We love to play with our food!
Marion Nestle
So, how would you suggest shoppers navigate the supermarket?
I have these facetious rules. Always shop the periphery. Don’t go into the center aisles. If you do go into the center aisles, don’t buy anything with more than five ingredients. If you can’t pronounce the ingredients on the package label, don’t buy it. Don’t buy anything with a cartoon on it. If you don’t want your kids eating junk food, don’t have it in the home
So why don’t Americans eat more fruits and vegetables?….Perhaps like may people you think they are too expensive (but you are willing to pay $3.50 for a pound of potato chips, which is what the cost of a smal package works out to be, or $15 for a pound of chocolate.)… Because surveys and other studies say that expense is a major barrier that keesp many people from eating fruits and vegetables, some USDA economists thought it might be useful to find out what such foods really cost….
Their stunning conclusion: you can eat the full daily complement of servings recommended at that time – 3 fruits and 4 vegetables for just 64 cents (in 1999 dollars). … How, you ask, could this be remotely possible? The answer: portion size… you can get a lot of half-cup servings out of a pound of fruit or vegetables. (from Marion Nestle’s eye-opening and entertaining book “What To Eat”)
Dr. Brazelton - leading pediatrition
”…if you avoid processed sweets, and salty and fried foods, your child’s palate will not become overwhelmed with and addicted to these easy-reach taste blasts, and will be more likelyto welcome the more subtle tastes of — vegetables.”
Ben Franklin and Koolaid Guy
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.
When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
“By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.”
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
“Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”
And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart,
“I too am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,
And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels.”
And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;
And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.
How is it that in spite of the fantastic abundance of fresh healthy natural food available to us, we are experiencing so many childhood nutrition and health issues? Obesity, allergies, sensitivities, behavioural challenges, eating disorders… the list goes on. Why don’t kids just naturally go for natural foods, when natural foods taste so amazing? An interesting question…
How can we capture the imagination of a recalcitrant audience of kids who are force fed who-cares nutritional facts and platitudes of “it’s good for you”… If kids don’t eat the healthy stuff there are threats of escalating and apocolyptic consequences ranging from no dessert to full blown diabetes to the ever dreaded “no Starwars Starships tonight”
At the other end of the spectrum we see an assortment of efforts from innocent positive encouragement to get that broccoli down the hatch.. all the way to unabashed and outright bribery!
Dr. Brazelton has some great thoughts about the working of the palate and how it can be trained by refraining from what is sometimes called ”loud” food (Burger King, McDonalds, etc.). Marion Nestle counsels us to keep junk food out of the house altogether, and ensuring that sugary and salty treats are kept as “sometimes” food, but not as a reward….
But there is another way!
This way allows us to tackle the problem by putting ourselves in those smaller shoes and meeting those little minds and tastebuds where they are and bringing them over to our way of thinking by using a paradigm that they can really relate to….
FUN!!!
We have to reclaim the joy and playfulness of eating well!
Welcome to Fresh Ideas Nutritainment. This is what we believe:
We know that if we can find a way to play with our food, we will accomplish both of these goals!
This realization was the impetus for the creation of a music video starring a charming and sweet tomato named Plato who embarks on a wild adventure up Mount Everest!
Kids don’t give a fig about how healthy food is… this is why we need to speak to them in the only language they really understand… FUN!
Watch the video!
Winter Wheat
When We Eat
The bread you bake, we should taste
the grain before it is crushed, give thanks
for the chaff cast out, look under our nails
at the dirt we carry with us, same as the fields
where now wheat climbs toward the memory
of late winter, clouds pulled under by the weight
of the first warm blue sky
Todd Davis
For bacon, eggs, and buttered toast – Praise the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – Amen!
Good Lord, Bless these sinners as they eat their dinners – Amen!
We love our bread, we love our butter but most of all we love each other – Amen!
And if you forget to say grace before the meal you can still be thankful…
Forgive me Lord, I’m a little late. Bless the food that I just ate!
Since this blog is about the FUN aspects of healthy eating, we offer this Thanksgiving greeting to our American pals…
