It's All About Attitude

When I was writing the post on Sneaky, Deceptive Chefs, I deliberately ignored one area I couldn't logically reconcile. I am a big believer in improving the nutritional value of food. I will happily replace fat with applesauce in baked goods, add spinach to spaghetti sauce, and kale to soups. How is that different from the Lapine and Seinfeld approach of sneaking veggie purees into foods?

A brief discussion with my always wise mother helped clarify my thinking. She pointed out the difference between improving the nutritioanl profile of a food and sneaking unexpected veggies into something: it's all about attitude. The sneaky, deceptive attitude says that vegetables are disgusting and have to be hidden. They need to be disguised to be palatable. This is not an attitude that I have, and I don't want my children to believe that, either.


We live in a country where ketchup and batter-coated french fries are both classified as vegetables by the USDA for the purposes of meeting school lunch nutritional requirements. Not surprisingly, the obesity epidemic continues to grow, diabetes rates are rising among our youth, and the healthcare system is in turmoil in part because we're fat. We're helping to create a world crisis, as well: industrialized nations are getting fatter as they adopt our eating habits.

I believe children try to rise to the level of our expectations for them. If we expect our children to dislike fruits and vegetables, if our attitude is that we have to hide them and disguise them to make them palatable, then that's the outcome we'll get. If, however, we have a healthy relationship with food, and we model that behavior, and we expect our children to do the same, there's a much better chance that our children will eventually be open to the whole delicious world of food.



Related Posts on this site:

• The Problem with Sneaky, Deceptive Chefs


• Overcoming Food Resistance