Fussiness about food is a normal part of child development. Young children are naturally neophobic — they have a distrust of the new. Even the most determined parents can be cowed by a child’s resolve to eat nothing rather than try something new. As a result, parents often give in, deciding that a bowl of Cocoa Puffs or a Pop-Tart, while not ideal, must be better than no food at all.
Its a parents JOB to to serve a variety of healthy foods and get their children exposed to foods.
Today I made firm tofu fried in some olive oil & soy sauce with onions and asparagus (all fresh but I decided last minute against the mushrooms, thought I had better nor push it).
After years with the 10 yr old and 6 yr old they have moved into a new place of acceptance with healthy foods mom makes. The 4 yr old fell asleep crying not eating one bite and woke up 2 hours later asking for her popsicle. I WILL NOT CAVE (ugh! this is hard! I am tired by now! summer needs to end August).
The 6 and 10 yr old ate 3 squares of tofu and 6 pieces of asparagus. Did I then let them have a popsicle? Am I THAT BAD MOMMY who rewards healthy choices.....YES I AM AND YES I DID. This was a summer day lunch and I am happy with the results. It was a small popsicle.
3 things I DEEM VERY important in trying to be successful at feeding your kids:
(please note successful is a very wide range like 1 fruit and 1 veggie a day can be success for some where as others like my healthy granola friend Leslie who manages to get more fruit and veggies into her kids than humanly possible in one day).
1. I do NOT make my kids "clean their plate"
2. I do bring them to the store and ask them "what fruit do you want what veggie do you want" and I BUY what ever they want.
3. I do let them help me prepare food or when ever possible let them prepare it themselves.
I do love this book my other bestie TONYA gave me.
I must admit thanks to TONYA and LESLIE I now serve all whole wheat pasta to the girls, rice is half brown half white now (we started out with the pasta that way too).
We have always only served the highest quality whole wheat bread.
We choose as many organic products as financially possible, we shop locally and try to buy the food stuff closest to home.
We limit (we DO buy whole grain gold fish, mini wheats, cinnamon life cereal, and all natural ice cream) the "processed foods" and we strongly avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup...
I have hard MANY people talk about how time slows down when an accident happens. I have experienced this first hand (2 times with my children more than 2 in my own life).
The first occasion was while I was outside with my kids they we are actively moving around on various wheeled contraptions. The then 9 yr old was scootering and RIGHT AS I HAPPENED to look up at her* she catches a stone under the front wheel and flips over her scooter and in SLOW MOTION I watch in horror whilst also beginning to get up out of my seated position** her mouth/face bounces off the ground and I hear a CRACK as she chipped off BOTH her two front PERMANENT teeth.
* & ** clearly we have an attachment and ability to connect with our offspring that goes beyond a bond discussed. A bond of the 6th dimension or psychic ability!
Then yesterday it was similar situation kids all over again with my 6 yr old. Kids riding all over, a 4 yr old on a scooter and 6 yr old on her bike. There was a lovely dad and his two amazingly adorable kids Elizabeth and Sarah I think (4yr old and 2 yr old) his dog, my other neighbor and her 4 yr old Jessica. SO loads of activity totally positive environment and off the 6 yr old goes riding. She was in the position where your standing on the pedals to gain momentum...I look over at her* RIGHT as her handle bars turn sharply (too sharply) to stay up and down she goes. I see her face (her adorable chunky cheeked face) slide across the pavement and bounce and little I think. AGAIN I was already in motion it seemed or felt like as soon as I saw the handle turn...I was on her and she was hysterical I was worried she may go into shock actually. But again my mind tells me FOR SURE I looked up right BEFORE she fell like I KNEW something was going to happen!
BOTH TIMES time slowed down and bended!
NEXT POST about the psychic bond that must be proven!
10 Tips To Reduce Your Food WasteSlate readers offer their own suggestions for how to run an efficient kitchen.
By Nina Shen RastogiPosted Tuesday, July 6, 2010, at 11:03 AM ET
A few weeks ago, after serving up some sobering statistics about food waste in America, the Lantern put out a call for your best tips on how to avoid refrigerator rot. Nearly 200 of you responded, with some big suggestions (move to a place within walking distance of a grocery store) and small ones (grow your own herbs). Here are 10 key lessons that emerged from your letters and comments.
