LilSugar

Delilicious: Playful Chef Farmer's Market Set

LilSugar — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:00:00 -0700

Mother Goose had seen the future when she said, "To market, to market, to buy a plum bun. Home again, home again, market is done." With more and more parents joining the organic movement, visits to the local farmers market have become a weekend ritual in many households. Barely a week goes by that we don't see at least one Hollywood mama walking around LA's various markets.

Help your lil one learn more about the importance of fresh fruits and veggies with The Playful Chef's Farmer's Market Set ($15). The set comes with a reusable cotton shopping bag, a produce scrubber, a cotton towel and a booklet with information about seasonality, where fruits and veggies are grown and how to prepare them for cooking. Designed to encourage children of all ages to become more involved in their food decisions, the kit just might help you get a few green foods into their stomachs.

A Vegetable by Another Name

LilSugar — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:00:59 -0800

My brother enjoyed Spiderman pancakes and Superman eggs when we went out to brunch growing up. I've heard of parents telling their tots that broccoli florets are lil trees and carrots are the Easter bunny's candy, but have never called them by another name to my own kids. The results of a Cornell study may have you calling cucumbers "flying torpedoes" and spinach gratin "brilliant brain-food." One report said:

When 186 four-year olds were given carrots called "X-ray Vision Carrots" (they) ate nearly twice as much as they did on the lunch days when they were simply labeled as "carrots." The Robert Wood Johnson-funded study also showed the influence of these names might persist. Children continued to eat about 50% more carrots even on the days when they were no longer labeled. The new findings were presented on Monday at the annual meeting of the School Nutrition Association in Washington DC.

Apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, since an adult study also proved that descriptive menu names increased the sales of certain basic entrees. Does your family have inventive names for foods?
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Lil Tip: Swap Out Your Mashed Potatoes with Cauliflower Puree

LilSugar — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:00:00 -0800

If your tots never tire of mashed potatoes, consider swapping out the root for a vegetable. Simply steam or lightly boil cauliflower florets, then strain them and add a bit of milk or broth and a dab of butter. Use a hand-mixer to puree the ingredients and then salt and pepper them to taste before plating. This fiber and Vitamin C filled treat is so delicious your kids might not notice their staple has been replaced.

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Eco Tot: Puddlefoot Organic Tees

LilSugar — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:15:11 -0800

Encourage your lil one to eat his veggies with the sweet organic tees by Puddlefoot ($22), a line of shirts designed to celebrate the goodness of the garden. Created by Suzi MacDougall, an Ojai, California mom, the shirts feature six animated garden-variety vegetables with cute taglines. From "Stalky" the celery to "Y'onion" the onion, the sweatshop-free shirts are also PVC and pthalate-free and made with water-based inks. Inspired by the plants and animals she grew up with, MacDougall began doodling caricatures as a child herself. Once her sons were born, she put her designs to work and started the Puddlefoot brand. If the cute veggies can get your tot to at least try the goods, the shirts will have gone above and beyond the call of duty.

Delilicious: Dr. Praeger's Broccoli Littles

LilSugar — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:00:16 -0800

Kids and vegetables are often like oil and water. Try as you might, getting them to eat their greens can be a struggle that makes many mamas want to simply give up. If you are ethically opposed or just don't have time to puree and hide the veggies in brownies and chicken nuggets, opt for Dr. Praeger's new line of kids' products.

The cardiac surgeon's Broccoli Littles and Spinach Littles blend their namesake vegetables with potatoes, onions, and seasonings and mold them into shapes like stars, dinosaurs and teddy bears, making them fun for lil ones to eat. The vegetable-filled potato pancakes are rather tasty, low in saturated fat, and preservative- and artificial ingredient-free, leaving you free to enjoy some healthy dinnertime conversation.

Delilicious: Calling Mamas Whose Kids Eat Veggies!

LilSugar — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:00:39 -0800

If your lil rascal limits his food intake to buttered pasta, grilled cheese, and french fries, you need not apply. But if you've got carrot- and cucumber-loving children, chef Art Smith and the makers of Hidden Valley Ranch are looking for your kind. Banding together as part of the Love Your Veggies campaign, the sponsors are trying to find women who are committed to getting their kids and communities to eat greens with their Search For Veggie Champions Contest. Ten lucky ladies will win $5,000 grants to start or improve a garden in their community and an all-expense paid trip to Chicago to get pampered and attend an educational retreat.

Baby Wellness: Forget the Vegetables

babysugar — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:00:23 -0700

As parents, we often worry about our children getting the proper food, nutrition, water, education, and other nurturing necessities. As covert moms publish books like the Deliciously Deceptive and the Sneaky Chef, which aim to help disguise healthy food options under the masks of cupcakes and waffles, one esteemed pediatrician says to forget the vegetables.

Curiosity got this cat. Having forced, I mean spoon, fed my child peas and carrots, I was interested in why Dr. T. Berry Brazelton thought that the greens weren't as essential as I thought they were. To see what he has to say on the subject, read more.

