Me vs. food

Earmuffs y'all, I'm about to curse.

But Desiree, you kind of curse a lot.

Yes I'm aware of that, and one day I'll do something about it.  But today is not that day, because it's 11 o'clock at night, my kid is sleeping, I should be sleeping, but I can't because I'm scouring the internet for natural food dyes for birthday cakes and it's pissing me off.

But let me back up.

This story starts way back.  Nearly five years ago - hold up, wait.  Almost exactly five years ago - daaaamn!  I've been with Drew for five years!  March 28, 2008 - craaazy!  How in the world do I remember that date but I can't remember what I need when I walk into the bedroom...  Oh yeah, because I'm old.  ANYWAY...

Read this post to catch up.  If you don't feel like it, the gist is, food and me?  We're not friends, unless it was mac n cheese, or something else in a box or bag that all I had to do was add water and it was ready to eat in less than ten minutes.

But then I met Drew.  The foodie who recoiled in horror at my eating habits.  The wine lover who could smell buttered popcorn in a glass of Chardonnay (for the record, I still can't.)  After he woke up from his dead faint when he saw my pantry, he turned me away from eating things out of boxes.  I never ate a brussels sprout until I met him and now I love them.  It's been a slow journey and I didn't necessarily enjoy the ride but I haven't had a box of noodles in almost four years.  

Fast forward to about six months ago, and something changed.  I had my lightbulb, a-ha moment.  Food was no longer my enemy, but it wasn't quite yet my friend.  Right here is where I insert some witty analogy about the popular kid and sitting at the lunch table, and there's an ex-boyfriend in there somewhere, along with a penguin.  

What?

But seriously, I started to take interest in food.  I saw Jamie Oliver puree and fry those chicken bones and I was grossed out, vowing never to eat a chicken nugget again.  I saw Super Size Me and McDonald's was off the list.  I stopped eating processed foods and started reading labels.  

Then I had a kid and shit got real.  My baby was precious and perfect and if I could keep her healthier by simply feeding her certain foods, then that's what the hell I was going to do.  Additionally, I didn't want her going into puberty at age five and if there was any way under the sun I could do something to keep her from having the reproductive issues that I've had, well then, I'm sold.

*Of course, there's no way to tell if my diet has anything to do with my miscarriages, but if there's anything I can do to make my child's life better, I'm for it.*

Anyway, that's when we started eating organic.  I started reading every flippin label when we went to the store and it started pissing me off because all the things I used to eat had ingredient lists a mile long and all the words I could understand were bad ones.  Preservatives.  Carcinogens.  Additives.  Chemicals.  Toxins.  So I started cooking.  A lot.  I make more shit from scratch than I ever thought I would and the list grows every day, because every effin day I read about something else that'll give you cancer and make you grow a third arm out of your forehead.  

You know what?  That shit pisses me off.

These are homemade tortillas.  You know why?

The tortillas I used to buy have 12,000 ingredients in them and the ingredients

I do recognize are because they cause cancer.

So now I have to make my own tortillas, and you know what's worse?

They taste better than store tortillas so I'm going to have to

keep making my own tortillas.

You think I want to make my own tortillas?  No I Do Not.  I would rather someone else make them for me.  But the ones I make have three ingredients:  Flour, oil and water.  All shit I recognize.  You know if I wanted to have some 'organic' tortillas from the store with the same three ingredients?  That shit would cost me like $15 a package.  And that pisses me off.

PLUS!  Organic shit tastes better, and once you've had real food, all that processed un-fresh crap food tastes like, well, crap.  That pisses me off too!

We hardly every eat out anymore, because the food we make at home is better.

Brussels sprouts skillet pizza - all organic and tastes like heaven on a plate.

Pisses me off.

'Fried' rice.  Tastes better than any Chinese food you can get here in Reading.

I'm mad about it.

I meal plan now.  We pretty much only shop at the farmer's market.  One day, I tried to introduce Sofia to potty training and it was so stressful and my day was so shot that I didn't have the chance to make dinner and ordered Domino's.  Do you have any idea how distraught I was?  And how upset I was that I was feeding my kid that cardboard chemical garbage?

Who the hell am I?

And it's worse.  I haven't even gotten to the really bad part yet.

This food transformation has infiltrated my sweets y'all.  It's serious.

