ice cream friday

(if you are wondering what beautiful cauliflower has to do with ice cream...well nothing. But I didn't have a photo of the ice cream and think these vegetables are quite exquisite. Thanks Robin.)

Today is the last day of term for River. It has become tradition on the last day of term we walk to the local ice cream shop to celebrate River's hard work and spend time with friends. Having an ice creamery within walking distance from school can pose a challenge for some families with children asking for ice cream most days after school. To save the asking we put in place last year that we would go out for ice cream on the last day of term and that really works for us. It means that having an ice cream is a treat and it is really appreciated and anticipated rather than expected.

I am feeling really passionate about at the moment about educating more parents and children about how good real food is for your body, mind and spirit. River comes home with stories of friends having fairy bread for lunch and while I definitely am not into blaming and shaming people into looking at their family diet I think that too many people drastically underestimate the impact and risks to health of eating nutritionally bankrupt food.

A quote I read this week from Jamie Oliver sums it up nicely -
"Homicide is 0.8% of deaths. Diet-related disease is 60%. But no one f*****g talks about that"

So. I am back to looking at studying children's nutrition. It bugs me no end that so many people in our community are sick with cancer, obesity, heart disease and diabetes and still we as a society are not laying solid nutrition foundations for our children.

Stepping down off my soap box now. Looking forward to sharing the holiday wholefood highlights here with you and excited about having lots of deliciousness planned for posts focusing on wholefood Byron Bay style when we head there next month.

A happy start to the school holidays to all those who finish school today. Three cheers to all you mamas for getting everyone through the term - two weeks of no lunchboxes hooray I hear you cry.

Here is the friday link list just for you:

Following on from last Friday's post about the untimely death of my friend Andrew, before I go any further with the list I have to acknowledge that there is a sense when people are grieving that the world stops for a time and then people resume the busyness of life. I am very conscious of wanting to return to life with a renewed sense of how I live and of sharing Andrew's story to remind people of the fragility and preciousness of life. Andrew died of a sudden heart attack with no warning at age 45. I implore everyone reading this consider their heart health and those of the people you love. There are many risk factors to heart health that can be minimised if you are thinking about having a check up, blood pressure, cholesterol, improving your diet, quitting smoking, exercising the time is now.

I'm not anti eating carbohydrates but I do think there are some interesting points in this article particularly that the majority of people's diets are too carb based. Do we really need to eat carbohydrate for energy?

If you are in Melbourne over the holidays I love going to the Collingwood Children's Farm.

Lunch at Friends of the Earth is always a wholefood highlight.

I had a peek yesterday at Rick Stein's cookbook India. As if I need another cookbook ha! But this one is so very tempting.

If you like blogs about simple living with a young family with a whole lotta heart, soul then click on over to An Every Day Story .

Thanks for reading. Happy holidays and weekending xx

oh forgot to share one of my favorite River and Sol moments from the week...
Breakfast table chat: Sol Mr 3 randomly says "Mum you know that the Dalai Lama he eats bread". River, Mr 6, jumps in with "oh no Sol that was Jesus. He had one piece of bread and broke it up into millions of pieces" :)