Tricking Kids into Eating Right??

Posted on 2 May 2007 under Rants, School Lunches

The CBC is reporting this morning that researchers at Penn State are recommending parents make their kids eat vegetables by burying/hiding the vegetables in the kids’ foods.

Likewise, CNN is reporting that some schools are creating “faux junk food” that’s similar in flavor and texture to real junk food, i.e. pizza, donuts and hot dogs. Similar to the CBC article, one line reads:

“I’d rather see parents blending veggies and sneaking them into dishes where they can, rather than going the fake food route,” researcher Dr. Barbara Rolls said.

CNN did go so far as to talk to the real expert on the subject:

Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services at Berkeley Unified School District in California, said she is appalled that a meal of chicken nuggets, tater tots, chocolate milk and fruit cocktail with high fructose corn syrup meets the nutritional requirements under the national school lunch program … “We don’t need to put tricks into food; it’s just another processing mechanism and that is not enough,” Cooper said.

One of the aspects about both of these articles that bothers me is that, later on, when those “real” foods aren’t made in such a “healthy” fashion, those same kids will still eat just as much of it and the real faults of the concepts will become real problems for them. The CNN article includes such info as well:

“The problem is we can’t always have our cake and eat it, too,” said Stephen Daniels, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine … He worries that children who grow up eating faux-fast foods may have trouble making good food choices as adults … “There are ways to prepare healthy foods to make them more palatable, but I’m not sure we need to hide them in a doughnut or a hot dog,” he said.

Meanwhile, I have a 10-year-old son whose favorite vegetable is broccoli …

Is there something wrong with actually teaching nutrition to kids these days, instead of creating dishes that lie to them?

I think not.

Read Comments

  1. 2 May 2007 @ 5:25 pm Posted by Jessika

    Lol and we wonder why each generation appears to get “worse and worse”…more and more lies!

    Nothing wrong with some good old fashioned vegetables, is there?

  2. 3 May 2007 @ 10:31 pm Posted by Vanessa

    my 4 year old goes nuts over artichokes. go figure. she used to demand tomatoes but won’t touch them now. i’ve found that taking breaks from certain foods and reintroducing them periodically works for my kid, she will sometimes say, ‘i like (insert vegetable/food here) now’ after boycotting it for several months. i’m not one to force my child to eat things she doesn’t like…however, i’m sure it gets more difficult when there is more than one child at the dinner table with different tastes, you don’t really have the luxury of cooking foods that will please the masses. one important thing to remember is that a child’s taste buds are ever-changing and they will have likes/dislikes that will change every so often.
    faux fast-food? tricking kids? not only do kids’ tastes change rapidly, their tastes are very sensitive. i bought a drink with banana, pineapple and coconut, thinking my kid would like it because she likes pineapple and coconut. she was all excited about it, until she got a taste of the banana and it was all over, despite all the sugar and sweetness. i make a salad with spinach and green leaf lettuce, she gets a bite of the green leaf and proceeds to pick out all the little bits that are not spinach. there are soooo many healthy foods out there to try, i think ADULTS need to be more creative in using the healthy foods their kids will eat in their cooking…if only we all had the time and energy!!

  3. 4 May 2007 @ 4:22 am Posted by LunaPierCook

    My own Briahna, who’s twelve, eats all kinds of things. Back in February when we had our annual Valentine’s Day date she scarfed down the deep-fried alligator just like she always has.

    But she can’t stand cornbread.

    Here it gets a bit confusing. She likes corndogs, especially the ones I make at home using Jiffy corn muffin mix. And for breakfast she’ll crumble cornbread or corn muffins into a bowl or a cup, add milk and a sprinkle of sugar, and she’ll eat the whole pan.

    But she can’t stand cornbread.

    Does she get teased about this? You betcha! Especially when I can get her into a GFS Marketplace store, just point to the cereal-sized foodservice box of Jiffy corn muffin mix, and quietly ask, “Honey, do we need any of that?” ;-)

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