Water vs. Punch and Soda

Two studies, same results: Serving water at meals and snacks makes kids more likely to eat vegetables!

Study 1: 

• Take a bunch of 3-5 year olds.
• Offer the kids a snack of carrot sticks and slices of red pepper. 
• One day offer the children Hawaiian punch to drink with their snack. 
• Another day offer the kids some water with their snack. 

What happened?

The children ate a larger portion of vegetables on the water day than on the Hawaiian Punch day.

And get this: the researchers noted that even after consuming only a small amount of the sweetened drink, the children were relatively disinterested in eating vegetables. 

Study 2: Take a bunch of college students and ask them how well soda goes with pizza, fries and vegetables. Then, ask the students to say how well water goes with these same foods.

On a scale of 1-5 where food/drink pairings DO NOT GO WELL=1 and food/drink pairings GO WELL=5. 

• Raw vegetables such as carrot or celery sticks go well with:
  • Tap water or plain bottled water: Average score=4.15
  • A cola beverage: Average score=1.83

•  Steamed vegetables, such as asparagus and broccoli, go well with:
  • Tap water or plain bottled water: Average score=3.20
  • A cola beverage: Average score= 1.93

In other words, if you’re drinking a cola beverage, you’re not going to think of eating vegetables.

Not surprisingly, the students thought that both French fries and pizza go well with soda: French fries average score=4.20, Pizza average score=4.17.

With water? French fries average score=2.86, Pizza average score=3.51.

Some explanations:

• Sweet flavors may not "sit well" with the less sweet taste of the vegetables.  Or...

• People come to expect certain food combinations like pizza with soda or punch. 

There are so many reasons not to teach your kids the habit of drinking sweetened beverages.

(And, in my opinion, juice should also be on the list. Read Coke Beats Juice.)

• Sugary soft drinks are the No. 1 source of calories in the American diet.  We get more calories from sodas and sugary drinks than any other individual food, including cake, cookies, and pizza.  Read this New York Times article. 

• When taste preferences for sugar, salt and fat are developed early in life, the stage is set for diets high in calories and low in nutrients.   Some research even shows these foods can be addictive.  Read Are “Child-Friendly” Foods Really Gateway Drugs?

 And now there's one more reason: Your kids will eat more vegetables. 

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Source: Cornwell, T. B. and A. R. McAlister. 2012. “Contingent Choice: Exploring the Relationship Between Sweetened Beverages and Vegetable Consumption.” Appetite  doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2012.05.001.

Feed Your Kids Like a Chef—Cooking Optional

If you want your kids to be stellar eaters, start thinking like a chef.

You don't have to cook like a chef—although I'm sure it doesn't hurt if you have the know-how—just think like one.

Bon Appetit recently asked a bunch of renowned chefs what they do to get their kids to eat right.  If, like me, you thought the chefs would talk, first and foremost, about the amazing creations they whip up to dazzle their little delights, you'd be wrong.

Instead, most of the chefs said they:

• Don't feed their children special "kid" food. 
• Expect their children to eat whatever is being served.
• Routinely expose their children to a wide variety of tastes and textures.

They sound a little like the French! Read Early Vegetable Variety: The French Advantage.

The chefs also talked about shopping, gardening, cooking and dining with their children, but these strategies don't constitute the core of anyone's eating "curriculum."

Read the article, Chefs: They're Just Like Us, the Parental Edition. 

In contrast...

The other day I was eating at Panera, and—sorry Moms for snooping— I noticed that all the mothers were eating some version of soup and salad.  All the kids were eating some version of bread and cheese.

• A bagel with cream cheese
• A grilled cheese sandwich
• Macaroni and Cheese

I'm not saying that chefs don't feed their children bread and cheese. I'm sure that they do. But the uniformity of the feeding choices across all the tables at Panera really struck me.  It made me wonder what we're teaching our kids.

Child-friendly isn’t just a kind of food. It’s a mindset.

I'm not going to talk about the nutrition of bread and cheese.  Suffice it to say that bread and cheese isn’t really a bad meal. It isn’t really a nutritional winner either.   Read What’s the Problem with Cheese? and La Crème de la Crème.

From a habits perspective, though, a steady diet of bread and cheese can be a disaster:

1. When kids eat a steady stream of bread and cheese, they want to eat… more bread and cheese.
2. When parents eat different foods than they feed their kids, children learn they should eat differently than their parents.

I know, you're probably thinking you don't feed your child bread and cheese that often. But what about bread and cheese look-alikes?

From what I see, most toddlers eat a steady stream of:

Toast, bagels with or without cream cheese, waffles, pancakes, muffins, cereal, grilled cheese, crackers with cheese, crackers without cheese, crackers that claim to have cheese, plain pasta, pasta with cheese, quesadillas, pizza, cheese sticks, string cheese...

Not exactly the chef's special, and all versions of bread and cheese. Read Pizza. Pizza. Pizza. and The Variety Masquerade.

Chefs know that eating is a matter of math.

• Kids like the foods they eat most frequently. Read Fruits and Vegetables at Every Meal and Every Snack—Every Darned Day.
• When kids eat a monotonous diet, they reject variety. Read End Picky Eating with the Rotation Rule. 

