The road to a healthy family is paved with organic food

By MONICA ENG - Chicago Tribune

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Cary, Ill., mother Laura Weaver juggles a part-time job as a teacher, 3-year-old twins and a 7-year-old son, but she still manages to serve healthy organic dinners on a regular basis.

How does she do it?

The same way many busy moms get meals on the table: a service that helps customers assemble and take home a month's worth of food for freezing and reheating. But the one Weaver relies on uses organic and natural ingredients.

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"I love to cook and bake, but I don't always have time to get to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods and buy all the organic ingredients together for our meals," Weaver said. "This makes it so much easier."

For families, busy lives often win out over healthy ones. But as some Chicago-area parents have proved, it is possible to slip healthful changes - more exercise, better food - into a life without turning it upside down.

The Mindful Meals service that Weaver uses is about 15 percent more expensive than its nonorganic counterparts, but other healthy choices save the family money. For example, Weaver and her husband, Jim, encourage their kids to use the water dispenser on their fridge in place of sweet drinks, and they bring grapes or Cheerios as snacks instead of hitting the concession stand at soccer games.

Weaver also places a high priority on walking. If it's not raining and the destination is within a few miles, "I put the twins in a wagon, and we walk the two miles to the football field or to a restaurant or wherever," she said. "I just think that having them outdoors as much as possible at a young age gets them used to being out and active."

Healthy eating always has been important to Melissa Digilio, of Wicker Park, but she says the birth of her daughter, Lilia, inspired her and her husband, Dennis Healy, to reach higher.

Like many parents striving for better health, Digilio acknowledges they aren't perfect - "we are still very familiar with our local custard shop" - but they are dedicated to "setting a good example for our daughter ... and making the best choices for her. ... I would say that for both of us, she was the biggest motivation."

Her first steps were aimed at reducing the family's exposure to chemicals by buying more organics and replacing household items made with bisphenol A, or BPA. Healy, a stock analyst, also started hitting his office's gym on his lunch hour, but Digilio said she finds it harder to break away.

"I don't have a ton of time with my daughter during the week, and so I do feel guilty taking that extra hour to work out because it means more time away from my family," she said. "To combat that, I try and make the weekends the time to be active. I'll go for long walks with her, garden, take her to the park, etc. And I try to remember that 'working out' can be many things. I don't have to be at a gym."

Chicago mother Jennifer Hill, who has started running triathlons and half marathons, said her secret is working out with a group of women who encourage one another to keep going.

"Any time any one of the girls in the group doesn't want to work out, I have pushed them and they've pushed me along," she said. "We get on Facebook and organize dates to work out, but even sometimes when you just see that someone wrote 'going to the gym' on their Facebook page, it can motivate you to exercise too."

After completing classes for parents offered through the Healthy Schools Campaign, Jovita Flores, of Little Village, said she has started exercising regularly and has reworked many traditional Mexican dishes and family favorites.