My New Year's Resolution(s)

Happy New Year!  Did we all make New Year's Resolutions?  I have never been a big fan of these and have yet to make one in all my living years.  We all make plans of course, a new year is such a goodtime to be hopeful of change, in all areas of our lives or just one area.  Hope is good.

This year I hope for simple things.  Simple food things.  That my children will value the food on their plates, no matter what it is.  That I will buy food as is necessary - not because the demon of empty cupboards borne over from my childhood still haunts me.  I'm thinking of bringing back a simple karakia at mealtimes.  I think even if we don't go to Church on a regular basis, it is good to say the words out loud "we are thankful for this food".  My grandmother taught me that karakia.  I used to believe in whole foods, and slow cooking once upon a time.  I am bringing that back.  I choose not to hide behind my busy working life, hectic sporting schedules and exhaustion. I choose not to make excuses to keep takeaways and overprocessed foods in our lives.  The inner chef shall emerge this year.  Along with the inner gardener and the inner take my lunch to work everyday.

Yep.  For the last two years I have lived some sort of fantasy existence when it  comes to food.  I have been trying to maintain a lifestyle of well, I'm not sure really.  Buying what I want when I want.  Sushi for lunch three days a week, mochachinos daily, sometimes two or three a day!  MacDonaId's for the kids and I - because we can.  Shameless.  Who do I think I am?  I don't do my waistline any favours and thank goodness for that sporty lifestyle or my kids would balloon in size.  That is not a future any parent envisages for their children. 

I have psychoanalysed things a bit, because all good change comes from clear thinking and reflection I reckon.  And the results are not earth shattering. In my attempts to look like a successful, solo Mum, with a full-time job and the means (on paper at least) to live 'the good life' I have been a total food snob, a total money snob and other ridiculous stuff.  A sucker for perception.  I can't do it anymore.  I watched two programmes recently too that have cemented my decision to change.  One about the enormous amount of waste that the world's societies throw out in term's of food everyday, and two, the earth's ability to sustain our current and evergrowing populations, with the resources available.

We threw out so much good, edible food last year. Every single day in the modern world, food - good edible food, that could feed thousands and thousands of starving people is thrown away.  I cried, literally shameful tears at the thought of the wasteful person I have become and of the people that would happily eat the food I casually threw away, if only they could.  I thank God my grandmother is not alive, if she knew or saw any of that, I would get one of those back-in-the-day-it- was-okay hidings of a lifetime.  That will not happen this year.  And I can plant vegetables and be resourceful and teach my kids all those things my Grandmother taught me.  Simple food things. 

And the rewards shall be a longtime coming for my children and I, and far  reaching.  But I can feel it, they will be so worth it.