Friday Frivolity: Junk Food Wars

Here, at Manners for Modern Mothers, we've covered many parenting-related food concerns: healthy eating, unhealthy eating, organic food, and of course table manners. But we have yet to ask one astoundingly obvious question, asked recently in an essay by Yoni Freedhoff in U.S. News and World report. Why is everyone always giving my kids junk food? In his essay, Dr. Freedhoff takes aim at the sugary snacks and treats our young children are so frequently given. In the end, he suggests that, "people other than their parents giving children junk food shouldn't be considered 'normal.'"

As I push aside a batch of left over Christmas candy to make room for the haul of candy my children brought home on Valentine's day, I'm thinking maybe he's got a point. As a child, I took pleasure in the paper valentines given and received, but for my children and many others it seems to have turned into another opportunity to amass candy. Perhaps that's just the new normal, Valentine's day Peeps an all.

Foodie Friday

Perhaps it is the cooling weather or all the togetherness from hurricane Sandy (sending good wishes to our family and friends in NY and NJ), but whatever the reason, this modern mother has been on a cooking spree of late.  It may also be thanks to these new books enthusiastically recommended by friends.

The first,  Dinner a Love Story is a memoir, a primer,  a how-to and choc-a-bloc full of great time/life saving ideas.

Just when the modern mother had decided to avoid the below book, mostly because she did not think she could possibly stomach another book about how le French are better at food/child related anything, her friend called to tell her how  French Kids Eat Everything, has changed their dinner life.  How can one not recommend a life changing book?

Finally Deb Perelman, over at our beloved  Smitten Kitchen, has just come out with her book, titled, appropriately, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.  I haven't read it but, Christmas is coming...

Enjoy the weekend and if you can find the time, happy cooking. 

Last week - Oh My.

What a week it was for the modern mother.  It began with the loss of a child's two adult teeth in a freak Saturday-night-ice cream-dance-kitchen-accident.   Dental surgery is really no way to spend a Monday.  For modern child or mother.  Thank heaven all is well.

If only... 

Maybe this sort of experience is why The Juggle wrote Why Parents Make Awesome Managers. 

Did you see the article in Vogue about a 7-year-old's weight?  It even made the NY Times Sunday Style section this weekend.  Controversy or brilliant publishing coup?  You decide.

 Is Wednesday really three times as long as every other day of the week?  Or is it just in our town where all grade school students are dismissed at noon?  That's right.  Every Wednesday.  Noon dismissal.   

A mannerly friend assures us that the reason for such a wacky week was that the Moon, Jupiter and Venus were meeting in a celestial rendezvous.

Thursday was certainly a bit out there having decided to explore a Reiki/Reflexology foot massage and total life healing (apparently) treatment as found via social shopping/daily deal.  Now we're not saying it wasn't interesting and relaxing.  The modern mother has no idea how she has survived all these years without knowing about her chakras. 

 Friday, ah Friday.  The relaxing end of the week.  Except for the "concussion watch" going on  because the modern son decided to impale himself at a friend's house Thursday evening.  Again - thank goodness, all is well.

If it were not for the arrival of a package from Amazon containing the most fantastic product ever, at least if your glasses and silverware were looking like ours, the week might have been a complete bust.   To make a secret of it no longer, this miracle product  is called  Lemi Shine.  And this modern family could not be more astounded and pleased.  Sometimes, it's the little things.

Here's to a better week for all.  Happy Monday!

Image from momaroo

Friday Frivolity - Post Halloween Giggle and Mini Rant

Hopefully this funny piece from WNYC.org will help with your Post-Halloween traumatic stress syndrome.  We love it because it is mannerly, modern and very funny.

And another thing, when did it become vogue to "donate" used Halloween candy to  our military, homeless people and food banks?  Ironic, non?  Of course, we all want it out of the house but if it isn't good enough for our offspring why is it good enough for these segments of the population?  What if everyone just composted the candy and sent these groups a can of butternut squash soup?  Who's with me?  Aside from the fact that you can't compost candy...

 Enjoy the weekend. 

Photo and recipe from our friends over at Smitten Kitchen

Great New Plate

Our friends over at What Are You Feeding Your Kids These Days wrote a great piece on the new Healthy Plate developed by the Harvard School of Public Health.  The School of Public Health claims the new plate is "based on the most up-to-date nutrition research, and it is not influenced by the food industry or agriculture policy." Happy eating! 

Healthy Eating Plate from Harvard Health Publications

Color Me Hyper?

