One Sunday morning at 4am the sun was not up, but into the bed came a very wriggly and very hungry little boy. He started to look for some food, but Mum and Dad were still sleeping. Last week they survived; 1 professional exam, 1 swimming lesson, 1 basketball game, 1 basketball practice, 1 committee meeting, 4 rugby practices, 2 GST returns, 1 rugby Club Night, 1 science project, 1 missed meeting with the bank (the bank manager may not have survived this one!), 2 PR events, 1 EMS workout, 4 blog posts, 1 All Blacks test……………and they were still tired.
Needless to say, Mum and Dad were very much looking forward to Sunday. Until they remembered Ethan had rugby rep trials at 11am ::::::::::sigh::::::::::
Many are beginning to lament the innate ‘busyness’ of modern family life, and to be honest, last week just about broke me but, our family are joiners, participants, volunteers. We like to get involved, put down roots, contribute and get to know our little community – something that doesn’t happen simply by virtue of being a ‘neighbour’ anymore.
The flip-side of this is that ensuring we have family ‘down-time’ sometimes becomes a mindful miracle of scheduling.
Eating helps. Eating together nails it.
This Sunday, breakfast became early afternoon tea for Nixon (he woke at 4 remember!) and some combo of breakfast-brunch-lunch for Dave and I and our beautifully bed-headed preteen. Keep in mind this is intentionally NOT a cereal breakfast ala Monday through Friday. This is a ‘real food meal’ that takes time to eat so we can spend as much time as possible together, around the table without anyone on a device or rushing off .
The menu varies, it could be waffles, pancakes or crèpes but this week it was freshly made cheese scones, bacon, and omelets to share. Of course, we have to be a little bit prepared, a mindful meal begins with some mindful shopping, or at the very least making sure there are some flour, milk, and eggs on hand!
The way modern families shop for food and consider their purchases is as much a dynamic process as our hectic day-to-day lives. Food innovation now often (ironically) takes the form of simplification. As parents of a 12.5-year-old, we want to know where he is, what he’s doing and who he’s doing it with. Similarly, I want to know where my food is coming from and who is producing it, but is it realistic to expect this from supermarket staples?
Surprisingly, the answer is YES. The milk we used for our Sunday breakfast this week came from a single organic farm located in Manawatu, farmed by the Flipp family. Four generations live and work on the farm along with their 600 cows and I didn’t have to drive 6.5 hrs to the farm gate to pick it up!
Kapiti Single Farm Organic Milk was in the chiller, at my local New World 5 minutes from my house.
Mindful family routines and meals begin with mindful shopping – grocery or otherwise. Investing in a product that is the end result of the Flipp Family’s 3-year journey to achieve organic certification is definitely a brand story that I’m happy to have at my table every day.
For this post, I partnered with Kapiti Single Farm Organic Milk which is now available from Supermarkets nationwide.
- 1.25L Homogenised/non-homogenised RRP $5.49
- 750ml Homogenised/non-homogenised RRP $3.50
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