78/365: Nutrition At Its Finest

In some ways I am a bit of a food Nazi.  I watch what I eat and think about food as fuel because I am constantly fighting Former Fat Girl Syndrome.  I limit the amount of sugar that the kids and I eat as well.  (Klucker does what he wants and we let him.)  And while I try to push fresh food, especially fruits and veggies, I have not wholeheartedly jumped on the organic or non-processed bandwagon.  Today I let my kids have Lunchables.  Now, I know processed deli meat is full of sodium and nitrates.  I know I should be baking and slicing a ham or turkey breast for them.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  But for kids, there is something about it coming in those little plastic containers that make it cool. 

As we're sitting at the table, Boo pulls out his entire stack of little cheese slices.  He examines it like only a kid will do, and says "Look Mommy, it has a design."  Sure enough, there imprinted in the bottom of the cheese is the recycling symbol from the plastic tray.  I guess I should be glad that Oscar Mayer believes in using recyclable trays.  However this did cause me a bit of alarm.  How long has this product been sitting around?  I looked at the sell by date and we were safe, but it makes me uneasy that the food has set there long enough to be branded.  It also caused me to look into the nutritional information associated with Lunchables.  While they boast 100% roast white meat turkey, what they don't say is the cheese is pasteurized prepared cheddar cheese product.  That can't be good for you.  So now I'm faced with a dilemma: now that I've really read what's in a Lunchable and what's not, how do I phase them out of our house?  Can I save the trays we have and cut real cheese and turkey with cookie cutters and put it in there?  Hhhmmmm.