Please eat your vegetables!
Tired of wrestling with your kids every night at the dinner table to eat their vegetables? Unfortunately kids are made to dislike vegetables. We all know how important it is to get our kids to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, especially when more kids are becoming obese. I watched an episode on Oprah dedicated to this challenging issue for parents. One of her guests, Dr. Oz, says there’s a very good biological reason why it’s so hard to get kids to eat their vegetables. In fact, they are hardwired to not like them. Dr. Oz says when our prehistoric ancestors searched for food, their children were most susceptible to poisons, which often taste bitter. So instead of liking something bitter—like broccoli—children tend to crave sweet and bland foods like dairy or chicken nuggets.
Children also have a biological reason not to like certain foods. Flavorful fruits and veggies may actually taste differently to kids than they do to adults. “An older adult has 3,000 taste buds,” Dr. Oz says. “A kid has 10,000.”
Dr. Oz says we run into problems when we don’t allow our taste buds to mature. “That’s the big challenge we have in America—we’ve infantilized our taste buds. When a 3-year-old wants hot dogs, a burger, fries, a shake, cola, that’s not abnormal. When a 30-yr old likes those foods, we’re in trouble.
It is interesting to note that celebrities face the same issues at the dinner table as we do. Oprah had Jessica Seinfield, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfield, on discussing her new book, Deceptively Delicious. Jessica spoke about how discouraged she was when fixing healthy meals for the kids - and them not eating it. This prompted her to find a way to slip vegetables into every meal - without them knowing it!
What is so facinating and amazing is that Jessica’s recipes are not just for the kids. There is a wonderful brownie recipe that is to die for! Check out more exerpts and recipes from show here.
I hope this story has inspired you to be more creative in the kitchen in order to win the dinner table war!
Kids, Eat your vegetables, Deceptively Delicious, Jessica Seinfield, Kids Corner, Oprah
October 14th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
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October 15th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
A wonderfully written and informative article, to say the least! I will eat my brownies now!
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:48 am
[...] Linton presents Please eat your vegetables! posted at Healthy [...]