"Should I make chili or a pasta casserole for dinner?" I asked the boys on Monday afternoon while the sat at the kitchen table drawing pictures.
"Chilli!" yelled Q.
Seven, however, had a concerned look on his face. "Mom? Chili is okay, but can you use Kim's recipe?"
"I don't have any turkey," I answered. And I quickly realized he was thinking about a discussion we had on Sunday afternoon about ground beef.
Seven saw me reading a New York Times story, "E. Coli Shows Flaws in Beef Inspection." He wanted to know why the young woman on the front page of the newspaper was in bed. Why she was in a wheel chair. How hamburger meat could cause her to almost die. I thought about how to approach this topic with him, but he was reading the paper over my shoulder. I couldn't sugarcoat it. Nor did I want to.
And so we went on to have a lengthy chat about meat, processing plants, germs, and how they can hurt you. It was easy for him to understand; my husband and I suffered a bout of food poisoning in 2007 after spinach we ate was tainted with E. Coli.
Seven was struck by the fact that the young woman in the article would never walk again because she ate a hamburger that contained germs. He couldn't understand why companies "were selling beef without being safe." And the doozy question of the day: "Why did God create a bacteria that could kill people?" (I had to table that one.)
My husband and I were honest with Seven about this safety issue with ground beef. I also shared with him that while I didn't want to be a vegetarian -- I love red meat -- I was considering giving up burgers and using ground beef in cooking until I could learn more about how our butchers at Whole Foods ground their beef every day.
But I had a pound of ground beef sitting on the kitchen counter that I needed to use. I hate wasting food, and I felt okay with the batch that I had just purchased from Whole Foods. I also was trying to balance respecting my kid's concerns while not causing paranoia.
"If you don't want me to use meat in the chili, I won't. If you decide that don't want to eat meat, I will help you with that," I said."But not all ground beef is bad. Just remember that."
"Did you find out if they (Whole Foods) are safe?"
"Let me do a quick check online," I said. My search query was: "How does Whole Foods ground their beef?" The result? Pages and pages about the company's recall of ground beef one year ago.
"Honey, we're going to pass on using this meat," I answered. A seed of doubt was now in my head.
I returned the kitchen to get the meat. The wrapper was empty. And there was our canine character, Luna Lovegood, standing below the counter licking her chops and savoring the last remnants of one whole pound of raw ground beef.
Back to the laptop I went, only this search query was: "Is it okay for dogs to eat raw ground beef?" The result? Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes! Not only is it okay for dogs to eat raw ground beef, it's good for them. Dog crisis averted.
As a person who loves to cook, I really can't imagine not using ground beef in recipes that not only call for it, but where ground beef makes or breaks the meal. So we came up with a solution. I have a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and a simple food grinder attachment will allow us to ground our own beef. In the end, our grocery budget may go up a bit because of the cuts of meat we'll be buying. But it will make our family feel safe about what we put into our bodies.
When your kids love food, you do what you can to foster a love of healthy eating.
So no chili on Monday night. Pasta casserole won, even if by default. (And judging by the look of victory on Luna's muzzle, she felt like she hit a grand slam.)
