A letter to Colette’s daycare…
To Whom It May Concern,
When I enrolled my daughter Colette at your school last week, I neglected to fill out the last section of the packet which asked if I had anything special I wanted to share with your school. Before I get started, I want to give a nod of appreciation to the wonderfully welcoming and accommodating staff at your facility. My daughter is (so far) an only child, and is thirteen months old. Suffice it to say that as new parents, after managing to avoid daycare for just over a year, we were quite choosy in our plight to find an appropriate solution for her. We are very pleased with the amenities and care thus far, and have but one concern: the food. Again, I want to insert that the staff have all been gracious enough to cheerfully comply with our wishes of feeding Colette what we pack for her- and we couldn’t be more appreciative!
I’m writing to you today to implore a consideration for a major overhaul of the food you serve to the children in your care. In fact, as a business, I believe it would be to your great benefit to at least include an optional menu for concerned parents like us. I would personally pay extra (and currently already am doing so with what I prepare for Colette) to know that my child receives the best quality food that I can find. To these ends, I would like to offer my services towards a solution. I would firstly hope to persuade you to allow me to voluntarily speak to concerned parents about their family food choices if such a venue exists, perhaps just a short evening discussion. Additionally, I would love to help design an optional meal plan, and could potentially offer my assistance in shopping for these items as I have been diligently scouting for the best deals on such foods for a number years now.
On our tour, we were proudly informed that the menu had begun some changes towards a healthier regimen. I hope that my opinions won’t sound untoward, but I would like to offer my suggestions in the hope of furthering this endeavor. It could be said that we are relatively strict in our household concerning food, so my concerns are based from that particular locus of dietary stringency. A cursory glance at the menu on that first tour revealed a program rich in sugar, processed, and conventionally-grown foods. This stands in stark contrast to what is found on our own table at home. Once in a while, foods such as these are allowed into our personal diets, but by no means on a regular basis.
In a world where we’re finding that pesticides are linked to ADHD, sugar and processed foods inextricably connected to obesity, hormones in dairy that cause long-term health detriments - including cancer, processed-grain products in direct line with type-2 diabetes, processed meat in dangerous relation to obesity, heart disease, and cancer, and e-coli routinely found in grain-fed meats … I just can’t afford to turn a blind eye. Kids are especially susceptible to the risks of processed meats . The way I see it, there’s categorically no better investment anyone can make than that of one’s own (and by proxy, one’s family’s) health. In fact, the convenience of so-called convenient foods seems to be the definitive opposite when you consider the long-term bodily effects of ingesting such things. I might not be telling you anything you don’t already know, but as a self-designated research queen, I staunchly believe that the average American citizen (and parent) is likely unaware of just how hazardous an unchecked diet truly is. This, in my opinion, is a tragedy… but by no means insurmountable!
Thank you so much for your consideration,
Nicole Labry