A nutritionally conscious modern mother will no doubt be aware of recent media chatter surrounding artificial food colorings. The FDA recently convened a panel to look at artificial food colorings and their potential role in behavioral problems in children. What did the panel of experts recommend? More research.

This modern mother is hardly on the vanguard of nutritional correctness and has been known, in a pinch, to serve her children artificially orange mac and cheese or sometimes permit the consumption of blue cotton candy. (Gag.) Yet, she can’t help but wonder, do we really need to spend millions of dollars on this? Do we need a mountain of research telling us that something leads to asthma, or obesity, or hyperactivity, or grotesque warts before we decide to avoid it?

Here is where we might want to review a few facts:  (1) artificial colorings are derived from petroleum; (2) though science has not conclusively shown them to be linked to adverse health effects, they add no nutritional value; (3) they do not change or enhance the flavor of food. So, what is the upside? The value of these colorings lies in their ability to make mediocre food more appealing; the winner is not those who are duped into ingesting FD&C Yellow No. 6, but the companies who use food colorings to sell their processed products.

We shouldn’t need the government to ban artificial food colorings; we should all just have the common sense to avoid them. Imagine a world where we collectively said no. The FDA could save its research money for some thing else. (Maybe they could work on approving some life saving drugs?) Seeing no demand for chemically colored foodstuffs, food industry would see no reason to make them and could send their research staff scurrying off to invent new “food products” to entice the American consumer.  And we wouldn’t have to read another news story about it. 

Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are able to stock entire grocery stores with a panoply of products while eschewing artificial food coloring, shouldn’t we be able to kit out our kitchens? Maybe our gummy bears and jelly beans would glow a little less brightly, but no doubt we would all adjust.  Think perspective, and be strong as the time for Easter candy approaches. 

P.S. To anyone who might claim that Cheetos without artificial orange don’t taste good, can we suggest they try a sample of Pirate's Booty?  

* photo from the fabulous food blog, Out Best Bites. 

Who Buys the Carrots in this Family?

* image from tinyfarmblog.com

Upon hearing about the baby carrot industry’s plan to package and market baby carrots like junk food, to give carrots attitude, and make them cool, the modern mother might think something like, “Does the world really need carrots with hip packaging? Can’t we all just eat food? And most importantly, could the rustling of a brightly colored snack wrapper possibly fool anyone, even a child, into thinking carrots taste just like “Spicy BBQ” Bugles? 

When this modern mother (for the purposes of blogging research, of course) goes to the Baby Carrots marketing website and finds her children drawn in like moths to a flame, swarming to see the source of its enticingly generic rock soundtrack, she may find herself surprised at the marketing campaign's effectiveness. She might be thinking, "idiotic," but her children find it riveting. 

 *Image from itunes.com, Xtreme Xrunch Kart

And she might realize then and there that she objects to the obnoxious marketing of actual junk food (not carrots) as much as its lack of nutritional content. The baby carrot campaign may be a bit funny as parody, but mostly the outrageous dudes, sexy women, and extreme sports are just cheesy, even if the product is not. 

When she asks her children “Does it make you want to eat baby carrots?” they mumble “Yeah…uh...totally” without removing their eyes from the screen. And so, this modern mother might shrug and even mutter, “whatever,” just like the dudes in commercials.  After all, she buys the carrots in the house and she knows which ones she will choose. 

Mommy's feeding her broccoli to the dog. Why can't I?

Children are notoriously picky eaters. So, too, are some parents, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, "No Age Limit on Picky Eating." Plain pasta, french fries, pizza, and cookies without nuts - is this the diet of a 5 year-old or a 35 year-old? The best quote from this story may be: "For reasons that aren't clear, almost all adult picky eaters like French fries and often chicken fingers, health experts say." Dear health experts, are the reasons really not clear? Maybe its because those foods are fatty, fried, salty and yes, sometimes, delicious? Don't forget that they're almost universally available in the U.S.

Modern mothers of picky eaters, don't despair! Your gentle authoress is one of the unmentioned majority of childhood picky eaters, having emerged from a childhood eating plain pasta, hotdogs, carrots, and cookies, to become an adult with an approximately normal diet. (Thanks, Mom!) Use this story as motivation to keep trying, fixing asparagus when the chances of your children eating it are almost non-existent, and helping your children stay relaxed and open to the possibility that someday, they may in fact like something new. Once your children are grown, one thing you don't want them to contend with is deflecting dinner invitations because of a fear of frisee.

If its Organic, it must be Healthy!

The modern mother can buy any variety of organic packaged food for her children: organic toaster pastries, organic freezer waffles, organic cheese puffs, organic chocolate graham bears. The list goes on. The organic label might make a mother feel better about feeding her children fruit snacks instead of fruit, but of course she is fooling herself. If the first ingredient is “organic cane sugar” or “organic evaporated cane juice,” chances are it is, well, mostly sugar. If it looks like a Rice Crispy treat, and tastes like a Rice Crispy treat, well… you get the point. We’re not saying “don’t buy organic,” since buying organic supports organic agriculture and leads to lower pesticide use, among other things. But let's be honest with ourselves: processed food is still processed food and organic soy lecithin is not any healthier for our children than regular soy lecithin. There are times when the convenience of a packaged snack can't be denied, but the well mannered mother knows that just because her cellophane-wrapped treat is USDA certified organic doesn't mean its superior.

Children of Pedestrian Tastes

Children are notoriously picky eaters. Perhaps that is why the “kids’ menu” was born. Chicken fingers, pasta, pizza, hot dogs. These pedestrian offerings may initially seem like a blessing since they provide sustenance to finicky children, while allowing their beleaguered parents to simultaneously enjoy a decent restaurant meal. Don’t be fooled. The kids’ menu quickly escalates into a vicious cycle where child claims to like only chicken fingers, pasta, pizza, hot dogs; child is offered only chicken fingers, pasta, pizza, hot dogs; so child subsists on diet limited to, yes, chicken fingers (with fries), hot dogs (with fries), pizza (with fries?) and pasta (with fries???). And we wonder why so many children "prefer" such a limited diet? After the millionth time the well mannered mother watches her child scarf down the hot dog and fries from the kids’ menu, rather than eat the roast chicken and rice he would happily enjoy if there were no kids’ menu, she may just want to rip that photocopied piece of paper to shreds. Or set it on fire. Or take the family to a restaurant that doesn’t offer a kids' menu. What a novel concept! Maybe, just maybe, that is what one well mannered mother will do.

The Child of Finicky Tastes

Children are notoriously picky eaters. Some are so selective that they seem to subsist exclusively on pasta, hot dogs, and bacon. Aside from the obvious nutritional deficiencies, this limited diet can become a problem when the child is a guest at Grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner, on a play date, or when the whole family is invited to a brunch that consists of quiche, whole wheat rolls, and salad. Confronted with the possibility that her child will touch no morsel of food at such an event, what is a well mannered mother to do? Does she relay her child’s whimpering request for “just a hot dog, please” to the hostess? No, a hostess is not a short-order cook. Does she drop all adult conversation so she can plead loudly and persistently with her child to “please, please just eat one bite?” No, because she is compassionate to her adult companions. Given that the persnickety child may be enjoying the limelight as he turns up his nose at various culinary delights, the well mannered mother is careful not to encourage complaining. She may shrug her shoulders and say, “oh well, you might want to eat some of this delicious quiche when you are hungrier,” and return to the adult conversation. Or, she may say, “If you don’t like it now, you might want to try it when you are older, since your taste buds change, and as you get older, you might find you like new things,” and thus give the child the opportunity to change his mind, while “saving face.” And in some cases, she may watch her child eat a pat of butter for lunch, secure in the knowledge that it could possibly have more nutritional value than your average Happy Meal. The wise well mannered mother will of course keep a stash of snacks in the car so she won’t have to resort to the Happy Meal on the way home.

A Child of Refined Tastes

Children are notoriously picky eaters. Perhaps that is why some parents can’t rave enough about their child’s unusual tastes. “Oh she just loves sashimi.” Or, “we really prefer to snack on dried nori – he just can’t get enough of it!” accompanied by a knowing shake of the head. When did food become an arena for competition? Maybe at the same time it became fashionable for parents to know the provenance of their pork chops and to buy varietal chocolate. But why? And more importantly, what’s a well mannered mother to do about this bragging? Should she disparage the food in question and reply, “But aren’t you concerned about the high mercury levels in all that fish?” Or counter “Oh well, my child really prefers Nigiri Sushi.” Of course not. She should avoid one-upmanship and contests of "food correctness." This leaves few alternatives but to nod appreciatively, mumble something about how “interesting” that is, and move the conversation forward with a change of subject. After all, she knows that though her son may currently be sucking down wilted dandelion greens with sherry vinegar like they're spun sugar, tomorrow night may be a different story entirely.