Food

Recipes, reviews and food finds

School Takes Away Preschooler’s Lunch

 Food  5 Responses »
Feb 152012
 

It happens all the time, stories are reported on where schools, authorities or other parents behave badly, creating outrage everywhere. That is, until we get the rest of the actual story, which often makes us go, “Ohhh, okay, that makes sense.”

But here’s one I just can’t figure out. A preschooler at an elementary school in North Carolina had her lunch taken away, not by a bullying classmate, but by a state inspector who declared her lunch not nutritious enough, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines. The lunch in question consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, chips, banana and apple juice.

What did they replace it with? Chicken freakin’ nuggets. I kid you not. Continue reading “School Takes Away Preschooler’s Lunch” »

Operation Eat Your Veggies

 Food  No Responses »
Dec 292009
 

After five years of kicking, screaming, crying and moping — all by me — I finally had enough and decided that the food issues in this house were going to be addressed — once and for all. Ask any mom, doctor or food eater in the world and everyone has their own opinion. I think I’ve heard them all. But this time, it was my opinion I followed and I was determined to do it my way and get results. Let’s just say the shiitake hit the fan. I call it…


Operation Eat Your (Freakin’) Veggies

Day 1: Broccoli I put a tiny piece of broccoli on the kids’ plates along with small bites of other foods they like. As they finished the other pieces, they asked for more.

Eat your broccoli and you’ll get more. 

Lucy eats it. Brady and Jacob’s plates remain on the table. I just happened to have a sitter that night so I could get some shopping started — yes, just days before Christmas — so I instructed the sitter (a mom, herself) that they were to eat nothing else. Before I even got out of the car, I had a text that Brady had eaten his broccoli.

I swear I cried.

The next morning, Jacob came skipping down for breakfast.

“Do you want your breakfast warm or cold,” I asked. He looked up to see the broccoli sitting on the plate from the night before and looked completely dejected.

“Warm,” he muttered.

After dousing it in syrup and squishing his face up until he was unrecognizable, he ate it.

Sweet victory.


Day 2: Apple Slices I know. You’re probably scratching your head wondering why my boys won’t even eat apples. They love apple sauce, Jacob ate three juicy red apples while apple picking in New England over the fall but apples have sat night after night in my house, turning brown as adamant cries of refusal pierce my ears.

This time, I tried a new technique. “Just put it on your tongue,” I instructed. (It is the gateway to eating, ya know.)

With a small amount of discussion and the threat of never eating anything they like ever again, apples were eaten.

Day 3: Green Beans We were invited to dinner at a friend’s house, something that normally sends me into the fetal position, thinking about how my kids will react to actual food. But I was determined to use the experience as a teachable moment. Grilled chicken, mac and cheese and green beans were served. Grilled chicken, mac and cheese and green beans came home with us that night. Grilled chicken, mac and cheese and green beans were served for breakfast the next day. That’s when one child was smart enough to know that a fight was pointless and eventually was satisfied that I covered his green beans in peanut butter (I know) and ate it. The other pulled out a trick of his own…

After Brady forces down the green bean, quickly regurgitating it back onto the floor, he looks up at me with a sparkle in his eye, knowing that he won this particular battle. “I threw up… ha ha!”

Doh. I can’t compete with that.

Days 4-7: The tortured veggie-eating life got easier and easier with each passing day. We enjoyed pancakes with blended blueberries and flax seed, pureed spinach in homemade pizza, watermelon slices, carrots and Jacob even tried Chinese food. The knock-down, drag-out fights have been replaced with short — yet firm — discussions with reminders of treats and happier times ahead. Jacob even ate three pieces of broccoli yesterday and the violent, if not overly-dramatic, gagging that usually accompanies it has subsided, replaced by a silent pause and self-coaching that you can almost hear going on in his head.

Week 2: Tonight, I made their favorite box of crap macaroni and cheese, mixed with a substantial amount of cauliflower. It was devoured in seconds. Speaking of seconds, they even wanted more. I put one small piece of cauliflower on the side to throw them off (They would’ve suspected something if there were no veggies on the side). That took a bit of work to get them to eat it but eventually — and with someone requesting syrup — it made it into the mouth, down the throat and into their increasingly-strong bodies.

I know we’re just at the beginning of a very long road but with determination, consistency, and a massive amount of patience on my part, my kids might actually eat like normal little human beings.

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The Apple Dumpling Gang

 Food, Parenting  No Responses »
Nov 052009
 

If I could sum up my parenting fail in a word, it would have to be — FOOD.

When Jacob was almost a year old, we thought it would be so cute to get him his very first “kid’s meal.” That Sunday afternoon move may have been one of my biggest mistakes — ever. I have spent every day since bribing, threatening, begging and bargaining, hoping my five-year-old would just eat a meal that wasn’t shaped like a dinosaur, covered in pepperoni or come in a color not found in nature. When I do get him to try something, it often ends up in a gag/vomit combo that leaves me on my hands and knees wiping up food that looks nothing like the treats meal I had prepared.


Then, enter Brady.

Our four-year-old is a big time meat and potatoes man — hold the potatoes. He’ll eat the meatball portion of spaghetti and meatballs, chicken nuggets, and pepperoni pizza, with a little mac and cheese thrown in for good measure. While most people would find living four months with no kitchen would be unimaginable, as long as we had a toaster over and microwave, they couldn’t have been happier.

The funny thing is that I really do subscribe to the “two things on the menu” principle — take it or leave it. And if I didn’t have a 6’4″ baby who was the king of all picky eaters, I’d be all over that. I find myself feeling defeated before I even turn the stove on. The only thing that keeps me from moving into the local McDonald’s is knowing that Lucy will at least try 75% of what I cook. It’s fun to share fruits and veggies with at least one normal-eating person.



But things are looking up. On our fall vacation back east, we had the chance to go apple picking. I had very low expectations that the day would be anything other than a hay ride and photo op for some gorgeous fall foliage. But picking apples proved to pique the curiosity of one of my stubborn food men (and his dad). Watching Jacob bite into apple after apple — even when he would randomly spit some of it out — made my heart swell with pride. (Baby steps, right?) And (as you can see above), when we tired of apple picking, there was still Lucy picking to be had. She like to do her best impression of a hanging apple on Daddy’s arm, the hay ride, and anywhere else she could dangle from.

I jumped on the apple-bandwagon and decided to try something else — dumplings. We watch a video called Culture Cubs that has taught the kids not only some vocabulary in Chinese (hearing them name fruits in Mandarin is just too cute), but has introduced new foods and art. And since our little dumplings watch the kids in the video eat dumplings over and over again, a little experiment was in order. So the other night, I announced we were making dumplings and turned on the video. It was brilliant. Dinner became an event, with each of the kids grabbing their chop sticks and chowing down on pot stickers. I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing. Jacob, famous for throwing down in the middle of a Chinese restaurant because he doesn’t like anything, was now shoving pot sticker after pot sticker down his throat — eating a total of five! Brady was even dipping them in sauce!

I know that the food battle is far from over. But it’s important to celebrate the mini-victories as they come. And while tomorrow is more likely to be sandwiches over sushi, we’re one step closer to tossing out the kids’ menu.

What do you get your kids to eat?

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Reading is Evil

 Food  4 Responses »
Aug 102008
 

We took the kids to dinner yesterday. And in an effort to get J to try something different, I said, “They have quesadillas, grilled cheese, or spaghetti.” He looked at me like I had three heads, points directly at the menu and said, “They have chicken nuggets too. It says it right there!”

This 4-year-old really needs to stop with the books.

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