he told me all about it, around each bite.
And he does so every time we eat. Even when we're eating out, at some of his favorite places. Yes, he's telling me how bad things are even as he takes yet another bite of something bad - like chicken fingers (fried, in oil), french fries (fried, in oil), Coke (way too much sugar), ice cream (chocolate makes you fat).
Perhaps I should offer him a nice, big salad next time. You know, while the rest of us enjoy our Southern fried foods. Think he'd go for that?
And I certainly won't tell him about the double-chocolate Klondike ice cream I'm eating right now. He wouldn't be interested in something like that, I'm sure.