Sofia's birthday party is this Saturday and once again, I'm making her cake.  You'd think I'd learned from last year, but nope.  I haven't, and to make matters worse, I can't use food coloring on her cake.

Have you ever seen cancer look so pretty?

I'm not even going to link to any of the articles because the shit depresses me.  Just google any combination of the words 'food coloring', 'danger', 'children' and you'll find more than you ever wanted to know about just how bad food coloring is for kids.  And it pisses me off, because my newfound devotion to real foods is fucking with my cake.  

It was fine when you're talking about veggies - we need veggies in our life.  Fruits?  Absolutely! Healthy snacks?  Pin that shit!  Cake?  

I'mSorryWhatNow?  HoldUpWaitJustADamnMinute. OHELLNaw!  Not My Cake!!

Sofia is having a Yo Gabba Gabba birthday party.  The characters are rainbow colored.  That means she NEEDS a rainbow cake.

Like this one.

source

Or this

source

Or, how about a Gabba birthday tutu cake?  Die.

source

I looked at all those pictures, and I was like no problem.  I'll make my own rainbow cake and use natural dyes.  I got this!  Except,

It's not as bright and rainbow-y!

*sad clown*

source

I tried to tell myself that one time, one day of food coloring won't kill her.  I tried to tell myself that I'll make a batch of all-natural cupcakes and frost them without coloring so the parents who don't want their kids to have food coloring will have an option.  But then I was like, hold up.  How can I give my own kid food coloring in good conscience when I know how bad it is?  How can I do that to someone else's kid?  I sent sugary treats to Sofia's school for Valentine's Day and was wracked with guilt about it for days.  Again I ask, who am I?

This morning, I did a test run.  I made a cake with natural food dyes.  

Beets for red and pink, spinach for green.

Red cabbage for blue.  Do I look like Magritte?

I used tumeric for yellow and carrot juice for orange.

I boiled everything and poured off the water.  

I was so encouraged!  This might actually work!

Until I put that shit in my cake mixes.

Blah. Boring.  LAME.

I was trying to do the rainbow swirl like the first picture.

Yeah, um, NO.

Not even a little bit.

The good news is the beets, spinach, tumeric, etc. didn't affect the flavor of the cake at all.  The bad news is, there was no color other than the tumeric!  Even though the batter was slightly colored, it must have baked out or something because there was nothing but bright yellow splotches in the cake and the texture was drier than I expected.  I was so pissed and I dumped that whole cake in the trash.

So, I'm up at midnight, fuming.  I want a rainbow cake but apparently you have to have a juicer to get the vibrant colors, you can't just boil the water and use that.  You need the actual vegetable, but guess what?  I don't have a juicer!  I'm going to try again with my food processor tomorrow but I have a feeling it's not the same thing and I'm really not trying to have spinach and beet pieces in my kid's birthday cake.  I'm not that far gone.

Straight up, I wish I could un-know this shit about food coloring.  Actually, some days I wish I could un-know all of it.  Those days of Pasta Roni and Kraft mac n cheese were simpler times.  But nope, all that information is in my brain and if I gave my daughter a rainbow cake, there'd be  no silencing the alarm bells in my head going Cancer! ADHD! Possible endocrine disruptors! And worst of all, Bad Mother!!!!

I'm really torn and this is such a first world problem and I so get that.  There are so many people who can't afford to feed their kids organic, fresh, un-processed blah blah blah and here I am bitching about a birthday cake.  Trust me, I count my blessings daily.  And when we eat out, I do my best to keep my mouth shut about the chemicals and toxins and grossness.  And I really wish McDonald's and Arby's and Burger King and Chick Fil A weren't so full of bad shit because I reallllly like Chick Fil A.  The others I can do without, but it hurts my heart not to eat Chick Fil A.  And you know what, sometimes I cave and get it and it tastes sooooo good and I feel sooooo guilty afterwards.  Especially when I order nuggets for Sofia, and especially when she practically inhales them.  

And I'm probably going to end up making a white cake with white icing from stupid organic flour and stupid grass-fed butter and dumb evaporated cane juice instead of white sugar and lame organic eggs and it'll taste just fine.  But I'll be longing for a rainbow cake the whole time, and this entire post is just me, having a tantrum about that.

Woosaaaa

Farewell, you delicious, beautiful

toxic,cancerous

beauty, you.

I'll miss you madly.