A Celebratory Tomato

Early one morning last week, I walked into the office and there sat a bag marked “local, organic tomatoes.” Most were small, not much bigger than cherries, and I popped one into my mouth and felt it burst.  Beautiful.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

Across the room were two large flats of sugar coated doughnuts.  Tracy said, “It’s somebody’s birthday, and a parent dropped these off.”   I couldn’t help but think:  if you really wanted to celebrate, you ought to try one of those tomatoes.

I have to admit, I am not looking forward to 140 deliveries of doughnuts and cakes this year, one delivery per student birthday.  And I don’t mean just because that’s so very unhealthy.  I think about what we’re teaching here.

So, what are we teaching?  Is the message that extra rich, sugary food is integral to celebration.  Is it only fun if the food consists of refined flour, refined sugar, and polyunsaturated fat?   Because this is what appears to be happening.

I worry a little about the downstream messages, too.  Will our student learn, next, in a few years, that it’s not a real New Year’s Eve without booze?

Bottom line, we don’t endorse equating celebration with sugar.  Are you willing to join us in developing the idea that eating processed and highly sweetened food is not necessarily synonymous with having a celebration?  We want to create a counterculture of healthy celebration.  I know this is a risky notion, maybe naive, but do you think we could teach our kids to savor the richness and complexity of a cherry tomato so deeply that it would be like a celebration?  Is there a celebration beyond consumption?