• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Crunchy-Chewy Mama

Living naturally, most of the time.

  • About Jessica Claire Haney
  • Contact
  • Holistic Health
  • D.C. Metro
  • The Arts
  • Healthy Eating
  • Activism & Politics

Real Food Wednesday – School Lunch Reform?

December 29, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

View more posts about Real Food at Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays blog carnival! The new “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids” Act signed on December 13 is getting a lot of positive feedback for the changes it will make to the federal school lunch program, but there are some reasons to hold back praise. I’m…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Healthy Eating, Uncategorized Tagged With: food, Healthy, Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, nutrition, real food, school food

Solstice celebration — we did it!

December 27, 2010 by Jessica 1 Comment

I’m so excited that I managed to pull together a solstice celebration this year. At noon on the day of, I talked to my friend and let her know another mom from our Holistic Moms chapter was maybe going to make it. Usually I can’t stand last-minute things, but this time is was great to…

Read More »

Filed Under: The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: candles, celebrations, community, food, ritual, seasons, solstice, traditions

Study says kids don’t want sweet cereals

December 20, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

I just learned from Nancy Piho’s My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus blog about the results of a new study on children and cereal. In a study published in Pediatrics, Yale researchers found that children will eat low-sugar options if they are offered. The gist is “If you serve it, they will eat it,” suggesting that offering…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: cereal, children, extrusion, food, nutrition, real food, Sally Fallon, sugar, sweet, Weston A. Price Foundation, Yale research study

Gluten-free, dairy-free black bean brownies

December 15, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

On December 13, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 to “improve” the school lunch program. Some “Real Food” enthusiasts raise questions about the fact that the school lunch program is even tied to the Agriculture Department, a point Sally Fallon made in her address, “The Politics of School Lunch” at the…

Read More »

Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: food, Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, Nourishing Traditions, nutrition, real food, recipes, Sally Fallon, school lunch, soaked beans and grains, USDA

On the bunny slope of tradition-making – Carnival of Natural Parenting

December 14, 2010 by Jessica 17 Comments

At age 37, I still haven’t learned to ski, and almost five years and two children into parenthood, I can’t quite believe in myself as a real mom of a real family with real traditions of its own. Although a few years of experience in Waldorf education tells me that children thrive on daily rhythms…

Read More »

Filed Under: The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: candles, celebrations, Christmas tree, family, food, holidays, home, priorities, ritual, seasons, traditions

Like this: Christmas tree in the house!

December 13, 2010 by Jessica 1 Comment

It’s been a week since we put up the Christmas tree we cut down at Ticonderoga Farms. It was the first time we’d bought a tree as a married couple (I think) and for sure the first time as parents. But it was something I did yearly as a kid, and I always enjoyed it….

Read More »

Filed Under: The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: artificial, beauty, carbon footprint, celebrations, Christmas tree, eco-friendly, environment, green, pesticides, priorities, sustainable, Ticonderoga Farms, tree farm

Advent Garden: focusing on beauty

December 7, 2010 by Jessica 2 Comments

When I walked into the Advent Garden room holding my son’s hand, I felt a rush of senses. The smell of fresh evergreens instantly transported me into a magical wintertime. I felt the profound calm of the darkened room, lit only by one candle in the middle of the spiral of greens and a few candles…

Read More »

Filed Under: The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: childcare, priorities, Waldorf education

At the pump: credit or debit?

December 3, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

On the night my daughter turns just four months old, why did I just spend 15 minutes to pump three ounces of breastmilk? On one hand, I know this is a full month later than most working moms have already gone back to the office. By now, they are pros, with freezers stocked with milk…

Read More »

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: attachment parenting, breastfeeding, childcare, priorities, school, Waldorf education

Gluten-free, Dairy-free Pumpkin Quick Bread

December 1, 2010 by Jessica 2 Comments

“Gluten-free food at Waldorf school” is something of an oxymoron; those places love their wheat! My son brings his own bread and muffins for snack to replace the homemade, whole wheat organic snacks the students and teachers make in the classroom. Last night my husband said to some friends of the boy’s school and his…

Read More »

Filed Under: Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: food, gluten-free, recipes, Waldorf education

Fall leaves

November 30, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

I have a ton I want to write, but since time is scarce, I’ll at least post a few photos from The Time Before the Winds, when colors abounded. Now, unless you are looking at a pear tree, life looks more bare.

Filed Under: The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: beauty, photography, seasonal

The pregnancy test, one year later

November 24, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

It was exactly a year ago that I found out I was pregnant. I tested two weeks after I’d ovulated and was ambivalent. On one hand, I had been told I was glowing, and I seriously felt buzzy electricity where those cells were dividing. It’s like there was a frequency, and every once in a…

Read More »

Filed Under: Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: birth, family, pregnancy, priorities

More on healthy food in schools!

