True Food: A Love Poem

By on July 3, 2009 in Food & Nutrition

As headlines swirl and climates whirl
And Wall Street finds its feet
There’s one refrain that doesn’t change
“Mommy, what’s there to eat?”

Well listen child, I’ll tell you what,
That’s no small query there.
Come over here, and sit right down,
In fact, pull up a chair.

Your question, dear one, though you ask,
With all good heart intended,
Is fraught with complications that
Aren’t often comprehended.

What we call ‘food’ is not the same
As what our grandmas ate.
Would she have had yellow 5 & 6
On her child’s dinner plate?

What about ‘acesulfame potassium’?
Can you pronounce that, love?
Did grandmother have a jar of that
In her cupboards up above?

What would she think of all these things
You children eat today?
Perhaps she’d bow her gentle head
And just begin to pray…..

But since she is no longer here,
It is up to you and me,
To be the ones who will inspire
Her “true food” legacy.

Perhaps as we begin this quest,
We might ‘cut the colors’ first?
Or try to avoid things we can’t pronounce?
Tell me, which do you think is worse?

You see, my little one, in our hands,
In our minds and in our hearts,
We have the ability to affect remarkable change
So, love, where should we start?

Written by Robyn O’Brien, July 3, 2009

Though your time is precious, I invite you to learn more about the Grandmother Theoryand “true food” in The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It.

 

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About robyn.obrien

I was raised in Houston, Texas on meat and potatoes, with a fair share of Doritos and Ding Dongs thrown in.

I was not a foodie.

My background is motherhood and finance.  I earned an MBA from Rice University on a full scholarship and graduated as the top woman in my class.  I went on to work in the investment world, jockeying with the boys on Wall Street, as an analyst on a team that managed about $20 billion in assets.  And we had a blast, as it was during the IPO boom of the late 1990s.  During those years, I learned a thing or two about “enhancing profitability and shareholder value” and “managing earnings and expectations”.

When our first child was born, I traded my briefcase for a diaper bag and found myself in a world of picky eaters, on a limited budget, with no time.

Today, I am the married, mother of four children and the founder of AllergyKids, an organization designed to help protect the 1 in 3 American children that now has autism, ADHD, asthma or allergies.  I don’t have a nanny, but I do have a computer and a family that provides remarkable inspiration, just like you.

Prior to unearthing all of this, I didn’t trust myself to do more than hit '2:00 START' on my microwave.  And I have to laugh as I find myself on the front lines of our “national eating disorder’ given the battles that so many of us waged against food when we were younger.

As I write in my book, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It, I am an unlikely crusader for cleaning up our food supply.  You may be, too.  But fortunately, there is a lot that we can do about it.  We simply have to get savvy and stand together so that our voices can be heard by leaders in our government and the food industry the same way that families overseas have made their voices heard over there.

And that requires transparency in our food system.  I believe in science based on independent research, not industry funded data.  I believe that we deserve full disclosure of financial ties behind industry funded research, our doctors and our medical organizations.  I believe that knowledge is power, transparency is critical and that attitude is everything!

And I believe in our collective ability to affect remarkable change, for our health and the health of our children and am honored to contribute profits from the sale of this book to Greening Our Children and the Environmental Working Group.

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One Response to True Food: A Love Poem

  1. ed.and.deb.shapiro July 3, 2009 at 5:55 pm #

    Darling Robyn – You are pure like a fresh snow. It was so good to meet you. A new sistah

    Your poem is a delight! I love it all but this jumped at me!

    You see, my little one, in our hands,

    In our minds and in our hearts,

    We have the ability to affect remarkable change

    So, love, where should we start?

    Big Love,

    Ed