food memories - nutritious associations

Food creates huge bonds and memories for me.  Tim and I go to hockey games frequently and when we started going we would often get nachos (nothing tastes quite like stadium nachos).  We've adjusted our budget and adjusted our diets and now the sight of that neon-orange glue that they call cheese makes me feel a little queasy.  My tummy is thankful that we don't often have stadium nachos.  But there is still a part of me that craves them between every first and second period of a hockey game.  It's a firm association - just a memory built around the sense of taste.

Watch - now that I'm blogging about it, I'll probably end up buying nachos this Friday.  Just great! :-p

But there are other food memories too.  Good food memories.  Right now I am getting ready to go and meet a friend's new baby.  It's making me think back the almost seven months to when my little one was born and I'm remember the sights and smells and sounds of the hospital experience.  I'm reliving the taste too, which is why for breakfast I'm having lime jello and beef broth.  Gross, right?  I had a c-section for Little Miss's delivery, and I ate a TON of jello while anxiously waiting for labor to start.  And the first food I was able to have as I was recovering post-surgery was beef broth.  I had also been on a low-sodium diet for most of my pregnancy, so I think that snap of salt and the warm liquid was exactly what I needed.  So now, anytime I am feeling nostalgic about Sophie's birth, I have some beef broth.

All of this to say - food memories can be good - they don't have to be indulgences.  I'm looking to build a family diet where we eat healthy, fresh, flavorful food around important events in our life, or repeated events, so that we come to crave those foods.  I've started making a chicken caesar wrap for dinner and bringing it with us to eat in the parking lot before a hockey game.  I want our birthday parties and holidays to have fresh fruits and veggies as part of the memory - and maybe just a few cookies or desserts.  I think that special food for special times makes sense, but if it's always junk food then that is what we will crave when we look to create those special feelings.  It's something that I want to continue to improve for us as much as possible.