Hang on... I have to throw away my lunch!

Preparing food for others has always been familiar task however I recently realized just how much time mother's in Japan spend on optimizing their children's food variety and layout. I must admit my mother probably spent an equal amount of time making sure that I ate only the healthiest and least attractive of food only for me to continually toss it in a garbage can on my way to school. At the time I wasn't very excited about eating things like rice cheese, tomato - avocado sandwiches or carob chip cookies but I will say it beats the heck out of pickled plums, seaweed, and tuna.

(FROM: http://whatsfordinnerhoney.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html)

So what did I eat as a kid? Well I soon found that if I helped out in the school kitchen I could eat all the deep fried food I wanted! Unfortunately my family also qualified for reduced price school lunches which I happily ate although looking back I realize I threw away 3-4 years worth of healthy lunches for second class cafeteria food. While I don't think I was the only one of my siblings to do this I know she spent countless hours shopping and preparing food and all we could think about was junk food. Not all was wasted though, all four of my brother are in perfect health and while we may not be as picky as she is we do make a conscious effort not to eat processed or genetically modified garbage!