I almost didn’t do this video.
I honestly thought it would be too wacky and out of the box for some readers to handle.
My change of heart occurred when one of my children said, “Mom, you HAVE to do that video”.
Out of the mouths of babes.
So here I am posting a video about the best trick I know for teaching your kids about the dangers of fast food and hopefully keeping them far far away from it forever – even once they are out of the house and making their own decisions.
While this trick won’t work for older children, if your kids are still quite young, it should work well.  My three kids want absolutely nothing to do with fast food and that includes my teenager who has more freedom away from his parents and has the opportunity to indulge if he chose to.
So here it is.   What do you think? Too wacky or totally on target?
Mom Versus Fast Food (Mom Wins)
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Great video……now one to teach grown men in their early 40’s that fast food is crap would be great!
He doesn’t buy into it so it’s hard to keep our son away from it. At 19 months he already like Fries…. ;-(
Yep! THAT’S the video I want to watch!
“Super Size Me” is for the men! 🙂 Good Luck!!
Thanks Sarah, although my 14 month old is not yet asking for fast food, I have been dreading the day that she does. Thanks to your (not wacky at all) video, I have a great tool for when she does.
Hm, I don’t know. I hope that you follow up as they get older and they start to see their friends eating at these places and the temptation to just try it is strong WHY it belongs in the trash. I have explained to my kids from early on why we don’t frequent these places (we will do Chick FilA on occasion but that is it). The young ones hear “This kind of food has stuff that gives you owies and can make you sick” while the older ones hear more details. My 8 yo will not even drink non organic milk because she tells you that it contains medicines that they gave the cows that we now get into our bodies. THAT is working with her as I explain in detail. She won’t drink non organic apple juice either because of high arsenic levels and she can tell you why.
I understand the concept, and I do believe it will work. But, I just can’t get past the waste of money. I wonder if it would be just as effective to pass up the fast food places as a rule of life practice in your home. If they never develop the “taste” for fast food and the accompanying toys, then perhaps this strategy would not even be necessary. However, I could see its profit for children who have already been duped into the system at some point, perhaps by other well-meaning family members.
Talk is not enough. You have to show them with a shocking, never to be forgotten visual. Throwing food that you just paid money for in the trash is a never to be forgotten memory. They will be slow to waste their money on garbage food when they are older and the choice is their own.
I get what you’re doing, but saying that “talk is not enough” is a pretty sweeping statement. We have three daughters that are 19, 15, and 9. They have never eaten fast food either and I would certainly not buy anything from McDonalds, especially a plastic toy that is produced with fossil fuels under poor labor practices. It’s not a judgement, I think we all have to do what works for us, but there are other ways.
Our children grew up knowing our farmers and their food. Our farmers talked to them about the differences with how their animals were raised and what Farmer Conventional down the road was doing. When we sit down to eat, we always talked about the animal and farmers that were part of our meal. Even today, when my kids bite into their food, they will compliment the flavor and immediately ask who grew it/raised it.
Our kids have all been competitive athletes so we’ve had to travel a great deal with groups of kids to tournaments and various other competitions. While the other parents are eating the hotel bagels and fast food lunches, we’re eating our food packed in coolers or stewing away in our hotel slow cooker. My kids have never expressed a desire to go eat at the fast food place with their friends, they wouldn’t want to eat that “sick food”, preferring to socialize when the meal is over.
Anyway, I think you’re great. I like everything you do and if this worked for you, then it’s a ‘win’! I just think there’s many ways to accomplish this effect that don’t involve giving the junk peddlers a dime.
Tara,
I like your idea of taking the slow cooker to the hotel! That’s something I haven’t done yet but can see it would be very useful when traveling. I wonder what the easiest hotel meals would be and the best ways to pack the ingredients to go (frozen, etc.)
Thanks for the food for thought.
Sarah – Love this idea! Three dollars is a tiny price to pay for a life lesson.
We’ve done the slow cooker thing (just make sure to put the “Do Not Disturb” tag on the door- which we do anyway to avoid as many toxic chemicals during our stay) and we also take a toaster oven sometimes. 🙂 It’s super convenient to heat up grain-free muffins or leftovers so you can avoid the microwave. I also remember to take herbal tea so that we can use the coffee maker in the room for hot water (or run down to the lobby).
