July 12, 2011 Vegetable Ice Cream
News flash: Soon your kids won’t have to eat actual vegetables in order to eat their veggies.
Forget sneaking cauliflower into macaroni and cheese, or black beans into brownies. Those tricks are for amateurs! Now you can eat vegetable desserts!
I’ve written a lot about vegetables lately because it's a topic parents really care about. Read Why Toddlers Don’t Eat Vegetables and My Toddler Used to Eat Vegetables.
And the pressure is really on even for parents to get veggies into their kids. Have you seen the Food Plate that replaced the Food Pyramid?
Half the plate is supposed to be fruits and vegetables. But don’t worry. It's America, and here there's always a creative solution just around the corner.
Mixed-Vegetable ice cream!
What child wouldn't eat this?
Read the New York Times article about this delicacy (or buy it in Brooklyn, NY).
Celery sorbet!
Want the recipe?
Most parents I know (I hope?) would never take these desserts seriously because they teach the wrong habits.
And I agree. Desserts don't teach kids to eat veggies, no matter which miracle ingredients they contain.
But what about Gerber Graduates Vegetable Puffs - Sweet Potato? Parents feed their toddlers these treats all the time, even though, sweet potato is the 6th ingredient— after 3 kinds of flour, wheat starch, and sugar—and even though Vegetable Puffs teach kids to like salty-crunchy foods, not sweet potatoes.
Or veggie chips?
These foods don't teach kids to love veggies: they teach kids to hate veggies.
There's compelling evidence that more kids eat foods high in sugar, salt and fat, the less they like fresh, natural foods.
Read the New York Times article about the addicting affects of eating fatty foods.
Choosing snacks or desserts because they claim to contain veggies isn't the same thing as feeding them actual vegetables. And now we know it backfires.
If you want your kids to eat veggies at dinner, pay attention to the habits you're fostering throughout the day. It's not what you feed, but what you teach, that matters.
~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~
Reader Comments (4)
Hey, don't hate on black bean brownies. Those things are GOOD. :)
Maybe we should just abandon the idea of vegetables and start packing them into all our treats!!! What do you think?
My son (23mo) would rather eat fruits and vegetables than anything else! I hope he does not someday transform into the culinary nightmare of a husband that I married - no fruits and vegetables at all!
Nicole,
Well, the way to ensure your son keeps up with his fruits and veggies is to make sure you offer them multiple times throughout the day, and to make sure the rest of his diet isn't dominated by one taste or texture.
Good luck with your son (and your husband!).
Dina