Just Eat It!
What is this crap I’m hearing about hiding vegetables in brownies? Is this the newest trend in parenting? Teaching your kids to be upfront and honest, then trying to trick them into eating spinach by baking it into brownies is just weird. What ever happened to “Eat it or go to bed hungry?” In our house, if a kid tries to avoid eating their veggies, they get them first. In fact, the get nothing else on their plates until they eat the vegetables.
I know what some of you are thinking, “But what happens when they still refuse to eat them?” They go to bed hungry. Eventually, they will get the message that dinner means veggies and you mean business. Ask any pediatrician, a few nights without dinner will not kill them, but a lifetime without the habit of eating their vegetables can be very harmful to their immune system and over all health.
I’m sure that Jessica Seinfeld would want to choke me for trying to ruin her book sales, but enough is enough. Brownies are treats and spinach is a veggie that must be consumed. The two just do not belong together. Not in my book, anyway. Eat the dang spinach and get a brownie for dessert. Let the two commingle in your stomach, not your mouth. I, for one, will never resort to hiding veggies to get my kids to eat them. All seven of my kids eat veggies and some were very resistant to doing it, but they soon realized that it was not an option. Welcome to Prescott house…eat your veggies or go to bed hungry!
I agree with your opinion, not your methods, but I do agree that hiding veggies is really lame. It just teaches kids that we have to hide them or their inedible.
At my house we raised Cedar with food freedom which means we’ve always supplied plenty of healthy foods and a variety of treat-like foods and let his stomach and head dictate. We never make him clean his plate or say he can’t have a food. I.e if he wanted a fudge pop for breakfast, fine.
His doctor says he’s perfectly healthy, and also because we treat all foods the exact same, there are no “BAD” or “GOOD” foods so Cedar doesn’t think like that. He thinks food is for when he’s hungry or has a craving, period. This is a child who has always eaten his veggies, fruits and whole wheat bread with no complaints. Sometimes for breakfast he’ll ask for veggie soup and broccoli, or a whole red pepper.
Food freedom works – I know because we have a snack drawer for Cedar (2 actually, a fridge one and a dry one) and we fill them with healthy stuff, yogurt, apples, crackers, etc, and some treats, little chocolates, fruit snacks, etc. Guess which I have to restock more often – hint: it’s not the treats.
Also, he has friends whose parents do treat candy as a “BAD” food and when they come over they don’t go straight for the apples and carrots they go for the candy and cookies – every single time, while Cedar is munching veggies. When we separate foods into bad and good and don’t allow our kids to make smart choices, I think it’s harder for them to learn how. 90% of the time Cedar chooses healthier items over non-healthy even though he could choose whatever.
Of course the main point of this working though is that you as a parent eat healthy in front of the kids, provide a large variety of choices, and quit talking about foods as bad or good and talk about it in a more nutrition based manner.
Well, we do not treat candy as bad either. My kids also choose fruit over candy. So I guess both ways are effective! But no, I’d never give my kid a fudge pop for breakfast and they would never even think of asking for one! So I guess we are both agreeing and disagreeing
Thanks for sharing.
Jennifer, I’m curious when you introduced your child to sweets?
From the minute the first sucker/Reesie cup/donut graced my children’s delicate little palates – I swear they did that cartoon blink and their pupils became little glazed over sugar cubes. There is no “mommy, I don’t want this chocolate – I want an apple” I must be doing something wrong.
I agree my kids have always been told eat it or starve. That’s how I grew up. But my husband won’t eat veggies. He grew up not having to. So that is when I found the cookbook and make him brownies or goodies and he has no idea they are good for him. Just trying to be a good wife.
@Ashley I don’t remember, but it wasn’t an official intro anyhow, more like Cedar saw one of us with a sweet of some sort and asked for it. We’ve just never, ever, told him that he can’t have a sweet, or punished him by not allowing him something for not cleaning his plate. We only associate food with nourishment.
I’m not the only one who does this, lots of unschoolers do. This page, is all unschooling kids who choose their own foods: http://sandradodd.com/eating/sweets
From this unschooling food page http://sandradodd.com/food
Some parents don’t make the switch until their kids are older, because they’d never heard of food freedom.
I guess you don’t have the book! It clearly states to serve veggies in their regular state. The idea is to add additional veggies to the other things they eat, muffins, cakes, etc… The most interesting part is that the goodies taste MUCH better with the veggies baked in.
In the end the worst part about the book is the amount of time involved…