2. Shop a few times a week. If you lack the discipline to plan your meals seven days in advance, do as the Europeans do and opt for small, frequent purchases. Check to see what you have at home that's in danger of going bad, then shop for ingredients so you can make use of those items. If you've got pork chops in your fridge that are about to turn ugly and half a bag of rice in your pantry, maybe all you need is a vegetable for the side. If you have to drive to your grocery store, shop on the way home from work or while running other errands so you don't increase your road miles too much.1. Create—and then stick to—a shopping list. Plan out your meals for the week (including snacks and side dishes) and then shop for just the ingredients you need—no more, no less. Be honest about your cooking and eating habits, though, or you'll still wind up with unused ingredients. Reader Heather Rhodes recommends a weekly menu that includes at least a few easy dishes (for nights when you're too tired to make something elaborate) and one meal that uses nonperishable pantry staples (so if you decide to order takeout one night, you don't have to worry about anything spoiling).
3. Stick to a single cuisine, to maximize efficiency. "I used to cook Indian on Monday, Thai on Tuesday, Italian on a Wednesday," says reader Jennifer Coogan. That would leave her with a fridge full of disparate foods—many of which would go bad before she had cause to use them again. Now she'll designate a "Chinese week" and wait until she's finished all the bok choy, tofu, and guilin sauce in the kitchen before she allows herself to buy Mediterranean ingredients.
4. Buy food with cash. It's hard, writes Graham Murtaugh, but it works. "The less we use debit/credit, the more conscious we are of what we spend and so we tend not to grab items that just look good."
5. Hit the supermarket salad bar. Produce shopping can be a real conundrum for singles and couples. (Someone please tell me: How does one person finish an entire bunch of celery without resorting to ants on a log for every meal?) Allison Breyer Everett avoids excess by buying precise amounts of pre-chopped veggies from the grocery store salad bar.
6. Rein it in at the farmers market. Many of you, it seems, have the same problem as the Lantern: You fall in love with exotic produce over the weekend, but during the workweek you're too tired to learn how to cook the damn things. Stephanie Hershinow advises that you limit your experimental purchases, like ramps and rhubarb, to things you plan to prepare that same weekend."Once you know how to use something, it can be considered a workweek ingredient."
7. Wash and prep fruit and vegetables right away. This helps combat workweek weariness. Dry everything thoroughly before you put it in the fridge—surface moisture provides a nice environment for decay-causing bacteria and fungi. Adel Kader, a postharvest produce expert from the University of California-Davis, suggests using a spinner and then keeping the ingredients in plastic bags or containers. Note that cutting fruits and veggies can double the rate of deterioration; Kader suggests using any cut produce within two days. (More produce storage tips can be found here [PDF].)
8. Keep track of what's in your fridge and pantry, with expiration dates. An up-to-date inventory not only prevents you from accidentally re-buying items but can also alert you to what's teetering on the edge of spoilage. Some readers use a simple notepad and pencil; others have developed more elaborate systems: "We put a white board on the fridge and everything that goes into the fridge gets written down on the board," says one commenter. "We write down perishable stuff in red ink, stable stuff in green, one section for ingredients and another for leftovers."
9. Use the freezer—and use it wisely. A handful of readers extolled the virtues of thevacuum sealer and those green plastic produce bags for keeping food fresh. But the most popular suggestion by far was the humble freezer. Keep a container in there for chicken carcasses, freezer-burned drumsticks, onion tops, and carrot peelings; when it's full, simmer all the contents to make stock. Ann Dorough blanches and freezes on-the-verge produce for later use. Jenna roasts vegetables (except for cucumbers and leafy stuff) before they go bad and then tosses them into a freezer bag; the constantly evolving mix goes into lasagna, soup, pizza, or casseroles. Fruit that's about to go bad can be frozen for smoothies, and at least four of you sang the praises of banana bread made from frozen, mushy Chiquitas.
Meanwhile, Kristin Dzugan uses her freezer as soon as she gets home from the store, parsing out six-serving jars of pasta sauce into two-serving cups. ("This also keeps us from over-eating," she notes.) Other readers suggest freezing individual portions of prepared food for later consumption.
10. Schedule in your leftovers. After 46 years of marriage, John and Willie Wright have hit upon a winning system: "We eat 'new' food on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, then on Thursday we have 'smorgasbord' with the leftovers from those three nights."
A popular variation on smorgasbord night was "back of the fridge night," when you challenge yourself to prepare a meal out of nothing but end-of-the-shopping-week ingredients. To do this, bone up on a handful of what reader Venkatesh Rao calls "meta recipes"—flexible dishes like quiches, stir-fries, stews, and dals that can easily accommodate a wide variety of ingredients. The Lantern loves using Mark Bittman's Food Matters cookbook for just this purpose. Several of you also recommended allrecipes.com, where you can search for dishesthat incorporate up to four different ingredients.
