THE ART & SCIENCE OF FOOD – A Memorial Day Salute – PART 2

A HAPPY, THOUGHTFUL MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL!
As we enjoy the first of America's great patriotic, all-consuming, over- consuming summer holidays, I thought a few words about  the wonders of 
food might be fitting.

It makes me sad to see how many people seem to approach eating as just one more necessary chore. Do you simply consume your food, or do you experience it?

THE GREAT GRILLED CHEESE AND HOT DOG SCAM
When I was a kid, no one ever gave me the choice of whether or not to eat my vegetables. Mom knew what was good for us, and, except for the occasional bootlegged candy bar or soda, we ate and drank what she served. Balanced meals and a sense of food adventure were part of our family culture.

Today, though, I have to marvel at the little co-dependencies I see played out in so many American families. Parents start their enabling by asking their kids what they want to eat. Are you kidding me? Their kids—having picked up the no-vegetables! mantra from friends and/or media—inevitably make poor choices.

Worse yet, some parents don’t even ask; they just assume their kids won’t eat anything that’s really good for them, and then fulfill their own prophecy. This little scam is then reinforced by the kids’ friends and their parents, and restaurants, which assume the only thing a kid’s ever going to want is a grilled cheese or a hot dog. And we wring our hands about the epidemic of childhood obesity!

Parents just assume their kids won’t eat anything that’s really good for them, and then fulfill their own prophecy.

Just today I saw a TV commercial in which a young mother's standing in her kitchen, pondering a sort of holographic version of the nutritional food groups pyramid. She blithely dismisses every item on the chart that's green, saying something like, "No way my kids are gonna eat these things!" The solution she and the sponsor propose: one of those engineered nutritional drinks originally prescribed for kids temporarily unable to eat solid food. So, if you can't beat 'em, fool 'em!

How sad that kids—with lots of help from all the wrong places—are losing touch with real food! For this wonder seeker, the saddest part of this is seeing them robbed of their natural sense of adventure.

Decide for yourself what your kids should eat ... then leave them with just one choice: eat this or starve.

What can we do to reclaim wonder-full eating for our kids and grandkids? Probably the single best approach: turn off the TV. Decide for yourself what your kids should eat—maybe offering a couple of healthy options—and then leave them with just one choice: eat this or starve.

Short of that draconian measure, my daughter has a smart policy with her headstrong four-year-old: the "no thank you" bite. When the little girl balks at eating something, she must eat at least one bite before she's excused from the table. Then there's always the good old dessert come-on. (I knew there was a logical raison d'etre for dessert!)

"As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: 
take it or leave it." ~ BUDDY HACKETT