How to avoid the worst feeling when feeding your family.

written by

posted on

April 19, 2018

It’s one of the worst feelings when you plan, prepare, and serve a beautiful and nutritious home cooked meal for your family... and then no one eats it!

Last night I made roasted turnips, roasted asparagus with sheep rind-ripened cheese and garlic, boneless ham cooked in maple sugar and orange juice, and bone broth and rice noodle soup. Is your mouth watering?

My kids’ mouths were not watering.

Sure, my 5yo asked for seconds with his noodles (not the broth), my 4yo ate one bite of everything, and my 1yo ate lots of tiny bites of ham and turnips and broth. But, how are they not devouring this deliciousness!?

I don’t get too worked up about it. First, life happens sometimes. Second, I do not want to create any food-related trauma in my home. Third, I know that I’m doing all the right things to foster healthy food relationships for my kids – including them in food preparation (chopping, mixing, measuring, cooking), having them set the table, visiting farms that our food comes from, growing our own food, and more.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel awful when my family doesn’t eat my cooking. It’s really my problem, not theirs. It adds stress to my life.

In an effort to reduce my stress, I serve the ingredients for most snacks and lunches and at least one dinner per week.

Serving the ingredients means that I spend far less time preparing food. And, as long as I’m sourcing high quality, very tasty foods, I know my family is getting everything they need.

Some local ingredients and simple foods that I almost always keep stocked for quick, easy snacks and meals are:

Carrots
Apples
Hard boiled eggs
Fermented beets, carrots, and cabbage
Pickles
Beef stix
Drinkable yogurt or kefir
Hard cheese
Crispy nuts
Granola bars
Boneless ham (cooked and chilled)
Chicken (roasted and chilled)

Do you have any tricks for getting your family to love what you cook and eat it, too? I’d love to hear from you and get to know you better!

Opinion

Cooking

Ugh greenwashed labels. What does it take to get ___ on a label anyway?

Not a fan of the confusing, greenwashed labels in store? Yea, me too! And it's especially real for me, because I'm responsible for getting our labels approved with the "powers that be". Here's a little story with a big inside scoop... I made new labels for our bone broth a little while ago. It didn't go as smoothly as planned. Why? I put the little icons about our farming practices on them. They look like this: Yup, despite being 100% accurate and true, they were denied!! We're not allowed to put those statements on our food labels. So, I asked the USDA guy, "What would it take to get those claims on the labels, anyway?" The answer was kinda shocking. First off, there's some guidance on wording. Silly technicalities in my opinion. For example, you can't use the term "No Spray" but you can say "Produced without the use of synthetic pesticides." Or another example is that you can't say "No Routine Antibiotics or Vaccines" but you can say "Raised without routine use of antibiotics or vaccines." Second, the processor needs to update their documents to provide traceability. In other words, they need to document how they make sure the bones for our bone broth don't get mixed up with bones from other farms. I mean, this is pretty simple, especially with small batch foods like ours. But the documentation needs to be meticulous. Drafting it in government-approved language can be time consuming and/or costly. And lastly, once you get the wording and process right, you need proof. This was the real shocker for me: Want to know what proof would suffice for all the claims above? A 2-3 sentence affidavit (AKA a super short letter) signed by all farmers that supply us. That's it!? This lead me to a bunch of questions: What if a company submits a letter from one farmer but actually has other farmers that supply them, too? What if a company changes farmers? Will they submit new letters?What if a company's farmers change their practices in the future? Will they immediately update their labels?Are the "powers that be" checking on this? Is anyone checking on this?Is this why most farms and food facilities don't allow outside people coming in? It seems to me that, if a business isn't doing what the label says, the only way to find out is via a whistleblower. And the only way to make them stop is to take them to court. You know, like what's happening with Vital Farms and their pasture raised egg claim right now. It seems to me that, all that good natural stuff on labels - grass fed, pasture raised, antibiotic free, etc - doesn't mean it's true. Certifications are a little better, but the same kinda thing can be said about those, too. This is why, at Miller's, we choose to NOT sell in stores. No wholesale for us. In fact, we don't even have an on farm store. We only sell directly to our customers via our website. And, we choose to only get certified for what's required. This way, we can make our own natural standards. And, we can provide you will all the info and proof you need. Descriptions, photos, blog posts, test results, and more. So, what do you think? Should we do the affidavit thing to get claims on our bone broth labels? What proof do you need to feel confident in your food choices? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required - just start typing) or contact us 😊

Should I choose animal rennet or vegetable rennet in my natural cheese?

Let’s take a look at what rennet is and why it’s used in cheesemaking, compare the different types of animal and vegetable rennets, check out the labeling requirements for rennet, and consider the potential health consequences. Keeping all this in mind, Miller’s Bio Farm aims to produce the most nutrient-dense, natural, A2/A2 cheese we can and gives you all the info you need to make the choice that’s best for your body!

Is yolk color is no longer a great indicator of the egg's nutrition?

It used to be true that, if your egg yolks were darker in color, then the better the egg's nutrition. Conscious consumers of the past would look for that deep orange yolk and stray away from lighter yellow yolks. It's sad, but this simply isn't the case anymore. Here's why you can't trust cheap store-bought eggs with orange yolks and need to know your farmer instead.

How to avoid the worst feeling when feeding your family.

More from the blog

Ugh greenwashed labels. What does it take to get ___ on a label anyway?

Should I choose animal rennet or vegetable rennet in my natural cheese?

Is yolk color is no longer a great indicator of the egg's nutrition?

Do

Learn

Uphold

Connect

Miller's Bio Farm, 523 Valley Road, Quarryville, PA 17566