Kids' Eating Habits

Recently in the US, two cookbooks that have found a roaring market are both about the concept of sneaking vegetables into children's food by disguising them - put pureed spinach into brownies and chocolate pie, put sweet potatoes into a cheese sandwich...So the basic premise is, kids will only like foods full of starch, fat and sugar so the only way you can make it a little better is by hiding pureed vegetables in those same starchy, fatty, sugary treats and re-cooking them umpteen times until all semblance of taste, texture and nutrition is drained from the vegetables.

Frankly, I disagree, and much to my relief, so does a pioneering paediatrician who did her research way back in 1928 ( the link to the article on her in Slate - http://www.slate.com/id/2155816/). Her thesis was that supplied with a variety of healthy foods, kids are naturally programmed and smart enough to pick things that offer a complete and healthy diet. Now, obviously, if all you're going to offer them is potato chips, brownies and cookies to choose from...

I honestly believe that good food habits are something that need to be inculcated from the beginning. The basics, like limiting candy, sugar and flour. Making sure they get vegetables and fruit into their diet from the time they start eating solids. Restricting the availability of chips, colas and the like.

So far it hasn't been an issue despite any amount of peer pressure. Yes, of course my son loves chips and asks for them periodically, but we just don't stock them at home. Same with colas, chocolates and candy. Now he's allowed to drink a glass of coke, but only at parties ( typically because most birthday parties nowadays are hosted at Pizza Hut or McDonalds where juice isn't available as an option). He loves soup and salad and asks for them on a regular basis. In fact, of late he's been showing signs of interest in cooking, and came up with a soup recipe over the weekend which we had to choke down(thankfully only a small quantity - the soup consisted of glucose biscuits soaked in water with Boost on top!). So I asked him to help me in making Stone soup (recipe to be found on my food blog), and he loved both helping me and the soup that 'I made myself', as he claimed. My 17 month old daughter loves her fruit and veggies and spent a gloriously messy evening fishing all the veggies out of the soup and feeding herself yesterday. So far, her idea of sneaking food is to help herself to curds from the fridge.

There are so many different types of cuisine and so many recipes are available freely on the net that it shouldn't be that difficult to find some way to cook a vegetable that your child will like, while still retaining the taste and flavour of the vegetable. I think if we start with the premise that kids will like vegetables and fruit rather than the opposite, then we don't need to do all this 'disguising' and 'sneaking'. Maybe the concept was based on the authors' own dislike for vegetables and fruit?