Clueless About Kindness

I am trying to eat healthier.  I am trying to cook more.  I am trying to pay better attention to what is in the food I eat and give to my family.  For crying out loud, my kitchen cupboards now house things like Agave Nectar and unsweetened coconut flakes.

I am also trying to improve my children's eating habits.  I call it a successful day when I get my daughter to eat a vegetable and limited sugar, and when my son doesn't spit all of his avocado out at me as soon as the plastic spoon passes his lips.

Other prongs of my food credo: I believe in utensils.  I believe in serving my children's food on colorful, plastic dishware.  I believe that the food in my mouth should stay in my mouth.  I believe that my children should chew their own damn food, and if they can't, then they shouldn't be eating it in the first place.

This is where Alicia Silverstone and I part ways.

Apparently Ms. Silverstone took a hiatus from acting after her smash hit Clueless to become the World's Weirdest Foodie.  She has embraced the vegan lifestyle -- a diligence I actually admire her for.  When Well-Informed didn't get greenlighted by Warner Brothers, she decided to make a career out of veganism.  She wrote a book called The Kind Diet, which according to Ms. Silverstone is a "simple" guide for "swearing off meat and dairy forever."  Then, so that the whole plant-based dieting thing can be more "fun" and "interactive," she started a website called The Kind Life.  It's the electronic kitchen table you can sit down at with Ms. Silverstone while she "shares all kinds of tasty morsels with you."

Just be careful when you decide to take a seat.  Homegirl has some really interesting perspectives on "sharing."  They're as interesting as her take on naming offspring.

You see, Ms. Silverstone recently shared a video on The Kind Life of her feeding her son.  Her son named Bear Blu.  It's a post that makes every other mother and every other vegan out there look like total Junior Varsity players, or that makes Ms. Silverstone look utterly, completely off her recycled wood rocker.

Here's the scene: Ms. Silverstone and Bear Blu are getting ready to share the most important meal of the day.  But Mama Bear isn't about to give Baby Cub oatmeal or grape nuts or some other semi-relatable super-duper-healthy everything-free kickstart to his day.  Oh no.  Mrs. Berenstain Bear has whipped up some of her world famous "miso soup, collards and radish steamed and drizzled with flax oil, cast iron mochi with nori wrapped outside, and some grated daikon."  Winnette Pooh's review?  "YUM!"  What's more, Baloo trumpets that little Mowgli just LOVES the mochi and the veggies from the soup -- he crawls across the room to "attack [her] mouth" to get him some Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice. 

I'm sorry, but what else is Fozzie Bear being offered at meal-time such that rice and veggies make him kick the crawl into high gear?  Is lunch seaweed with grated serrano peppers sprinkled on top?  How many pieces of lentil loaf does he have to choke through at dinner?

And if this kid truly is gleeful about eating white pasty rice, where did I miss the product recall for my kid's taste buds, which recognize bananas as "too slimy" and broccoli as "hurting my mouth"?

More troubling than this palate versus palate smack-down is the manner in which Fuzzy Wuzzy Was A Bear chooses to deliver the mochi-veggie moosh to her Furry Wunderkid.  Get ready.....

She CHEWS IT UP FOR HIM and DELIVERS IT FROM HER MOUTH TO HIS.

Every time I think of this, my brain does a stutter-step.  Then it crashes from question overload.  Before I have to reboot, here are some of the queries I'd like to pose if given a guest spot on The Kind [Of Bat-Shit Crazy] Life:

1.  Does she not own a fork or a spoon? 
2.  Does she have something against cutlery? 
3.  Even if she neither owns nor appreciates cutlery, did she amputate her fingers?
4.  Does her son not have teeth?
5.  If he doesn't have teeth, why is he eating things you need teeth to eat?
6.  If he does have teeth, does he not know how to move his jaw up and down to get those teeth a-chomping?

But then I get to the worst thought/question of all: how, mechanically, does this food delivery system work?

And then I have to lie down to take a nap or dry-heave.  Because there's only one way you can do mouth-to-mouth feeding like a frisky couple with cherry-string tongue-tying abilities -- she must basically have to french kiss her son. 

I'd say this is a pretty good example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.  I'm as supportive as the next gal when it comes to trying to be as healthy as you can and to teach solid health habits to your kids.  But Alicia, let's talk big picture here, honey.  In your bid to get uber-nutrition into your son's digestive system, you're breaking the laws of most states and ignoring all those lessons Shakespeare's tragedies taught us.  It's just not cool for your tongue to be in such continued contact with your son's.  People are going to get the wrong idea.  And while little Boy Bear Blu might be a walking, talking (apparently not chewing) health pyramid, it's tough to make friends on the playground when you're swapping spit with mom every time your tummy grumbles.

Even if you think I'm a judgmental Earth-killing meanie armed and dangerous with my spork, Alicia, for the love of all that is holy and pure, take a step back.  If you really want to keep your breakfast activities at a PG-13 level, fine.  Good luck to you and yours.  But please realize that you're a kind-of celebrity, and when you videotape yourself doing things like this, it's gonna get out.  I think embracing your general reputation as the girl from Clueless is an improvement on being the woman who confuses herself for a bird.

I mean, like, duuuuuhhhhhhh!