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I was planning to write a post today about how lovely my first Mothers Day was. It was lovely, spent with my two most favourite people in the world.

But. Oh yes, that's a big 'but'. I have just returned home from the supermarket, which is where my post on my lovely Mothers Day gets pushed to the side for the moment.

Here's what I want to talk (rant?) about today.

Fritz.

Whilst shopping today with my nine month old baby, the lady behind the deli asked me "would she like a piece of smiley?". I could have jumped the counter and slapped her. (I didn't). Smiley = Fritz. In fact, smiley is possibly worse than fritz, because this disgusting, processed emulsified pig bits are made to look half appealing to children by making it into a smiley face, hence, 'smiley'.

I did a quick search when I got home, astonished, that a stranger would offer my baby something that I cannot even class as food. Let me tell you what my search came up with.

Fritz, which is processed sandwich meat, can be made of ingredients such as soy meat extender (?) meats which MAY contain pork and beef, starch, soy protein, cereal, spices and sodium nitrate. They basically use up all the leftover crap, mush it all together and then stuff it into a synthetic casing (don't even get me started on sausages) and then market it at kids (whom we should be least feeding it to) and tell them it's good for them. Umm. No. Doesn't work on me.  Why in this day and age, when we know so much about healthy eating habits, and what we should and should not be eating, what we should try and feed our kids, are there still things like Fritz around? It comes back to something so simple, as Michael Pollan puts it "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants... Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science." It really is that simple.

I try my hardest every single day, to put wholesome, homemade nutritious food into my daughters and family's mouths. I read almost daily about nutrition and am so passionate about giving my daughter the best start in life - for me, it's not just 'food' but a way of living.



So, thank you lady at the Deli. Thank you for reminding me why I put blood sweat and tears, and time, and love, into my family's meals.

(Photos taken on Mothers Day. Eating real food.)