My Geek Baby

My mom always liked to see a rainbow of colors on our plates and I feed Indie in the same way. The more colors, the more vitamins she’s getting. The more veggies and fruits she’s eating, the less packaged food she’s eating.

Rather than focus too narrowly on the food pyramid by day, some experts recommend thinking about what you and your chlid are eating throughout the week? Missed some veggies veggies Monday? Try again on Tuesday. Indie happens to really like orange things lately. Oranges, carrots, cheddar cheese and goldfish crackers. Ok that last one isn’t a healthfood but it’s not potato chips either, so I figure she might as well have fun with it. Some weeks she vetoes yogurt, what I consider nature’s wonder food, and this week she keeps asking for it.

There’s an interesting Q&A about “green” parenting in the NYT this week. I do find it hard to believe that people are hard-wired to love salty, over-the-top sugary foods but rather we’re more susceptible to the advertising that accompanies fast food. I still eat the occassional fast food meal on the road but my tastes and preferences for food were built on a foundation of eating at home most of the time. So are Indie’s. She eats her share of french fries but asks for pears, applesause, carrots, etc.

I also liked the point in the article that children don’t need to eat bland food all the time, to eat what the parents eat. So although I give Indie chicken nuggets and applesauce, she also gets a sampling of the bean dish or spicy noodles we might be having at the adult dinner hour. Also we’re trying the purees from the cookbook I mentioned in an earlier post. Success! They were very good and not noticable, except that my mac n cheese was more orange than usual. No worries, that’s Indie’s favorite color this month!

Anyone who watched the Yo Gabba Gabba episode with the refrain “Try it, You’ll like It” or read Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham knows that there are a lot of picky eaters out there. Indie, once the Wonder Eater, has become a bit more selective about what she’s willing to try. She’s not interested in mashed potatoes, for instance, and this seems like the one thing every kid eats. But she loves her strawberries, blueberries, carrots and corn, so I’m not too worried about her nutrition. She’s getting lots of good stuff. But I was intrigued by this cookbook written by Jessica Seinfeld.

This book has some great recipes! I’m thinking that it’s less about hiding veggies but consciously incorporating good stuff into the comfort foods I love so much. I love potato soup but am doubtful that there’s a lot of great nutrition in that meal. However, add some carrot and cauliflower puree to this soup and voila! Same goes for homemade macaroni and cheese, a house favorite with the adults but again Indie is lukewarm on it anyway so I might as well “health it up” while she’s still figuring out what food should taste like. She’s not a big meat eater so I give her fake chicken nuggets and soy hot dogs and she eats them up. So I kind of think that because there are so many varieties of packaged food and lots of recpes to make your own, she won’t necessarily think there’s only one way mac n cheese should taste. But then…on the flip side…

It’s possible I’ve contributed to her picky eating or food snobbery. I bought some cheese sticks from Target that were different from her usual brand. When we got home I gave her one and I also wanted a snack and opened up my Cracker Barrel sharp cheddar to have with crackers. The next thing I know she is throwing her cheese stick on the floor and asking for a piece of the cheese I was eating. So now she’s a cheese snob. Boy, elementary school lunchtime is going to be a lot of fun! I’ll just have to pack her Grey Poupon in her backpack and call it a day. Maybe it comes in fun size!?

I’ll circle back to Deceptively Delicious after I’ve tried a few recipes. We’re about to get socked with another snow storm so it’s likely that I’ll make both of these dishes this weekend. Stay tuned.

As a journalist in search of balance, I’d be remiss if I didn’t address the claim that Jessica borrowed (without crediting) her ideas from the author of The Sneaky Chef. The outcome of the court case was that neither copyright nor trademark law was broken. It’s very coincidental that the two books came out around the same time and have similar themes and recipes. I suspect neither author is the true “first” on this one; I”m pretty sure moms across the world have been sneaking carrot puree into batches of brownies since the invention of fire.