Quote of the Day: Mimi Sheraton on Getting Your Kids to Eat More Vegetables
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 10.25.07
While most literary sleuths are busy trying to discern whether and how Jessica (Mrs. Jerry) Seinfeld plagiarized recipes from a similar cookbook by Missy Chase Lapine, I say: a plague on both their houses. Both propose a culinary scheme that is, basically, totally stupid, to say nothing of dishonest. Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious and Lapine's The Sneaky Chef advocate tricking kids into eating their fruits and, mostly, their veggies by pureeing them and oozing them into acknowledged goodies. Think mushes of cauliflower, squash, spinach, and avocado leaked into brownies, chocolate pudding, lasagna, macaroni and cheese, and grilled cheese sandwiches. Even hot cocoa, to which Seinfeld wants you to add mashed sweet potatoes; Lapine advises cherry juice.
The twin major flaws in this faulty reasoning, are that, first, children get the wrong message that sweets and starches are good for them. After all, if you tell your offspring to stop eating brownies, he might not get enough iron via spinach.
With the dangerous rise of childhood obesity and diabetes, do we really want to encourage the eating of sugars and starches? And, ultimately, and more seriously perhaps, lying to children via trickery—even "for their own good"—can feed a lifetime of distrust, as it should. I wonder how these undercover mothers keep their secrets. Are children locked out of the kitchens at cooking time, lest they see Mommy slipping pureed zucchini into their beloved mac 'n' cheese?
A second problem raised by this hide-the-veggies duo is the invisibility of vegetables in their own recognizable forms. As a result, children are not afforded the opportunity to get used to the idea of trying and learning about them. Nor will they consider them necessary for good health."
—Mimi Sheraton, author and former New York Times food critic, in an Oct. 24, 2007 column in Slate
I wish people took plagiarizing (which is a form of theft) more seriously, and stopped promoting Jessica Seinfeld's stolen wares.
when I was growing up, my mom hid veggies in all kinds of things - especially muffins. she also put wheat germ on every bowl of cereal we ate, which were almost never sugar cereals. She thought she was being sneaky, but we new and thought it was funny - mostly because we loved eating our veggies. Sometimes my mom would make entire meals from squash, ending with acorn squash as dessert. Our friends thought we were crazy, but we liked acorn squash as a dessert at least as much as cookies - which were usually delicious oatmeal raison.
we didn't eat that way because it was healthy, but because that's what our parents fed us. We grew up knowing that fruits and veggies were yummy.
My kids are growing up the same way, except I'm not being 'sneaky.' The would rather have grapes than candy 90% of the time. When other parents, or just old people in the grocery store, as how I get them to eat veggies, I have the simplest answer - I serve them.
i wouldn't bother putting spinach into brownies (i'm more concerned about my kid eating too much sugar to make brownies all the time), but sometimes my toddler just doesn't want to eat any meat.
so i add, IN FRONT OF HIM and with his help "cooking," pureed chick peas to help thicken spaghetti sauce and add a vegetable source of iron and other nutrients.
i also serve vegetables with whatever it is that i've enriched. and the whole family eats the same meal.
what i think mimi sheraton and others are missing is that these kinds of cookbooks might have some use for people who aren't that knowledgeable about vegetarianism or ready to commit to it, know that they'd like to increase the veggies they and their families eat, and also might be dealing with picky toddlers.
i use ideas from these cookbooks to help wean my family off red meat--or for those times, as i explained above, that my kid just doesn't have a taste for it--and still make sure we eat nutritiously. it's there as a supplement and a boost. what's mixed in is never the sole vegetable on the table.
and i think eating less meat (without sacrificing what your body needs) is absolutely in keeping with a green agenda.
not everybody is a robot who uses these cookbooks in the way they're presented. and i'm too busy trying to get something healthy, balanced, tasty, and preferably hot on the table to hate on anybody who can help me do it.
as with parenting, as with living: use what helps you and leave what doesn't.
Are most people's kids less picky than mine? He won't consider a fruit or veggie, and not because he never sees one. I try to be honest with him about most things, but parents can't help worrying about their kids health. I'm sure he'll add healthy foods back into his diet eventually (maybe in 10 or 15 years?) but in the meantime if I can get a little pureed this or that into his diet I see no harm in it.
this is straight up stupid. parents should learn how to cook FRESH vegetables. Many parents will feed their kids frozen corn, peas, green beans or canned spinach and fret that their kids "just don't like vegetables". Or they think that since vegetables must be healthy, they must skimp on flavor (just by steaming or boiling). add salt, oil, garlic, even small pieces of meat into vegetables and kids will eat their vegetables.
As a nutritionist, I must say that parents sneaking pureed veggies into not-so-healthy foods (yes, that includes mac and cheese) is weird at best. Why not just let your kids eat baby jars of spinach and squash?
Are American children this poorly nourished? Well, yes. But is this the solution? No, no, and no again.
Here's the problem with the word "vegetable": it implies green, leafy and not so tasty. Even adults don't eat their vegetables, and they know better.
But if you know that fruit, whole grains and legumes (beans, lentils, peas, and all nuts and seeds) are also "vegetables", in that they are botanically similar and nutritionally equivalent, it makes nourishing children - and ourselves - much easier.
So "let them eat peanut butter". Or a bean burrito, or popcorn.
Believe it or not, there's not much difference when it comes to nutrients.
These books miss something that seems so fundamental. How about just teaching your kids to LOVE vegetables from the beginning? Why do kids have to buy into all this "vegetables are yucky" crap?
When I was growing up we always had veggies/salads at every meal, and we never even thought about not liking them or not eating them, because we just couldn't leave the table until our plate was clean. It was that simple-- we were just raised that way from the beginning.
And my dad (who does all the cooking) also didn't cook all the flavor out of veggies-- like serving us disgusting canned green beans (sure to turn any kid off of veggies). We learned to like all kinds of veggies because they were fresh and yummy.
And we always had whole wheat bread and even whole wheat pasta, and we never ate red meat. I did used to hate the whole wheat bread when I was little (probably b/c my grandmother let me eat wonder bread at her house) but now I love that too.
II think I am a good example of not giving up on trying to teach your kids healthy eating habits. My parents always made me whole-wheat-bread-with-home-made-jam-and-natural-peanut-butter sandwiches, fresh veggies, blah, blah, blah. I SO desperately wanted twinkies and fluff-a-nutter on white bread. The instant I got out of the house (college) I bought all the sugary cereals I so desired and ate french fries for lunch. Soon I grew tired of that however, and because my parents had raised me to (try) to appreciate good quality, healthy foods, I found myself gravitating back to the farmer-market fresh veggies, whole wheat breads, and have even gone mostly vegetarian(this shocks my parents, I assure you). I really should thank them again for raising me right.
This isn't going to be a long e-mail, but I wanted to respond to Mimi Sheraton's article! I think it's ridiculous that she has to slay this poor woman, now if she commited plaguerism that's a serious offense, but what the heck? She is trying to do something good, and you feel the need to slaughter her for that? I am quite frankly apaulled, give Jessica Seinfeld some space to enjoy what she's created... and hopefully people would do the same for you, but in this case, I think you've taken the cookbook world too far.
How do the Seinfelds suppose McDonald's Happy Meals, General Mills' Cocoa Puffs, and Brachs candy corn (all marketing partnerships of Jerry's "Bee Movie") fit into any sort of "Deceptively Delicious" recipe mix....? How can that BEE..???? B-Minus!!!