Food at the Fair

Fairs are fun, right? I enjoy the smaller county fairs more than I like the State Fair. I have not been to a State Fair in years. County fairs, on the other hand, are put in my calendar 8 months in advance! I have planned a family weekend around the Door County Fair! Here in Wisconsin, my family and I will be attending six, hopefully seven, county fairs this season! What do I like so much about them? I love seeing the animals, even though I know the outcome for most of them. The horse competitions are great. I really enjoy seeing the 4-H members doing long, hard work, caring for their “projects” – be it living or not. I enjoy walking through the barns and being greeted by 11 year old members, asking if I have any questions about the animals in the barn. They are legitimately excited about what then do and what they have learned! Yarn arts are something I dabble in. I enjoy crocheting blankets and weaving scarves. I have an idea/project that I am working on involving plastic canvas. This being said, I love seeing the handmade projects that are judged at the fair. I have thought of entering a baby blanket, but never got up the courage to do so, seeing as the only stitch I know is the Granny Square blanket/stitch. But I am off topic… It is amazing to see the other projects as well. My 3 year old daughter really got in to it this year and as soon as we got home she started “building a fair” with her Duplo blocks. I was proud of her.

I am not much of a shopper so I can take a lap around the vendor building quickly. I love rides, but I do not like spending money, so I normally do not partake the rides. I also do not play the games, as I do not have much skill and even if I do win, I really do not want and definitely do not need, more stuff in my house. But what about the consumables? The stuff that you get energy from and run on daily? You know, the fair food! Ugh…fair food. It is expensive and it is usually bad for you. But it tastes great. So how do I go to the fair and have a good time, eat some food, and stay within my monetary and caloric budgets? I plan ahead!

I knew we were going to the fair this morning, so I woke up early and made our usual breakfast:

• Glass of H2O
• Cup of Coffee (It’s usually 2 cups).
• Cup of Milk
• 2 Cups of Tea
• Cup of Juice

Then I started making lunch to take along with us. We did not need to eat all of it. If we did, we did, but this was brought with as a good base and a safety net. I knew we were all going to get hungry around 11:00am and I wanted to take a break, walk back to the car, and enjoy some healthier food options. What did I pack?

• Peanut Butter Sandwich Halves (made with peanut butter powder, so the peanut butter is 50 calories a serving).
• Watermelon (750g per “adult serving”. That is roughly 225 calories).
• Carrots, Celery and Peanut Butter to dip in (because I accidentally needed to double the peanut butter powder, seeing as I added too much water to the original mix).
• Lazy Trail Mix (serving of peanuts and a 1/2 serving of dried cranberries. 225 calories as well).
• Pickles (packed in a container with a screw top).
• Fruit – Apples and a Plum (My husband loves plums and I enjoy apples. I didn’t figure my daughter would make it to the apple stage of the meal, but just in case, I brought her a small one).
• H2O

Yes, most of these foods are naturally sweet. I am not seeing protein dense foods here and there is quite a lot of carbs here as well. Honestly, this is not my best picnic, but the take away here is, we had options. I was able to walk back to the vehicle and fill up on handfuls of cut carrots and celery before I cooled off with my bucket of watermelon. I cooled off with watermelon, not a beer or an ice cream sundae. And that is the point. When it comes to your diet, every day is not going to be perfect. But you should never skip out on a good decision because you made a handful of bad ones throughout the day or earlier in the week. Your body and health are counting on you to make good decisions. Was this a perfect food day for me? Absolutely not! My husband knew he was going to get a burger and fries from the American Legion Food Stand and I knew I was going to have some of those fries – and I ended up eating most of them. But my whole meal did not consist of fried and sugared foods. Nor did my daughter’s meal. She fought with us every step of the way today, but she had some veggies and a yogurt at the car before she had any fries during the sheep judging. It is frustrating when your 3 year old is full when carrots are around but starving when fries are near. But keep offering the healthy stuff. She/He will appreciate it later in life that you fought with them early on about eating their veggies.

This “trail mix” is surprisingly good as-is. I figured I would feel cheated due to the lack of chocolate in here, but the cranberries have a lot of sugar in them and provide quite a sweet compliment to the peanuts. It is a nice “dessert snack”. My reward for finishing my veggies!

Full size carrots are my preferred carrot to eat over baby cut carrots. I live close to a meat market that sells mind blowingly huge carrots. (I do not have them pictured here, but when they get the big ones in again, I will post some pictures). I started slicing the huge carrots in rings instead of trying to cut them in to sticks. I find it easier to prep that way. Even these medium sized carrots get cut in rings.

You can see an end piece of bread in the above picture. I ran out of my 45 calorie a slice bread, so I had to use some cinnamon raisin bread that I am using for dessert with dinner tonight. I normally would have made peanut butter and jelly, but I am out of jelly at the moment, so I improvised and this is what I brought along. Is it healthy? Uhh, not really, but the regular bread half sandwiches are 95 calories a piece and the cinnamon raisin sandwiches are 130 calories each, so not the worst for a small kick of creamy protein.

My favorite picture from today’s lunch: Watermelon Fries!! My husband came up with this name. I cut and clean a lot of produce throughout the year. Watermelon goes over well here at our house, so I cut a lot of them. I cut watermelons into 1/8th pieces and then take the flesh from the rind. I then slice the watermelon in to large, thin slices and then cross slice those to create long strips of watermelon, perfect for picking up with your fingers and eating. I give you, the watermelon fry!

At the fair, the children’s agriculture section had signs hanging up, introducing children to the concept that animals on farms are processed for commodities other than food. One of these signs proudly boasted that one tennis racket requires the intestines of eleven sheep to construct. I did not know this. Upon a quick internet search, I found that sheep intestines used to be used, but not any more, as cow intestines are stronger and longer. The bi-products of our food – interesting! What is your favorite part of the fair? If you have gone this year, what is something you learned? Let me know in a comment! Have a good fair season, everyone, and I will “see” you in the next post!