Fish for Dessert!

We all know what kids' food is, right?

Hot dogs. Mac and Cheese. Chicken Nuggets. Pizza.

Maybe, but check out this Japanese school lunch.  Not a nugget in sight!

In addition to milk and rice -- common favorites amongst U.S. kids -- this meal contains the followiing:

Braised burdock root, vegetable fish-paste cake and miso soup with seaweed and mushrooms.

I guess there is no such thing as kids' food.

Canadian schoolteacher Julie Furber, who works in Okinawa, Japan, and blogs as The Misadventures of MissKitty posted a whole week of school lunches.  This was Thursday's meal. 

Look what gets offered for dessert! I kid you not. Fish.

I'm not suggesting you start filleting trout for a treat, but I am suggesting you reconsider your beliefs about what kids eat and enjoy.

Kids eat -- and enjoy --  what they're exposed to the most! 

If you start expecting your kids to like a wider variety of foods, you'll offer a wider variety of foods, and if you do it long enough, they'll end up eating a wider variety of foods too.

When you only expose your kids to kids' food that's what they prefer. It's all a system.

Here is the rest of the one-week menu:

Monday: ¼  orange slice, milk, mackerel filet in a yuzu citrus and miso sauce, white rice and kenchinjiru (a clear soup with tofu and vegetables).

Tuesday: milk, mashed Okinawan purple sweet potato, white rice cooked with barley, oyakodon (rice bowl dish with chicken, egg, green onion and simmered in a sauce).

Wednesday: milk, almonds, banana mincemeat cutlet, nikomi udon noodles in miso sauce.

Friday: milk, tartar sauce, boiled vegetables, breaded deep-fried fish filet, hamburger bun, and pumpkin soup.

Do you think there are Japanese moms out there complaining that their kids won't touch the hot dogs they've prepared?

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

Comments

[Miss Kitty]

Thanks Dina!

Your post looks great! The new school year starts the first week of April.
I'm sure I will have some Japanese Food/Lunches up on my Blog.

Cheers,
Julie

[Dina Rose]

Julie,

I can't wait to read more about school lunches Japanese-style!

Dina