At war with deception: how to feed kids right

Let me start off by shamelessly telling you that my book just came out: It's Real Food for Healthy Kids, a kind of Joy of Cooking for parents that covers more than 200 wholesome, healthy, delicious recipes that will appeal to every age, from babies to teenagers.

Each recipe was tasted and vetted by kids around the country, from Maine to California, and each has a nutritional analysis so you can decide which foods are perfect for your child. And while we do include cookies and cakes, because my coauthor and I believe in teaching moderation, we have removed as much sugar, fat, and white flour as possible. But my book is not why I am posting today, well, not the only reason.

Two parent cookbooks came out last year touting the philosophy of hiding good-for-you-foods in not-so-good-for-you-foods, like adding spinach puree to brownies. As a mother of twins and a food professional, I was appalled by this deceptive and sneaky idea. Not only are we teaching our kids to "eat your brownies, they're good for you" (in a country where a third of kids are obese or overweight and perhaps the first generation to not outlive their parents), but we are lying to our kids and signaling, either implicitly or explicitly, that vegetables, in particular, are so yucky, they have to be hidden. That's the worst idea I've heard since manufacturers decided to add trans fats to everything edible.

This philosophy is the opposite of the one espoused in Real Foods for Healthy Kids. Instead of being deceptive and sneaking vegetables and fruits into your kid's foods, you should be promoting to them the gloriousness of a buttery edamame, the crispiness of a sugar snap, the sweetness of a carrot. Vegetables and fruit should be a valued, gobbled-up part of meals and snacks.

Naysayers will claim that they can't get their child to eat that way, and once you're way down that road with your child, it can be hard to steer their diet towards healthy eating, but it can be done over time by following some of these steps:

1) Have your kids take no-thank you bites, so they get accustomed to the flavor and texture, and tell them it can take more than a dozen times for their palate to get used to the food.

2) At dinner, serve your kids fresh or cooked veggies first, as an appetizer, as that's when they are hungriest and will be most inclined to eat them, and then fresh fruit before dessert.

3) Make sure to be a role model, eating and enjoying healthy foods in front of your kids.

4) Use teachable moments, like pointing to the U.S. Olympic team, to remind kids how important it is to eat healthy and exercise.

5) Have them try a global pantry of different types of vegetable and fruit recipes; we have tons in the books.

6) Bring them shopping so they can choose their favorite healthy foods, and have them help create the menu, so they feel invested in the meal and thus more likely to eat more.

What side do you stand on? Deception or teaching your kids to embrace their inner spinach lover?

Tanya Wenman Steel is Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning Epicurious.com, the premier food Web site. Before joining Epicurious, Steel was an editor at Bon Appétit for ten years, where she won the prestigious James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for Magazine Restaurant Review or Critique (2003). Prior to Bon Appétit, she was an editor at Diversion, Food & Wine, and Mademoiselle magazines. She is a member of the American Society of Magazine Editors and a James Beard Restaurant judge. Steel has written extensively for myriad publications, including many articles for The New York Times, as well as New York Magazine, Child, and Travel & Leisure. She appears on television frequently for Epicurious.

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From the Community…

Comments 1-7 of 7

Posted by Anastasia Thu Aug 7, 2008 1:05pm PDT

My kids eat whatever I put on their plates. Sometimes it is just one bite. Most of the time they eat it up. They love spinach, spaghetti squash, eggplant, and much more. They ask for fruit over cookies even! Of course, they love anything I cook for them and that helps. They even mix their foods, which was appalling to me when I was their age.

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Posted by Tawnya P Thu Aug 7, 2008 1:38pm PDT

I work in this area myself and as a mom of three, including twin girls who are 9 and eat anything and everything, including kohlrabi and beets, I feel so fortunate! Completely agree regarding lying to our kids, sending mixed messages, and teaching that veggies are so bad they must be hidden...that has been my "schtick" all along. I also have the good fortune to work with another chef/author, Domenica Catelli, whose book "Mom-a-licious" absolutey re-ignited my spark to try even harder to introduce and persevere with the "no thank you bites" for my kids, especially my 6-year-old who would eat ice cream intravenously if given the choice...THANK YOU for giving us yet another cookbook to be inspired by, and for getting more about those principles in front of all of us moms...when we're all so tired, busy, and over-scheduled (even those of us who work hard at NOT doing that!), every little bit to add to the toolbox is helpful.

