Lesson in Nutrition
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(for Alessia) “We’ll stop by at 10 tomorrow morning, and we’ll stay for lunch.” They said. Thrilled at the thought of a visit from my granddaughters, I chased around the next morning trying to put something together to feed them. Slighly panic stricken, I asked my husband to pick up muffins and seedless grapes to go with the vegetable soup I'd prepared; cheese, apples and bananas then completed the meal. That ought to do it. I thought. I had no sooner organized it when they were at the door. “No need to have fussed, Nana – I brought my own food.” Said my well-put-together healthy looking granddaughter, as she opened her bag of goodies. Meanwhile, her sister, more casual and much more relaxed, looked on with a smile.“What you have prepared is fine” She added, with love, a look of pride and a tiny hint of arrogance in her voice. And that was when the lesson began . . . She outlined the nutritional value of each item I had put on the table, then went on to enumerate the important ingredients in the concoction she had prepared, describing the vitamin content and benefits to our bodies and the importance of protein and calcium in our diet. I was very impressed and listened with great interest; her stew looked like healthy fare indeed, and it was almost with a guilty feeling that I ate my soup and bit into a muffin. A thousand years ago when my kids were little, Saturday mornings turned into a cooking frenzy: I baked bread, pies and cakes; chocolate chip cookies were the domain of my daughter who baked and ate them as they came out of the oven! With impeccable timing, the boy next door would show up as I was pouring cake batter into the tins - just in time to lick the beaters and scrape the bowl! It was indeed a busy day as I went from baking, to stirring soups, to preparing pot roasts, casseroles or meat loaves for the weekend; by Sunday night it had been completely eaten and there was nothing left! This routine went on for years; my kids grew big and strong and I felt satisfied that I had done a good job. Until now. . . . We understand so much better today the importance of a healthy diet and exercise; my granddaughter’s demonstration and ideas were not lost on me but I have always said, and continue to say, let’s not go overboard, there should be moderation in all things: In what you eat, in what you drink and how much you exercise. My granddaughter learned this lesson the hard way: wanting to lose weight, she starved herself, depriving her body of important nutrients, and exercised till she dropped. She eventually went in search of books and information on the importance of good nutrition when, having collapsed, she found herself in front of her doctor suffering from malnutrition and anaemia. This is now her main topic of interest; she hopes to become a nutritionist in order to prevent others from making the same mistakes. Meanwhile I will no doubt continue to eat soup with perhaps too much salt and muffins with perhaps too much sugar but I am now more aware and will try my best to live up to my granddaughter’s lesson. Oh, and by the way, I did invite her to come by any time . . . while insisting she bring her own food of course.
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