Lying By Omission...and other stealth parenting skills

Well, I have begun a secret mission which includes my unknowing, unconsenting family members. Without naming names but for informational purpose, these clueless victims are my own children.
They have become unsuspecting guinea pigs in my own little game of "Betcha didn't know" and "Gotcha".

For instance, during the summer I began a grass roots effort to eat better without telling the kids since leaving them out would make the transition so much easier and it did! I made huge strides towards better health with my "what you don't know won't kill you or stop me" effort. Pork bacon was replaced with turkey bacon. Ground turkey replaced ground beef. Low fat cheese was added to omlettes and the full o' fat stuff lay waiting at the local World O' Wally for some other poor soul to purchase. Things were going so well I even confided in my mother who silently followed suit and replaced her bacon as well.

I was in hog-less heaven I tell ya! Then we spent a day or 9 by the pool. Deep fat fryer bubbling with the oily brown stuff that makes so many things sooooooo gooooood when I came across my greatest fake out to date.
While the chicken tenders, fried pickles, onion rings and fried cheese where rolling around in the fryer the kids wanted Ranch dressing. When they ask for Ranch they don't intend on using it as a condiment or even a dip. THEY use it as a second coating drenched over the already horribly unhealthy but fabulously fried coating. Once inside I realized I was out of sour cream. Not wanting to disappoint I had to improvise. Here it is y'all. The greatest fake out yet. I used cottage cheese! Yep. Large curd 4% cottage cheese, a package of ranch dip seasoning and the most fabulous tool of all....the stick blender! THEY STILL DON'T KNOW! I even had kid salad (lettuce w/ Ranch) and they ate it like it was the real deal. I am so proud of my deceit!

Turns out, if you make a 24 oz. container of sour cream you are looking at 1320 calories. The "new" Ranch has 720 calories in the WHOLE container. Hand on my heart, it doesn't really taste that different but what a difference it makes.

I don't think I will ever tell the kids...atleast not until they move out that is. The last thing I want to do is ruin the good thing I got going on now!