Michael Pollan, Betty Crocker and the Food Kids Like to Eat

We've got a b-day in the Goodwin house today and while shopping for the occasion Noel thought Lily would really like a Lunchable to celebrate the occasion. Sure enough, when Lily opened her backpack today to discover a Lunchable she leaped for joy and (I'm not kidding) hugged her mom with a long embrace like she had just been gifted a pink pony. I wouldn't be surprised if that is her favorite birthday present.

Hmmm. It's got me wondering about our food journey (Michael Pollan, etc.) and the ways our kids experience it. For the most part they go along with our emphasis on local seasonal food. They've drawn the line at tofu, and the fact that I don't eat chicken anymore has changed things up but it's not like we're eating mustard greens and kale every night. But based on Lily's rejoicing at a Lunchable you'd think she had been eating a regular diet of gruel.

Unrelated to the Lunchable, Nancy broke out her old Betty Crocker's Boys and Girls Cookbook last night and it's quite a sight; hotdogs, SPAM and American Cheese are the staples of the Betty Crocker kids food pyramid, the precursor to the Lunchable. I guess kids have been pining after heavily processed foods for a long time.

I'm wondering about how other families are doing with trying to get kids to eat healthy sustainable foods. We've talked a lot on this blog about getting healthier meals at school but I suspect that getting kids to eat healthier food at home may be the greater challenge. How do you make it work at home?

Click through for more pics from the cookbook.

Comments

[Michelle Sidles]

First, those pictures make my stomach hurt.
Second, my daughter will always choose a Lunchable as her "perfect grocery store lunch treat." :{
Third, ours have gotten on board with Meatless Monday and Fish Friday's. I'm not sure it's an advantage that we started this in Late elementary school but at least we can explain things "logically" to them.
I will say that I came home with some raspberry plants yesterday to plant in the garden and my daughter's face LIT UP. Makes me feel like we might be making progress. ;) Both kids are fully on-board to help in the garden this year which is also a nice change. :)

[SustainSpokane]

Hey - I think your Lunchable story is great! My two kids are on either side of the fence with these popular food-as-entertainment products, or were, until the youngest saw "Fresh, the movie," and decided at the age of 8 to really give up factory-farmed meat (though he still waffles). Processed junk is supposed to be a rare thing - a "treat" - just like it is for your daughter. The real trouble is that, for most American children, this is the norm.

I remember as a child, on school field trip days, my hippy "Diet for a Small Planet" mother would allow us to choose one Hostess product for the special sack lunch, and sometimes a soda. It was a huge deal! And a treat, special, rare, as was candy.

I'm glad that my growing boys still get excited about my special marinated baked tofu, and would rather have a pineapple than the "fruit" snacks so many kids have on a daily basis, and that they recognize that processed stuff is meant to be rare.

Kids eat what their parents eat, and what is in the home. I think it is important to be an example - to try new things - I never made something different for the boys than what we were eating for dinner. My boys are not picky eaters, and love healthy,home-cooked whole food. And yes, they would scarf down junk, too, if we had it in the house.

[nancy]

Michelle, your comment about the raspberries reminds me of the other side of what we've experienced with the girls: their love veggies from the garden. Their favorite Summer thing to do with the neighbor kids is to gather "dessert" from the garden, which includes a smorgasbord of raspberries and strawberries but also carrots, peas, string beans, etc.etc. And no one asks for dip!

Today I went to the Library and brought home all these kid cookbooks, omitting the 60's/70's Betty Crocker versions. As of last night all of us are assigned meal duty for certain days of the week. My hope is that when the girls get involved in the cooking process they'll be more likely to eat what they cook (and they get to decide the meal for that night.) I'm sick of them saying, "We're having THAT?" The tricky part is I'm not allowed to say it either. :)

[nancy]

Appreciate your comment, SustainSpokane.
I so want the home-cooked food I make for the kids to be an even BETTER treat than the hostessy lunchable kind, and in my mind this SHOULD NOT BE SO HARD TO DO! What's the secret? Anybody?