I also make sure to bring several extra bags (like gallon ziplocs) to put ice in to refresh the cooler. Sometimes hotel rooms will have large refrigerators, but we just went to a conference this past weekend and the fridge was so tiny we couldn’t find it at first! NO JOKE! 🙂 It was in a cabinet and I couldn’t even fit ONE half gallon jar in it. So, the cooler got a LOT of use! 🙂
I agree with Amy, we also assume that the fridge will be puny so we pack bags for lots of ice refreshing. I usually cook a couple of meat loafs and/or burgers, sausage, hard boiled eggs and raw eggs (to make shakes with raw milk and berries in teh magic bullet) fermented veggies, bone broth, cans of wild sardines, avocados, and mammoth quantities of roasted, mixed veggies. Oh, and we bring raw milk, homemade yogurt and kefir, and some fruit. For dried stuff, I mix crispy nuts with our own dried fruit. That pretty much covers it. We eat that for all meals and with fermented veggies, we never feel like we’re missing that raw veggie crunch. I also travel with coconut oil, good salt, and a vat of raw butter and/or ghee.
Thanks for the great hotel food ideas!
Oh my goodness Tara, you don’t travel light! 🙂
We take the slow cooker to the hotel too… we bring our entire meals with us frozen ahead of time and leave it in our huge cooler in the car. We also bring our juicer and vitamix (for morning smoothies). It works great and the only drawback is doing the dishes in the sink of the hotel (bring dish soap too)… crock pots don’t fit in well 🙂 We also bring paper plates and such b/c it’s so much easier. It makes life easier knowing you have all the good food you need and you don’t need to frantically try to find something that isn’t even going to be healthy and is way over priced.
Mine neither request nor like fast food (ages 3 & 5) and aren’t actually aware that there are toys. At some point in the elementary school future, they may be introduced to it and persuaded by peers to think it’s great. Do you recommend this trick as a preventative measure for the possibility of future fast food encounters? Because right now, we are a-ok, and I certainly don’t want them to know there are toys!!
Yes, I recommend this as a preventative measure. My kids were the same as yours. I wanted to be proactive and introduce them to the topic of fast food myself without waiting for their peers to do it in a positive light.
Kind of like talking to your kids about the dangers of drugs before they inevitably encounter it themselves.
Did your kids ever ask for the toys after they realized that you can get them at a fast food drive-thru? Or were they just generally disinterested?
I couldn’t eat fast food for a year after watching Super Size Me…and I guess I’m fortunate that my daughter’s many allergies will keep her from ever being able to eat a Happy Meal – but any tips on lessening its appeal are always welcome!
Yes, my kids wanted the toys until they were 4-5 or so. I would only get the toy on occasion. It’s not like it was a regular habit. It’s also a good way to teach balance to our children and how you don’t have to have an extreme off the grid type lifestyle or worldview to be healthy and live in the modern age.
I have offered my kids similar toys from Target and explained that the fast food ones are cheap and will break. It works. I have never ever bought them a happy meal or even set foot in McDs with them. My oldest is 8. I have never heard her ask for a toy from there either. She knows that if her friends are meeting at McDs after a playdate that we go elsewhere because “we don’t eat that kind of food”. And I spent no money on fast food to teach this.
Personally, I feel the toys are total crap, too, so this approach wouldn’t work for me. I think if my kids asked for fast food and I didn’t want them eating it, I would just be honest with them and say so. However, the visual of tossing the “happy” meal into the garbage certainly looks like it would be a good lesson for some kids.
do you have a direct link to the video? My computer isn’t showing it.
You can go to youtube and click to The Healthy Home Economist channel.
LOVE THIS!!
I taught my daughters the word “toxic” at a very young age. They know that fast food and the candy in the line at the grocery store is “toxic”. lol
it always makes me so proud when they use that word : )
Great video!!!
Hi Sarah! Totally get your message, but I don’t think I would even waste my time on buying some plastic crap toy. I have been pretty successful by not taking my kids to fast food, and then sharing information, such as videos, on what is in fast food…or how they really make those chicken nuggets…yuck!!!! If you just don’t start, then I don’t think you need to do your extra steps, just always have a line of communication going on about fast foods…etc. Kudos to you for finding what worked for your family though! 🙂 I totally enjoy all your information, thank you for helping keep families informed so we can make the best choices for our family!!!!
Yes, I know some folks don’t advocate plastic toys for children. I have plenty of natural material toys in my house and do think that is important. An occasional plastic toy is fine though in my view. I’m not going to get extreme about it and throw the TV out and never take my kids to a movie where they are going to want the character based toy. I’ve seen that approach backfire big time.
I loved it!!! This is what I needed not just my kids. I have it tattooed in my brain to not waste any food and money so watching this woke me up. Im doing it this weekend with my 2 and 3 year old. I don’t want them to believe like me that food is food, some of it, in the trash, specially in these times of consumption.
I want to teach them this, that it is ok to throw food away, my husband is like that, when he can’t have access to good food, he fasts. He won’t put a crappy cafeteria sandwich in his body!!!
Thanks to your kids for forcing you to do this video!!! I needed to see this!!!