There are certain food and beverage items that, while now demonized, any of us who grew up in a time before Michael Pollan, Whole Foods, CSAs, and terms like “farm-to-table” can remember with a certain bit of happy nostalgia. These include: birthday parties at McDonald’s, pitchers of bright red Kool-Aid, bowls of Lucky Charms before heading off to school, English muffin pizzas made from jars of Ragu sauce, Oscar Meyer bologna in the yellow plastic pouch, frozen tater tots microwaved as an after school snack, and of course S-O-D-A.
Truth to be told, I wasn’t really allowed to consume any of the stuff mentioned above (although I did attend my fair share of McDonald’s birthday parties and, I have to admit it, they were awesome). But the one thing I did occasionally get and always craved was the bottle of 7-Up my dad kept in the fridge. This was his own private stash which he used to mix with grapefruit juice for his version of Fresca. Occasionally I’d get a sip and it was like sweet nectar of the Gods…
The only other time I scored some soda was when I was at a friend or cousin’s house where there were no rules about sugar or junk food consumption, or when I had some spare change to spend on a slice of pizza and a cup of orange Sunkist (from the soda fountain and with crushed ice) on the way to field hockey practice (clearly the meal of champions!), or when my grandparents let me order a “Coca” at a cafe while visiting them in Brussels (it came warm, poured in a glass with one tiny cube of precious ice).
I have continued the no-soda fatwa with my own kids, but on special occasions I do like to surprise them by saying, “sure, you can have a soda”. When this happens they lose their little minds. Case in point: Belle’s t-ball picnic last week. Sure, there were bottles of water that would have been the more responsible beverage option, but there were also buckets full of all manner of soda. As a treat, I let Belle savor a frosty can of my first soda love, 7-Up. I then noticed a lot of the other kids were also madly sipping on cans as if this was a rare opportunity: they were looking around with furtive expressions, gripping tight to the slick can in case someone changed their mind and tried to take it away, in happy disbelief that they were somehow allowed to drink this stuff.
I figure that having it once in awhile is really OK–am I right? My thinking is that the occasional sampling will prevent a complete binge situation when I’m not around (those junk food households never go away) while making it something really special. But maybe I’m just opening Pandora’s Box…
So do you let your kids have soda? Ever? Never? I’d love to know!
