My friend can’t figure out what happened.
She practically raised her son on Happy Meals. And now at 30, he is mixing spinach into his protein shakes.
Of course, she’s secretly thrilled to finally see her kid eat his veggies. She eats healthier, too, these days. But like most of us, she’s found it more challenging to prepare meals that meet the picky preferences of her houseguests.
Kathi joked about stuffing her son’s Christmas stocking with protein bars — until he informed her that most are loaded with sugar.
Making dinner can turn into a research project. Or a food fight, depending on the company you mix.
A young woman I know from Spain contacted me in a panic shortly after arriving in Illinois, where she planned to study at a university for a year. She had been matched with a vegan roommate who refused to share pots and pans that had been used to cook meat. The Spanish woman moved out when it became clear that they would not be able to work out the kitchen arrangement.
While most of us remain open to trying new foods, we struggle with change when it comes to traditional family meals, especially around the holidays. I enjoy a complex relationship with black olives because they evoke childhood memories. (Mostly good, compared with their evil twin, green olives.)
My Italian grandmother used to cook a wonderful breaded meat recipe, homemade ravioli and “Grandma buns” that stir memories of raucous meals with the cousins.
One of those cousins, Scott, would eat very little at her table today.
A 16-year vegan, he shuns meat, dairy, eggs and wheat, as well as sugar or anything with dyes, gluten, chemicals or preservatives. He makes an exception for butter, and has become good at adapting recipes with alternative ingredients, such as tofu.
“I do this not only for health reasons but also because I do not want to be responsible for the death of animals,” he explains. “It is very difficult to eat at anyone’s house because they cannot understand what I do not eat.”
After he was in a car accident a few years ago, I attempted to buy him groceries. After trips to three stores, I was able to track down everything on his list. Barely.
Today it is easier for him to shop, as supermarkets catch up with the growing interest in substitutes for animal-based foods.
Yet, when the family gets together, my cousin usually brings his own. My aunt, who rejects genetically modified foods, says that she has developed a mean mushroom sauce for pasta that comes close to mimicking grandma’s finest.
I count myself among the increasingly picky eaters, avoiding red meat and pork, which apparently makes me a “flexitarian,” a word that was new to me. The description seems to apply to anyone who has cut back on meat.
I went this route about halfway into a beef burrito one day. I looked at it, and I was just done. I went cold turkey, so to speak.
Before that, I bought our family’s meat from the back of a truck behind a nail salon. While it sounds like an illicit operation, this was actually one of the delivery stops for an Iowa farmer who delivers grass-fed beef to the Chicago suburbs.
There was always a line at 8 a.m. Saturday mornings, testimony to an increasingly educated public — as well as our collective wealth as consumers with choices.
That doesn’t make the job of hostess any easier, though.
None of us wants our guests to wind up in the emergency room from allergies or a gluten intolerance.
But even trickier is trying to avoid arguments over the politics and ethics of diet.
Enjoying that succulent roast beef? Let me tell you about factory farming.
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And how about that decadent dark chocolate? Did it come from a country with human rights abuses?
My 19-year-old no longer drinks milk because he “can’t shake the idea that it’s fat suspended in water.”
The same kid still enjoys Taco Bell. Go figure.
The only safe meal for guests is a Spartan feast of bread and water.
Make that gluten-free bread with sparkling water from a non-BPA bottle.