Eat Like Children

In the Bible, Paul said that when he grew up and became an adult, he put away childish things. I get the point; we all need to mature, but what about kid food? Kid food in Paul’s day was probably pretty bland. I haven’t done a whole lot of archeology to back it up, but think about the kid Andrew brought to Jesus. Jesus took a boy’s lunch of loaves and fish and fed thousands. If Jesus took my daughter’s lunch the multitude would have been fed with tiny slices of turkey and cheese from a Luncheable, an Oreo cookie, and would have washed it down with a juice box. It just seems like food is more fun now than in Bible times, and that we have forgotten how fun food can be.

I have matured in my eating. The older you get it seems like you are really encouraged to eat fiber. Oak trees contain fiber. I know a lot of adults that as they get older they drink fiber supplements that smell like tree bark. But fiber is mature food, not very fun.

The great thing about having children is that all the fun kid foods you once loved, and have forgotten about, come back into your home. It is a happy time, like your favorite band on a reunion tour. Before my daughter grew teeth we bought some applesauce. I haven’t eaten applesauce since elementary school. I haven’t even thought about applesauce since Duran Duran. Apples are O.K., but puréed with lots of sugar and cinnamon, apples become fabulous. I knocked off several jars of applesauce rather quickly. Very quickly I found out that applesauce is a good source of fiber.

It wasn’t long after applesauce that I was reunited with graham crackers. Whoever invented the perforated cracker is genius. You can’t eat a graham cracker without having a strong urge to break it into four perfectly perforated pieces. But it can’t be done, which makes me wonder about the purpose of graham cracker perforation. That’s the sort of thing that drives adults nuts. Nuts are a good source of fiber. I didn’t stay with graham crackers very long. Way too stressful.

I once loved Capri Sun, but twenty years later I realize Capri Sun is not very good. Why do kids love Capri Sun? Capri Sun is so small, and much like graham crackers, very stressful. There is so much pressure to puncture the Capri Sun bag in just the right spot. They provide you with a spiked straw which is glued onto the back of the bag, which is nice. But when you finally spike the pre-punched spot you are almost always sprayed with Capri Sun. After you are sprayed, about a third of the Capri Sun is gone. I have grown out of Capri Sun.

If you want a good kid juice in a bag you must go with Fla-Vor Ice. A shot of frozen flavored sugar syrup, there is not an adult on the planet that won’t suck as hard s they can to get that last bit of syrup to stream up the sides of the plastic and into your mouth. I would have done so much better in college if I had sucked down a crate or two of Fla-Vor Ice. Fla-Vor Ice is a great stress reliever.

This week my childhood memories were stimulated by an ice cream push up bar reunion. To an adult a pushup is an intense, agonizing, body press – repetitive – horrible. Girls do pushups on their knees, so do guys, when girls are not looking. But for a kid a push up is ice cream on a pedestal; which is exactly the right place for ice cream – “pedestalized.” Put an adult on a pedestal and you will be disappointed. Put ice cream on a pedestal and you will be delighted. For the next couple of weeks I will push up ice cream. Probably to the point that I will be forced into repetitive body lifts and tree bark supplements to help counteract the impact of so much ice cream on my colon.

The same could be said for Jell-O (red), Pudding Pops (chocolate), Lucky Charms, and Nutty Buttys. Hail to gummies, tiny boxes of raisins, and gold fish crackers. At some point we are forced to grow up, or at least grow old, to become men and women. But Paul never drank Kool-Aid, so don’t blame the Bible for adulthood. Tonight, be an adult and watch the news – with a Dilly Bar. Tomorrow morning it is back to tree bark, you need the fiber.