November 23, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

My visit to Barcroft Elementary school’s Farm to Table celebration (referenced here last week)  is now described in more detail on my column at the Washington Times Communities Family Today. Read “Authors, chefs encourage local, healthy food in schools” and tell me what your school is doing — or not doing — to promote healthy…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: Farm to School, food, nutrition, school

Trying to “celebrate calm”

November 22, 2010 by Jessica 3 Comments

When I first took Rene Hackney’s Positive Discipline class as part of a play and workshop series at Parenting Playgroups, my son wasn’t even two, and he was too cute for words. Just coming off of some intense separation anxiety and just starting to string together sentences, he could do no wrong. It was easy…

Read More »

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Celebrate Calm, discipline, family, home, marriage, media, positive discipline, priorities, television

Grades are not the thing — musings on (Waldorf) education

November 21, 2010 by Jessica 3 Comments

There it was in this morning’s Washington Post: the same argument against GPAs and SAT scores as a predictor of success that longtime Waldorf educator Jack Petrash had discussed last week at a talk at Potomac Crescent Waldorf School. In his piece in the Outlook section, “To get the real star students, colleges should look…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: college admissions, Daniel Pink, education, grades, Jack Petrash, priorities, Robert Sternberg, scores, Waldorf education

Book reading as therapy: Monica Lemoine of Knocked Up, Knocked Down

November 21, 2010 by Jessica 1 Comment

I had the pleasure two weeks ago of hearing Monica Murphy Lemoine read from her book Knocked Up, Knocked Down: Postcards from the Brink of Parenthood while she was in town for a conference on perinatal and infant death. Let me tell you, Monica is no less engaging in person. Her book was already funny…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: books, miscarriage, Monica Murphy Lemoine, reading, stillbirth, writing mother

Sleeping like a baby?

November 20, 2010 by Jessica 2 Comments

My poor daughter. She gets schlepped everywhere. Plucked out of bed some mornings for preschool drop-off, with nary a nursing or a diaper change. Then either some appointment I have or preschool pick-up interferes with a nap in the afternoon. I haven’t even tried a mommy and me yoga class or anything for fear of…

Read More »

Filed Under: Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: cos, family bed, sleep

(Good?) Food in schools

November 20, 2010 by Jessica 1 Comment

I was so disappointed to miss last weekend’s Wise Traditions conference sponsored by the Weston A. Price Foundation. The topic was “The Politics of Food;” I looked forward to hearing about “The Politics of School Lunches” and in participating in the food activism panel with WAPF publicist and food blogger extraordinaire, Kimberly Harkte of Hartke…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, D.C. Metro, Healthy Eating, Holistic Health, The Arts, Uncategorized Tagged With: Farm to School, food, nutrition, school, writing mother

NWSA panel addresses pregnant women and feminism

November 16, 2010 by Jessica Leave a Comment

I was thrilled to learn that my friend Jessica Clements, birth artist and organizer of last October’s “Perinatal” symposium on birth practices and reproductive rights, was part of a panel  this past weekend on “Pregnant Women: The Outsiders in the Women’s Rights Discourse” in Denver at the Annual Conference of the National Women’s Studies Association: …

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Holistic Health, Uncategorized Tagged With: birth, feminism, Jessica Clements, National Women's Studies Association, Perinatal, pregnancy

More sad news about anti-gay bullying

November 12, 2010 by Jessica 2 Comments

Although I mostly think Erica Jong was wrong-headed in her Wall Street Journal piece last week where she said attachment parenting keeps women in a prison and out of politics (see my response and other links here), I do have to admit that, in choosing to stay home with my children, I am not out…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Uncategorized Tagged With: Brandon Bitner, feminism, gender, GLSEN, GroundSpark, harassment, sexual orientation, suicide

This IS my activism: response to Erica Jong’s attack on Attachment Parenting

November 10, 2010 by Jessica 8 Comments

I go away for one weekend to introduce my baby to her grandmother, and the internet explodes with responses to author Erica Jong’s diatribe against attachment parenting in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. I mostly appreciate the comments of Madeleine Holler on Babble’s Strollerderby in response to Jong’s piece. But a few things strike me as…

Read More »

Filed Under: Activism & Politics, Uncategorized Tagged With: attachment parenting, breastfeeding

« Previous Page
Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Welcome to Crunchy-Chewy Mama, where the wilderness meets the sidewalk. Around here, I do my best to live as healthfully as possible. But compromises abound.

I also publish the resource blog Mindful Healthy Life of Metro DC. To learn about my writing and appearances and for details about the writing, editing and consulting services I offer, visit JessicaClaireHaney.com.

Follow Crunchy Chewy Mama

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • X

Follow Jessica Claire Haney

  • Facebook

Follow Mindful Healthy Life

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • X

Copyright © 2025 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress