Kerrie Ann Frey

Carbs are my kids primary source of food for breakfast.  Pankcakes, waffles, biscuits, toast – they might be accompanied by an offering of a protein, but that offering is not necessarily eaten…unless that protein is in milk form in a cereal they like and I like that they like. 

The food label on the side of Yogurt Cheerios or Strawberry Frosted Mini-wheats does admit to having sugar; however, the sugar content in both of those cereals is LESS than that of Raisin Bran.  Now that I’ve rationalized buying those cereals, I’ll proceed…

So in an attempt to sneak in organic fruit this morning, I made Fruit Milk.  Chopped up blueberries and strawberries, then pureed them with milk in the blender and viola – Fruit Milk.  It was purple and that made it even more interesting to the kids.

When I poured it over the cereal, there was some balking, I’ll admit.  But after they tasted it, it was determined that you can’t taste the fruit through the “fruitiness” of the cereal and they ate it all.

I’ll try it – or a version of it – mixed in pancakes next week.  While they won’t eat pancakes with blueberries in them, maybe they’ll eat it if the pancakes are purple and the berries are so finely ground they won’t notice them.

Do I like being sneaky?  No.  Do I consider this sneaky?  No.  They were told full well what was in the Fruit Milk.  While I did enjoy some recipes in Jessica Seinfeld’s book, I wasn’t introducing the veggies to them.  I was hiding them.  Fruit Milk let me show them fruits they don’t normally eat from the fridge directly, unlike bananas or apples, can be good if you are creative with them.

What’s next?  Veggie Icecream Sundae’s?  Don’t dare me.  I’ll totally do it.

At the healthy eating for families workshop I presented last night, I now realize two things:

1.  I really enjoy presenting and look forwards to doing it more often.

2.  I am clearly the Devil to these people and they believe I must be stopped before I get to their pantries and expose their ugly truths.

It was in between the “So what exactly is wrong with boxed macaroni and cheese?” and the”You really don’t give your children candy bars?” that I realized I’m doing a lot better than I thought I was with my children and their eating habits.  When I was putting together the lecture, I kept going back to the fact that my children eat.  A lot.  Often.  They really won’t stop eating unless I make them or they spontaneously explode and make a mess all over my kitchen.  How was I going to professionally explain great habits when every day is a struggle in my own home?

My husband then brought it to my attention that without my attempting to instill good eating behaviors and positive reinforcers, they might very well be small blimps instead of the imps they are.  By encouraging regular veggie eating and seeing fruits and popcorn as snacks, I’m giving them the tools to at least eat too much healthfully.  They might want to eat more often than some children, but hubby’s point is that if I weren’t so conscious of teaching them proper choices, they would be choosing super unhealthy foods.

When I told this story to the moms who actually managed to attend at such a hideous hour (6:30pm – dinnerbathbed time), they couldn’t get past the part where I said I didn’t give them single serving mac n cheese.  Their ears simply stopped listening right there.  I could’ve told them the secret of the Yeti, but they wouldn’t have heard.

“But, why not?”

Other than the fact that you are serving them nothing but processed carbs and sodium?  No reason at all.  It was then those moms started looking at me like a She Devil, dressed in a very cute black jacket I found at the Saks outlet in Florida last summer.  It clicked for them then – I really do mean what I say.  I am truly suggesting you stop buying 100 calorie processed snack packs at least for a couple of weeks a month.  Spinach is a food you can sneak in via pasta sauce and butternut squash tastes great with some cinnamon and a little brown sugar.  Seriously.

The workshop showed me that there is a need for what I can do – educate moms on how to feed their children in a balanced way that brings healthy food in without making their children become the crazy kids who eat maple syrup raisin cookies for their birthday parties.  It is possible to retrain a child to at least look at lettuce and even contemplate a chicken breast that isn’t breaded, fried or browned in butter.  Just one small change per week will make a drastic difference in a year’s time.

It’s going to take some doing, but when I finally help the moms who want it, they can just say, “The Devil made me do it” when their friends ask why.