Eating to preserve Ixtapa for your grandchildren and great grandchildren
Your kids will probably love Club Med Ixtapa Pacific. And their kids would probably love it too. It’s something to keep in mind—your family’s actions now, will affect the well-being of the region for generations to come. Wouldn’t it be cool to watch your grand kids or great grand kids kayak in Playa Quieta? Then teach them to be green.
Teaching kids to be green incorporates recycling and saving energy. But many of us forget that green consciousness also educates kids about food and its sources. What we eat can make a huge impact. Parents can create good habits and educate their children when it comes to choosing food. A Club Med vacation in Mexico represents a great place to start because you can’t use busyness, lack of cooking skills or laziness as an excuse.
The Ixtapa property offers Henry VIII style meal options—but to my dismay I couldn’t keep track of how many rugrats I saw devouring Choco Crispies and other processed cereals during the many breakfasts. Why would parents pass up the opportunities to have their kids feast on the fresh local fruits, hand made tortillas, salsas, beans and cheese, omelets or freshly made pancakes? Parents can set the example for their children by eating locally grown, often organic, freshly made and definitely tasty food from the buffet instead of consuming unhealthy, out-of-the box, multinational, additive-ridden products from a far off processing plant. Next to the fresh, local foods at the buffet—I am still astounded that any competition exists. Again, vacation at Club Med offers a good place to kick unhealthy processed food habits—the fresh, local food is prepared and ready to go. All you have to do is eat.
I would encourage children to take part in the Petit Chef program where they learn how to make fresh food like guacamole and homemade salsa. Kids generally take more interest in healthy food if they know how to prepare it and where it comes from.
Consider the words “fresh”, “local” and “organic” to equate with “green.” And remember garbage in — garbage out.
Upon returning home, parents who have kids in the 9-12 range might buy them a copy of Chew on This by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser which details the fast food industry and what goes into processed food. Kids and parents might think about where their food originates and not as something tossed into the body. Adults looking for insight into food, its origins and the politics behind it might pick up a copy of Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved or or Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma .
Jaden Hair, a fellow columnist on this site also has great tips on how to get your kids to try new healthy foods while on vacation and at home.
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