Field Notes From Eating at Little League
On food dye, snack duty, and fitting in
Dates: March 1 - May 10
Site: Tempe Sports Complex, Fry’s Foods (Kroger owned grocery store)
Activity: Watching Little League and T-ball, shopping for team snacks
Participants: Myself, my kids and husband, other families
Length of Observation: 38+ hours (15 2-hour long Minors games, 8 1-hour long T-Ball games)
Observational Notes:
One or two games into the season it’s already shockingly clear: Poppi’s marketing team got their hooks into the under twelve crowd! A few families brought Poppi as the drink part of snack duty and all the kids (whose parents generally don’t let them have soda on a school night) are raving. My Henry, 11, sings Poppi’s praises to me, citing that they’re “Less sugar but still taste great,” “Probiotic” (he’s reading the side of the can), and “Healthy,” all in a bid for us to bring them when it’s our turn. Since I’m both frugal, a snob, and trying to be a good mom, we decide on buying Poppi sodas for Henry’s team, apple juice boxes for Maeve’s team, mid-tier individual bags of chips, and small apples. I mention to Henry that he’s in the last few years of blessed youth. Once kids hit 13 parents aren’t responsible for bringing team snacks anymore (and if they do, I’ll be judgy.)
While driving, two realizations: I’m listening to a podcast about Ultra-Processed Foods on my way to buy Ultra-Processed Foods. And I never feel more like a MomTM than when I’m shopping for snack duty.
Midway through the season there’s been way more conversations about food dye among the parents than ever before. How can I say this? Because food dye has never previously been a conversation point. Now a variety of parents have many things to say: Lengthy conversations about the ills of food dye, how food dyes are banned in other countries but not the US, hints at MAHA glee. I hear, “We don’t have to wait until food dyes are banned to stop eating them.” All of this chatter and no direct statements about political parties. But Trump won 52% of Arizona’s vote and if I had to guess there was a solid group who didn’t love Donald but were happy with a lot of what RFK had to say.
Parents have a love/hate relationship with the snack cart that’s at all the games. It’s tiny (only fits two people), painted white and blue, run by a cheery couple, and they are the stop-gap between dinner plans and reality on a baseball night. The cart sells hotdogs, nachos, little bags of chips, candy, gatorade, soda, water, and the pièce de résistance – snow cones. The good ones, not the granular pebble-like bullshit, but soft, shaved ice that’s doused with a firehose of aggressively colored flavored syrups. Root Beer (brown) is my favorite and you can add cream but I usually don't. Vanilla (one of my go-to flavors that is often dye-free) is brown-yellow. My kids’ favorite flavors are cherry (RED!), apple (GREEN!), or raspberry (BLUE!), and a small is $4 – with or without syrup.
The snow cones are omnipresent. The kids (and I, deep inside) want them every day. But when you’re at the little league field up to three times a week, limits must be set. Parents coordinate when their kids get snow cones so kids weren't being left out, parents weren’t having to hear “but Susy got a snow cone!” Snow cones on the weekend only became the general rule. Order was tested when errant grandparents showed up and were feeling generous. Parental resolve crumbled when the parent in charge of team snacks bought the team snow cones after the game. I saw whispered negotiations between son and mom, encouragement to at least avoid the brightest syrups. Bottom line: no parent was going to refuse their player a snow cone with the team. Some red 40 wouldn't kill a strong tween.
There are the “No snow cone” parents. The “Only on Saturday” parents. The, “Well if you had a really good game or really bad game then you get a snow cone” parents. The “It was a hell of a day and I want a snow cone” parents (that was me a few times.)
I remember crying, eating a Root Beer snow cone last year right after my friend died. April forever marked by sudden loss and baseball.
With two weeks left in the season, one mom finds out that the snack cart makes their own syrups with cane sugar, not corn syrup. “They should advertise it!” she says. Corn syrup has a decidedly bad reputation amongst the parents.
The same mom, enterprising, opinionated, energetic, (obviously I love her), gets cozy with the snack cart folks and asks if they carry any flavors without any dye: pina colada and wedding cake were the only two. Snow cones all around that night for the kids who’d been denied snow cones on the basis of food dye. “They said they’ll order more dye-free flavors!” the mom exclaimed, smiling. Even I got excited at this news and usually I’m too tired (and worried about any other number of food crisis) to single-focus on food dye. But every time I watch my 2-year-old take a bite of her older sister’s GREEN! snow cone I die a little more inside.
At the second to last game of the season, Michael goes to the snack cart for chips and soda, and a dye-free strawberry snow cone for our daughter. But really it’s for me, and it’s delicious. Tart, not too sweet, and miraculously color-less.
People care about what they eat across all lines and distinctions. And if they have children they care about what they feed their kids. People also make exceptions for ephemeral reasons: so their kid can feel part of the team, because it was a really tiring day, because they’re being a nice daughter-in-law letting grandpa buy the kids snow cones. Nutrition is important, and so is making meaningful memories. AND purveyors can do better (make the syrup dye-free, goddamnit!) and when they do people are extra happy to pay hundreds of dollars over the course of a season for syrup-covered ice. Parents (people in general) are not doing well. I see stress etched into everyone. I see people holding onto little league extra tight. Who knows what the future holds, but kids playing and building friendships (sometimes through sharing neon snow cones) is anything but frivolous.
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