Having hated vegetables himself as a child, Dr. Brazelton advises parents:

I tell mothers, and grandmothers, “Forget about vegetables.” They turn pale. Open their eyes wide. Feel faint. I offer them a seat, and repeat, “Forget about vegetables.” As they gasp for breath, I continue, “When a young child struggles with you over food, you won’t win. The more you struggle, the more he’ll hate whatever you’re trying to shovel into him. Back off. Apologize. Let him know that you know that only he can swallow the stuff you prepare for him.” . . . You can cover them with a multivitamin during this temporary period - usually between 2 and 3 years old – when any battle over food will backfire into even worse nutrition. They’ll make it through this with enough milk, meat, eggs, grains and fruit.” . . .

As a pediatrician, I would carefully monitor for growth and general health. Height and weight need to be considered not only separately, but together, and not just at one single moment in time, but over time. The context of a child’s overall health, eating habits and activity level, and his parents’ height and weight, also need to be factored in. Any parent who is concerned about a child’s weight, height or eating certainly deserves to have this taken seriously by the child’s pediatrician.

Of course, the truth is that science is still working to identify all the active ingredients of vegetables, and how they promote health - and not all of these are contained in multivitamins. Yet even once this has all been fully worked out, there still will be certain basic bodily functions - such as eating, and breathing - that we can’t take over or control for children.

Jessica Seinfeld has written an intriguingly entitled book, “Deceptively Delicious,” in which she whips up a number of child-friendly disguises for vegetables. If you try this kind of maneuver, try not to make an issue of it, or to take your stealthy nutritional missions too seriously. Instead, keep mealtimes relaxing and enjoyable, and focus talk on fun things, but not on food.

Many children take time to acquire tastes for new foods, and their taste-sensing equipment actually matures with age. So in the meantime, you can introduce a vegetable over and over, in very small amounts, so that there is no pressure to try it. The tiny bit of new and different food should just repeatedly appear - without commentary, without pressure, without monitoring of or reaction to whether or not it is consumed. On the sixteenth time, you may be surprised to see the child give it a try, and you may be disappointed as you watch him spit it out. In the meantime, 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 likely to welcome the more subtle tastes of - vegetables.

Do you agree with Dr. Brazelton's perspective on vegetables?
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Baby Wellness: Kids Don't Like Veggies That Bite

babysugar — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:25 -0700

As a child I could never get enough crowns - not the kind other lasses loved, but artichokes. I hope my tot has a taste for them too. Though I may need to be patient as the majority of children have a distaste for bitter vegetables. A new study from Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia found:

A gene called TAS2R38 may be responsible for children's aversion to bitter tastes. . . The study included 143 children and their mothers, and over 79 percent of the children had one or two copies of the bitter-sensitive gene present. Interestingly, the presence of the bitter-sensitive gene made a bigger impact on the children's food preferences than their mothers. The mothers tastes seemed to be influenced more by race and ethnicity than the children.

If your youngster shies away from bitter greens, dress them up with butter and cheese or offer them sweeter veggies until the phase passes.
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Delilicious: Flat Earth Veggie Crisps

babysugar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:00:00 -0700

A sucker for chips, it is no surprise to me that my lil one will bend over backwards to get her teeny fingers on a crisp treat. I often use a bag o' goodies to bribe my wee one into eating her dinner. Grabbing lunch the other day, I spotted a new package among the typical Cheetos, Lays, and Doritos. In a bright and wholesome looking wrap, I discovered Flat Earth baked veggie crisps. Curious to see if they taste as good as they sounded, I bought the bag and gave them a munch.

To see how I liked the crisps, read more.

As advertised, the veggie chips were "impossibly good" and taste just as delicious, if not better, than their grease soaked potato counterparts. For each snack sack, you get over half a serving of real vegetables. Unlike many snacks available to kids these days, Flat Earth Crisps have no artificial flavors or preservatives. So the next time I tempt my tot with a "chip," I won't feel so guilty knowing she is fulfilling part of her daily vegetable quota.

Want Kids to Eat Their Vegetables? Just Ask.

LilSugar — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 04:00:00 -0700

While cookbooks based on sneaking vegetables into children's food have become popular, my children's pediatrician took a different approach.

The other day when my daughter went in for an annual check-up, her recent distaste for everything from carrots to cauliflower came up in conversation. While she used to eat a wide variety of foods and flavors, she became more and more picky in the past six months. I'd heard about the "white food" phase and other dietary oddities from other moms so I wasn't too worried, but curious if my now finicky eater should take vitamins.

Rather than trying to trick her into eating healthy foods, our doctor just made a pact with her to eat them. When my husband told me what happened, I was curious to see if our daughter would follow through on her end of the bargain. But by the time I got home from work, she had already eaten carrots and was wondering what vegetable we would have the next day.

Last night as a true test, I mixed spinach, carrots and mushrooms. Though the foods weren't her favorite, she ate it and said, "A promise is a promise."