Dear Congress, You guys are dumbasses! Sincerely, Me

So it appears it takes an act of Congress to get me to write a post these days. No, this blog post was not tucked into a highway bill and it was not sponsored by any major corporation! No lobbying was done on my behalf.

It’s this whole pizza sauce as a vegetable thing – yes I realize it’s not a new rule. It’s been part of the nutritional guidelines all along but dammit, this would have been the time to change it. Revamp the guidelines into something that helps our kids, not hurts them.

No, I don’t expect the government to be in charge of feeding our  kids but I do expect some sort of accountability to them. Accountability to the health and well-being of the future generations.

I DO NOT expect them to sell out to ConAgra and Sysco and other makers of refined processed crap!

We are fortunate enough to be able to afford to put fresh fruits and veggies in our daughters’ lunches, but there are so many families who rely on free or reduced cost lunches to feed their children. What about them? What about their  nutritional needs? Do they not deserve high value foods just because they can’t afford to supply it themselves?

This is not about big government reaching into our families, or telling us what to eat, it is about COMMON SENSE!

The CDC estimates about 17 percent — or 12.5 million — of children between the ages of 2 and 19 are obese. But it’s not only about obesity. It’s about what we put in our children’s bodies.

For me, it’s also about trying to make sure that they don’t end up like me. No I’m not saying my cancer came from processed foods. My mom was a good cook who made almost every meal from scratch but the fact remains, I don’t know where it came from.

There is no certainty but I do know for sure that when I read the ingredients on packaged processed foods, most of them are chemically based. They are preservatives and additives and fake colors. They’re chemicals my chemist husband advises against ingesting.

It’s about improving the odds, decreasing the number of carcinogens we feed our children and trying like hell of protect them. Because of my drugs, anytime I eat something processed, my body says “NO, get this out of me!”  It recognizes that this is not anything I should be ingesting. I can tell which restaurants in town use fresh ingredients. It’s that simple. My children rejected school lunches years ago because every time they tried them, they felt sick afterwards. Again, it’s that simple. Our bodies know.

Yes, even the fresh stuff can have bad things in them – wash your apples people – but if we’re going to play the odds, I’d rather do it with an apple than tomato paste. There has to be a connection. There are so more people, from my perspective, who have cancer than they did when I was young. So many more parents leaving their kids or watching them go through treatment.

THERE IS A CONNECTION! It needs to be recognized. I’m not saying if you feed your children a frozen pizza from time to time you’re giving them cancer. Please don’t think I am. I do it too. Those $5 hot and ready pizzas are so appealing on busy days. But it’s about balance. It’s about not encouraging the substitution of chemicals for real food as congress had done.

It’s about not sacrificing the health of our children for special interests!

At some point, if they’re going to encourage feeding our children crap, screw the environment and the air they breathe, and only look out for their pocket books, politicians needs to be held accountable. Not because government should tell us what to do but because they are the ones with the power to change the guidelines. They are the ones we elect to make decisions on our behalf. OUR behalf, not the lobbyists.

Today I’m saying you screwed up! The welfare of our children was in front of you and you chose to ignore it, to give into millions of lobbying dollars. Most of you leave office as millionaires because you give in more often than not.

Congress, you guys suck!!