[Michelle Sidles]

Nancy, putting the kids in charge of a weekly meal is on our list of things to do, too. For the same reasons you mentioned. I think the struggle might be as much for me embracing their choices as they struggle embracing mine. ;) Good luck!

[craig]

Thanks for all the great input everyone.

[nancy]

SustainSpokane, I'd love to have a copy of your marinated baked tofu recipe. I think I saw one on the Small Planet Tofu website, but if yours is different, please share :)

[Karen]

I so agree with SustainSpokane -- not having the stuff in the house is the key. The teenagers had a party a couple of weeks ago and we were eating chips and processed snacks for days. Sure enough, as long as the choice was between something nasty and a piece of fruit or a sandwich, the stuff in plastic packages won out. Now that it's gone, the fruit bowl is emptying again.

And Nancy, having the girls cook is a great step toward having them appreciate the food that is cooked, not just unwrapped, in the house. But be forewarned that they might develop favorites! Each of my kids has about 2 "specialties" that they make any time it's their turn to cook (less regular than it once was now that everybody has so many afternoon activities). My husband doesn't mind; it was his job to cook once a week as a teenager, and he cooked corned beef and cabbage every week . . . for three years.

Yikes!

But on the other hand, I loooove those old cookbooks with the nutty illustrations. I recently rescued my great-grandmother's from my grandmother's estate, and they are fascinating, especially the comments in the margins. We occasionally mix in an "old-fashioned" (meaning meat, canned soup, canned veggie) recipe, if for no other reason than to show the difference between that food and what we eat on a regular basis. It's both a nice connection to the past and a reminder of why we make the choices we do, useful when making yet another salad seems like too much of a chore.

[Lynn]

First of all, Happy Birthday to Lily!!

Craig and Nancy, I so admire your efforts to feed the children well and expand their knowledge about foods and nutrition. We all have learned from you.

My guess is that beyond the salty, sugary, fatty flavors in Lunchables we humans have learned to love, Lily's joy is more about feeling heard that Lunchables are what she would like to eat. Factor in that each school-day she watches a large group of children eating them. Lunchables have become a form of peer pressure.

As a First Grade teacher, I also know that children don't understand the difference between needs and wants, and that they need to be taught how to spot the ways advertizers can make you want what they are trying to sell you. We adults are just beginning to learn how it is done in the food industry. We need to share that information with our children so they can make wise decisions on their own when we are not around.

And, don't forget to notice when they do make good choices. When my children, Heather and Andy, were about middle-school age, we met traveling Alaska relatives for dinner one evening. The relatives were blown away when both Heather and Andy ordered salads for dinner. I think that when such a big deal was made about their wise choices, and how their story was told and re-told by family members, they were encouraged to continue their healthy ways.

Eating well is complicated!

[D Worden]

You might want to institute a "special occasion" approach to dining in your family. (Sorry if I am being repitious to what has already been posted -- I just started reading your blog a few weeks ago.) I recommend it to dieter friends who need encouragement.

It goes like this: on regular days, stick to your food plan. For Special Occastions, indulge a little -- this provides something to look forward to. The trick is keep Special Occassion very limited and fixed and keep the amounts of the indulgence small.

[craig]

D - Great idea! Thanks for sharing and glad to have your as a reader of the blog.

[Melissa]

Research. Ask Lily what it is about the lunchable that is so appealing. Maybe you can let her make her own lunchable that is modified to be healthy but she still loves it. I have only let my daughter eat hot lunch three times this school year. It has been like solving a puzzle to figure out what she likes that is nutritious. Spend some time asking the children what kinds of foods they like. Give them a survey or an internet survey. Make a list of all of their favorite foods. My daughter almost always has the same thing for lunch with a little variation. She has had a green apple every day for three or four months and still loves it! She gets upset if we are out of green apples. The key, for me, is seeking and finding healthy foods that they love.