Concerned mother, or whackadoodle food-nazi: you be the judge!

School starts next Wednesday and I've spent the last couple of days reviewing my lunch ideas, baking and stocking up on healthy snacks, like almonds and homemade banana bread. Today, I'm making pizzas and whole-grain oatmeal cookies with walnuts and organic dried fruit. I also made Irish soda bread with dried strawberries for breakfasts. I want to get the freezer filled so the first couple of weeks are less hectic in the mornings.

I've also purchased re-usable snack and sandwich bags, so I can stop using all those ziplocks which end up in the landfill. The girls have stainless steel, BPA free water bottles and neoprene lunch bags that are machine washable and fold up when empty so a kid can stuff 'em into her backpack and not lose it. 

I don't let my kids eat the school lunches. They have a fresh salad bar with some veggies grown in the school gardens, but that's not what they eat, if given the option. They eat the chicken nuggets and tater tots. Have you heard of "spent hens"? Um.... eeeeeyuuuuw-wah!

I pack lunches, each and every morning. If I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll sometimes even pack lunches the night before.  I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about food. How we should eat less meat, more legumes and whole grains. How I can combine these things to make new and interesting meals the kids will actually eat, instead of swapping or throwing them in the trash.  For the most part, my kids (reportedly) eat what I pack. They even share their homemade cookies with their classmates. They brag to the lunch ladies when they have Mama's homemade bread in their lunch. I'm so proud!

Does this make me, as Number One Daughter once opined, a "food nazi"? One of those nutty-crunchy, stay-at-home-moms who should spend more time mopping the grungy floors and doing the mountains of dirty laundry instead of agonizing over meals or the yield of my organic fruit trees and veggie plants?

What do y'all think?