Chefs also know that when parents eat different foods than they feed their kids, children learn they should eat differently than their parents. Read Mind Over Matter

What your kids think they should eat is what they’ll want to eat. 

Not should in the broccoli way—you should eat this—but should in the “child-friendly” way—you should want to eat this because this is what kids eat. You can change all that.

Chef Suzanne Goin caters to her kids' taste buds and to their expectations to "sell" them new stuff.

[M]y kids LOVE Asian food so I use those flavors especially when serving something new or that I think they might not love (or that they think they don't love.)

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

Kid Eats Q&A: What do you think of puree pouches?

Puree pouches are all the rage right now.

And not just for little kids either. My almost 11 year old daughter squeezes one into her mouth for snack at least twice a week.

 

That's why I was particularly glad to get this question from Molly.

What is your opinion of what we call around our house "mish mash," those little pouches of pureed fruits or fruit-and-veggie combos, usually organic, that are sold by Plum, Ellas, Trader Joe's, etc. that kids eat/suck straight from the pouch?  My kids freaking love these things-- they'd eat them multiple times a day if I let them (though I limit them to one per day, because they're not cheap!), they don't have sugar, and we always get the kind that have some kind of veggies in them (e.g., spinach peas & pears; or apple carrot), so I think of it as a way to get a little more veggies in their diet.  

The problem with puree pouches is that they lull parents into thinking their children are eating fruits and vegetables.  They're not. 

OK, technically, there are fruits and vegetables in these pounches.  Typically, more fruit than veggies. But even if these pouches were packed to the spout with peas and carrots I would still advise people to tread carefully. 

• To the extent that puree pouches replace other kinds of snacks—Goldfish crackers, cookies, fruit strips, etc.—they're a nutritional, and a habits, step up.  (That's why I use them.) 

• However, puree pouches won't teach your children to eat fruits and vegetables—the real kind—because purees don't have the same look, taste, or mouth-feel as the real deal.

To the extent that purees satisfy parents that their kids are eating fruits and vegetables (at least minimally), puree pouches have the power to move kids away from real fruits and vegetables.

 How?

1. Kids get used to eating puree pouches.
2. Parents are happy.
3. Kids start to reject actual vegetables; they don't taste as sweet, they're not as much fun...
4. Parents panic that their kids aren't eating right and resort to puree pouches more frequently.
5. Kids get used to eating puree pouches.
6. Many kids start to demand them.

This is particularly true if you are parenting a picky or a sensory sensitive eater. 

Research shows that purees don't control hunger as well as actual fruit.

In at least one study, apples have been shown to increase satiation more than applesauce and more than apple juice. No matter what manufacturers try to sell you, different forms of fruit are not equivalents.

They're not equivalent when it comes to shaping kids' habits either.

It's not just that the apples have more fiber. There's something about chewing on the whole fruit that works magic. It's eating whole fruit that is the habit you want to foster.

Read An Apple a Day? and Should Your Kids Drink Their Veggies?

Puree Pouches are a good snack option if they are part of a snack rotation. 

I strongly advocate that parents implement The Rotation Rule: No identical foods two days in a row.  

The Rotation Rule is vitally important because it: 

• Continually exposes children to different tastes and textures.
• Prevents kids from "locking" onto a few foods. 
• Reinforces the idea of eating different foods on different days (and this lays the foundation for new food acceptance).
• Is a power-sharing tool. (You set the structure with a rotation; your kids decide the specifics.) 

Variety is the only thing researchers have consistently found that counters the inclination toddlers have to narrow what they eat.

Remember, variety doesn't mean new. It means different.  You can serve different snacks simply by rotating through what your child already eats.  

• Use both traditional snack foods and meal items to expand the rotation.
• Consciously rotate through foods with different tastes and textures.

Read How Brands Bite You in the Butt! and House Building 101.

When it comes to puree pouches, nothing is what it seems.

Happy Tot Spinach, Mango & Pear is made from more Pear than Mango, and more Mango than Spinach.  It should be called Pear, Mango & Spinach, but it probably wouldn't sell as well. (Ingredients are listed in proportional order.)

Happy Morning Super Banana Breakfast Smoothie contains more Apple than Banana—and a whole lot of other stuff too.

Organic Apple, Organic Banana, Water (for Protein Addition), Organic Mangosteen, Organic Whey Protein Concentrate, Dehydrated Organic Nonfat Yogurt (Organic Nonfat Milk Solids, Lactic Acid, Cultures, Natural Flavor), Organic Salba (Sahi Alba 911 & 912 Registered Varieties of Chia Seed) (Chia), Organic Quinoa, Malic Acid, Organic Natural Mangosteen Flavor, Pectin, Ascorbic Acid [Vitamin C].

And yes, Molly, even Ella's Broccoli, Pears, and Peas is made from more Pears than Peas and more Peas than Broccoli.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but don't despair.  

You can still pack a pouch when you're on the go. Just don't do it every day.

 

And remember, think of puree pouches as a crappy-snack alternative, not a substitute for actual veggies. You'll be teaching your kids the truth, and shaping their habits for a lifetime of healthy eating.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits.~

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Source: Flood-Obbagy, J. E. and B. J. Rolls. 2009. “The Effect of Fruit in Different Forms on Energy Intake and Satiety At a Meal.” Appetite 52: 416-22.