Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Picky eaters.. made, not born

This has been weighing on my mind a lot ever since I saw a post on a message board about this book called the Sneaky Chef. In this book a mom creates recipes like brownies with spinach, cookies with zucchini, and more and more of the like. Apparently parents in our country are so desperate to get their kids to eat vegetables that they cook them down into a mash, puree them and 'sneak' them into foods that their kids enjoy.

WHAT THE HECK?? That is absolutely absurd. Maybe I've been blessed with non-picky eaters... no wait, thats not true. Because they've all gone through a picky stage. But you know what I DIDN'T do? I didn't cater to them. I didn't let them start a diet of chocolate milk and chicken nuggets. I continued to present them with what the rest of us were eating and let them sit there and huff and puff over how they didn't want it. Sometimes they ate it, and sometimes they didn't. We don't EVER make our kids eat a thing. If they're hungry-- they'll eat. Pure and simple. And they got over it. And you know what? Even the baby will eat brussels sprouts and broccoli now. Without it being pureed into his dessert. I think the picky eater phenomenon in America is being fostered by the parents. Google it, its an AMERICAN thing. Nowhere else in the world do they have this phenomena occurring.

Bah.

No comments: