We all Love Deserts (especially chocolate)

The last few weeks have seen the children tucking into their rice, quinoa and potatoes with gusto. They have been snacking on a variety of fruit. Also popular is anything with chocolate: chocolate smoothies, chocolate pudding, buckwheaties with chocolate milk (seed or nut milk of course.). They also like desserts. I did a nice one the other night. Banana and lucuma custard pie. Getting anything salady down the kids is a non starter at the moment though. I'm getting a lot of requests for crisps and bombay mix, plus we've had visitors bearing chocolate biscuits too recently. The result is that the children's diet is on the slide - downhill.

I feel I've got a couple of options. Either put my foot down and create a lot of bad feeling, which I think will get me nowhere and likely backfire, or relax for a while and try not to make an issue out of it. I want to get the children to see raw food as a treat, not something that has been imposed on them. They, like many other children I'm sure, have been conditioned in the past to see junk food as aspirational food. It tastes good to them. (Even though that "taste" has been artificially created in a lab.) So I guess they need to see raw food as aspirational instead. This means giving them healthy food they like the taste of. Lettuce is no match on the taste stakes compared to MSG laden junk.

It would be really nice to have a constant supply of cheery news and fill my blog with happy stuff but the raw food journey is always a bit up and down and that certainly applies here. It can be very frustrating.

Sometimes I feel my kids aren't eating that healthily at all (and I do give them supplements to try and make up for it). I'd love them to tuck into loads of greens, and occasionally they do, but it isn't that often. I try not to get too depressed about it but I'm that way inclined and so I take their reluctance a bit personally sometimes, which doesn't help. I can't seem to see the wood for the trees as it were. Taking a step back to assess the situation is hard, when you're surrounded by a constant flood of requests and little time for yourself. The responsibility of it all can feel quite overwhelming sometimes. To all those parents out there that have no idea of a healthy diet, I can't help thinking that ignorance is bliss!

We went to Bristol Vegan Fayre on Saturday. The children enjoyed some fresh juice and smoothies from the juice bar and Cameron tucked into a cabbage roll up we bought at one of the stalls (which surprised me a bit I must say). I've tried to reproduce the said cabbage roll up. I thought I did a pretty good job, but Cameron wouldn't touch it! Mummy's food seems to have a bad reputation. (Unless it's a dessert that is.)

Banana and Lucuma Custard Pie

Base:

1 cup nuts
1 cup raisins
1 dessert spoon raw chocolate powder
A few drops of water.

Topping:
2 bananas

Custard:
2 bananas
2 dessert spoons lucuma powder
1 Tablespoon spoon agave or honey
A few drops vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons water (or more) to mix.

Base:
Grind up nuts in a food processor then add chocolate powder.
Add raisins and process until thoroughly mixed.
Add a small amount of water until the mixture sticks together in a ball.
Push into the bottom of a pie dish.

Topping:
Slice the bananas thinly  and arrange over the base

Custard:
Blend ingredients together and pour over the banana topping.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours. The custard will "set".