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Posted by melangeth Thu Aug 7, 2008 3:33pm PDT

OMG! Finally someone with a brain and a sense of responsibility. As the mother of a not quite two year old, I often find myself on the receiving end of "you're either high or crazy" looks when I explain to people that my daughter isn't allowed to eat sugar until she's two. (I'm also not big on fried food or anything else that is nutritionally devoid of value.) Never mind that she will wear your eardrums out asking for brocci, bean (green) beans and 'matoes, or that she'll choose apples, mewon (melon) and yogurt (sweetened with splenda) over cookies and ice cream every time. For some strange reason everyone seems to think I'm doing something wrong. Admittedly, it can be disconcerting to have a twenty-two month old look up and say,"No, tank you", when offered a sweet. However, in steering clear of starting an addiction that she has a lifetime to acquire should she choose to do so, my husband and I have created a child who will eat just about anything you put in front of her. I have two friends with children who, because of their own or their spouses dietary prejudices, have to consistently sneak healthy food in to their childrens diets. They have also resorted to outright bribery. My mother used to play that exact same game. "If you don't eat your vegetables, you can't have dessert." As if eating our veggies was some kind of payment or penance you had to pay in order to eat what you really wanted. Hiding healthy food within the semblance of "fun" junk food doesn't change habits or attitudes. Eventually everyone has to feed themselves. If the lessons they learned were that sweets and fats were good things to eat and nutritionally sound choices, then those are the things they will choose. So the question you finally have to ask is this: like the tree falling in the forest, if you can't see it, smell it or taste it, does it really matter if it's there?

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Posted by roma_sur Thu Aug 7, 2008 11:15pm PDT

Thanks for coming up with such an inspiring book. I'm sure it's life saving for many a mom who trying to inculcate good eating habits in their children. Your article inspired me to blog about my own little one in my blog wwww.surmantra.com

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Posted by shafters Fri Aug 8, 2008 8:45am PDT

I am so with you on not hiding veggies and fruit from your kids!! I've NEVER tried to disguise fruits and veggies with my child, who is 10 years old now and eats a HUGE variety of fruits and veggies. He hasn't always been so accomodating, though. What you have to do is be diligent in offering the vegetables and fruits to them over and over, and just getting them to taste it will do wonders in getting them to keep eating it. And, most importantly, YOU HAVE TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE. My husband and I both are not picky at all when it comes to fruits and veggies, and will eat them however they come, whatever they are, and make a point of doing that, especially in front of our child, even if we may not particularly like the certain veggies or fruit being served. It really makes a difference, and like I said before, just be diligent when it comes to offering veggies and fruits to your children, keeping put it on their plates, at every meal and insist that they al least try it, eventually their tastes will change and they will like it!
Not only that, but exposing your children to a wide variety of foods, not just on the fruit and veggie side, but also foods of other cultures and regions, will help give them a well rounded palate and diet as an adult.

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Posted by Disgruntled Fri Aug 8, 2008 10:16am PDT

I'm definitely on the side of teaching kids to eat healthy food. My son is a picky eater too. We've always had the one-bite rule where he has to try a bite of everything at least once. If it's something my son absolutely loathes like green beans or bananas, I don't force him to eat it. Sometimes we make him try stuff before we tell him what it is so he'll try it without being prejudiced beforehand. (We do tell him what he's eaten though.) It was a bit of a battle when my son was young but I've never really catered to him. If you do that, you're probably either cooking two meals or you're living on hot dogs, mac and cheese and pizza. I'm not sure what we've done right but now that my son is a teenager, he has become a lot less picky. I love to cook and thankfully my husband isn't picky so I'm always trying new recipes. I am amazed at the things my son likes now...hummus, feta cheese, basil, couscous etc. He'll even suggest we try new types of foods. I'm sorry but if I'd been feeding him spinach brownies all these years, that would have never happened.

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Posted by Mera Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:16am PDT

Kudos for another book on getting it right. I wonder if the books mentioned above, with the self-perpetuating layers of deception that hid the veggies, were really catering to self absorbed parents who had already blown it with their kids by letting them call all the shots (the little mirrors, haha!), and they had to come up with a 'remedy'. One hopes it was only a bridge to truly getting it right, and introducing them to foods that are grown and prepared as simply as possible, so the true flavors shine through.
I remember a book from years ago called the Enchanted Broccoli Forest, which came out after my eldest was already constantly asking for 'more trees' (she loved miso soup and lightly steamed broccoli, and was vegetarian by choice until her first boyfriend at 18 talked her into trying meat). This is how food should be sold to kids: it's celebrated, along with taking them into a garden to taste food fresh picked.... there's nothing like raw peas and tomatoes still warm from the sun.

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Comments 1-7 of 7

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