<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Laurie David, a member of Good Housekeeping&amp;#039;s Environmental Advisory Board, is a producer of the Academy Award-winning documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth,  Earth to America! , and Too Hot Not to Handle, author of Stop Global Warming: The Solution Is You!, co-author of The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, and a mother of two daughters. In her new book, The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time, she brings together her interests in environmentalism, family, and food. I recently asked her about all three. Q: What sparked the idea for your new book and how does the family dinner tie in to your longtime interest in the environment?  A: A funny thing happened to me one night sitting at my kitchen table. I had a classic &amp;quot;a-ha&amp;quot; moment when I realized that my two teenagers where still sitting at the dinner table talking to me long after dessert had ended. I was almost surprised to realize that I had actually done something right as a parent by insisting on regular family dinners. I was clearly reaping the benefits now that my kids were teens and time with them was becoming harder and harder to come by. Dinner was always something I &amp;quot;produced&amp;quot;, whether I was doing the cooking or someone else was. So the very night of my big epiphany I thought, &amp;quot;Hey I need to put all of the ideas, recipes and games I have used over the years to make family din great into a book to help other people recapture this important ritual.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;A-ha&amp;quot; moment number two hit me as I started working on the book and realized every issue I care about crosses the dinner plate: How we eat, what we eat and what we waste are all environmental issues. My next connect-the-dots moment came soon after when I realized that the kitchen is the best room in the house to practice and teach green values! I could barely contain my excitement!! Q: Why do you think something as simple as having dinner together is so important?  A: Having a sit down, no screens, home cooked dinner is one of the most powerful things you can do as a parent and I believe it&amp;#039;s the most important activity you can do as a family. Everything happens at the dinner table. You teach and model manners, values, vocabulary and debating skills! The research is really conclusive on this. Also, the table is the number one place we pass on family stories and it&amp;#039;s the knowledge of where your family came from that helps build self-esteem and resiliency in kids. When we stop having dinners, we stop passing on those stories. And, of course, when you make food at home you actually know what&amp;#039;s in the food you are eating. It is the healthiest, greenest thing you can do!  Q: Can you share with our readers some particularly special family dinner moments?  A:  My favorite moments are when everyone is laughing. I also love when I hear my kids enforcing a dinner rule instead of the other way around. For example, last night the house phone rang during dinner. It&amp;#039;s such an unusual event that I started to get up to get it when my kids yelled, &amp;quot;No phones, mom!&amp;quot; Q: In your book you suggest ways you&amp;#039;ve made the family dinner fun. What are two or three of your &amp;quot;tricks&amp;quot; that helped make your family dinners &amp;quot;successful&amp;quot; (and how do you define &amp;quot;successful&amp;quot; when it comes to the family dinner)? A: A successful dinner is one that lasts a while and one where everyone leaves happy. It&amp;#039;s a meal where we didn&amp;#039;t just wolf food down, rather something else happened at the table. That is the goal. To that end, a great dinner must include not only yummy food, but good conversation. I often have a topic I want to discuss, a newspaper article to share, or a verbal game to play. We also serve a lot of participation food - meals where everyone at the table gets to finish the dish themselves. Simple things like adding their own fresh herbs or crunchy things on top. My book has lots of ideas on how to do this and several chapters on conversation starters and games to play. Also, every Friday on the Huffington Post we put up a short, snappy, timely news story with questions for the table. It&amp;#039;s free and guaranteed to spark a lively conversation.  Q: Which are your favorite &amp;quot;can&amp;#039;t miss&amp;quot; recipes that your whole family loves?  A:  I love all the recipes in the book that you can make in one pot or one dish. Serve that with a green salad and dinner is done. Several of my favorites include &amp;quot;Oven Grains, Greens and Cheese, Please&amp;quot; (page 108) and &amp;quot;Sweet Corn and Vegetable Lasagna&amp;quot; (page 91). Also, I love soups and consider them a meal with a crunchy salad. But without sounding too braggy, we have been cooking and eating the food in this book for years in my household and my kids love it all. That&amp;#039;s another rewarding result. They eat everything: Kale, quinoa, sweet potatoes, beans and they crave water with their meals. That is the direct result of family dinners. Q: What are 3 steps any parent can take to help their kids have a healthier relationship toward the food they eat?  A: 1. Cook food yourself. Choose organic ingredients whenever you can. Saute&amp;#039; an onion, toss in some garlic and you get the added bonus of a great smelling kitchen! 2. Involve your family in the process. When kids help cook, even if its just shredding the herbs or stirring the pot, they eat more and they eat better. 3. Cook for your family not for your kids. Make kid friendly food but cook for everyone and your kids will learn to love all kinds of foods. Q: How do your daughters regard your environmental mission? A:  I deal with lots of eye rolling from my kids (who can blame them really?) but I believe something is sinking-in. Last week I sent my oldest daughter to the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner and she came back carrying everything in her arms because she had forgotten the canvas bag and she knew I would be upset if she came home with a plastic one. As an enviro mom, that&amp;#039;s darn rewarding! And I know for a fact they both take shorter showers and drink from reusable water containers instead of plastic bottles. Q: At what point did you start thinking of yourself as an environmentalist? What was it that triggered your interest and was your concern something that grew gradually or did it resonate for you with intensity right from the beginning? A: My environmentalism reared its head around the age of ten when I inexplicably become obsessed with littering. For some reason I considered it my personal responsibility to pick up litter wherever I found it and yell at anyone I saw contributing to the problem (much to the horror of my mother). I was a ten-year-old on a mission to clean up the streets! But it was years later when I became a mother myself that concern for my kids&amp;#039; future really ignited my passion and set me on my course. Once I started reading and educating myself, there was no turning back. Q: What has been most gratifying to you in your journey as an environmental advocate?  A: Well it&amp;#039;s hard to beat the pleasure of winning an Academy Award! That was a pretty gratifying moment. But I have to say, I am gratified on a regular basis by the people I meet all across the country who dedicate their efforts to protecting the environment and public health and are making a difference. The great thing about working on important issues is all of the other people you meet doing the same thing. Q: What is most challenging and frustrating to you as someone who cares deeply about the environment? The most disturbing part of working on all these issues is the amount of money spent by corporations to confuse, mislead and misinform the public. This is one of the reasons why we are always taking two steps forward and three steps back.   Q: What are you proudest of as a parent?  A: You would think that was an easy question but for me it isn&amp;#039;t. I suppose the answer is that I am proud of myself for establishing rituals for my kids. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be a &amp;quot;good &amp;quot; parent, but I am still learning how the heck to do that. It is all still a work in progress  Q: What have you found most challenging as a parent? A: Okay this question is easier...EVERYTHING.   Q: What do you wish every parent knew?  A: For our health and the health of the planet we all need to start eating less meat. There are so many protein rich foods, like beans, lentils and quinoa that are healthier and delicious. And if we eat less, we will enjoy it more "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/institute/a23791/green-living-day-by-day-a-conversation-with-laurie-david/>