Chocolate-Flavored Formula Rocks!

Chocolate and Vanilla flavored formula.  Have you heard?

Parents are shocked: 19g of sugar in every 6-ounce serving. That's basically the amount of sugar in a 6-ounce serving of Coke.

The public’s outrage has prompted Mead Johnson, the makers of Enfagrow Premium chocolate toddler formula, to take their product off the market.

I can't help but think that chocolate-flavored formula is a good thing.

There are "worse" products on the market, targeted at the same 1-3 year olds, but they don't spark the same ire. 

• For instance, YoBaby Banana Drinkable yogurt has 22g of sugar per 6 ounces.  

This form of liquid sugar gets a healthy pass, even though it's also targeted at babies.  I guess it's the combination of chocolate and formula that has everyone going.

By the way, Mead Johnson hasn't pulled their vanilla-flavored formula from the shelves, and it has 18g of sugar per 6 ounces.

I'm lovin' this chocolate-flavored formula because it is bringing the debate between nutrition and habits to the fore.  And this is where I live!

• Is chocolate formula a good thing because, as the company claims, it has a superior nutrition profile compared to the other kinds of drinks toddlers commonly consume?  Will it help finicky toddlers get some of the vitamins and nutrients they might otherwise miss out on?

Or

• Does feeding sweets to toddlers simply encourage their interest in sugary foods, and decrease their interest in more nutritious foods, as the American Academy of Pediatrics claims?

The nutritional “gain” from souping something up (i.e. adding whole grains to cookies or pizza, vitamins to juice, to formula – or to Coke) never outweighs the damage to habit.  

And yet, we continue to serve chocolate milk in schools because people are convinced it's the only way to get kids to drink milk.

• Horizon Organic Low Fat Chocolate Milk contains 20g of sugar per 6 ounces.

Gain one nutritional point; lose 5.  If getting calcium into our kids makes their overall diets go to pot, is it really worth the cost?

Read Coke Beats Juice.

Chocolate-flavored formula is an extreme example of what is wrong with using nutrition as the basis for deciding what foods to feed kids.  As I've said many times before: we need to start considering habits instead.

The overemphasis of nutrition in society plays on the fear parents have that that their children will miss out on the nutrients they need.  That fear makes parents vulnerable to all these corporate cocktails (like chocolate-flavored formula) that are designed to make these vital nutrients palatable.

But…

• People eat and experience foods, not nutrients. 
• They develop a fondness for different flavors, not for nutrients.
• They acquire a preference for particular textural sensations, not for nutrients. 

Kids develop preferences for the tastes, textures, appearances, aromas and temperatures that they are regularly exposed to. The objection to chocolate formula highlights this truth.

Read Why Nobody Needs Nutrition Labels.

You don’t need to get nutrition exactly right in order to feed your children well.  You don’t need to get nutrition exactly right to teach your children healthy eating habits either. You simply need to feed your children real food -- most of the time.

What's real food? As Michael Pollan says, it is food your great-grandmother would recognize.

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

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Sources:

http://industry.bnet.com/food/10002411/mead-johnson-cries-uncle-on-chocolate-toddler-formula-revealing-that-there-are-some-actual-limits-to-nutritionally-reckless-marketing/?tag=shell;content - accessed 6/15/10

http://eatdrinkandbe.org/article/index.0610_nut_chocformula - accessed 6/15/10

http://stonyfield.com/yobaby/whole_milk_yogurt/6oz_4pack/banana/index.jsp  - accessed 6/15/10

http://www.horizondairy.com/ingredients/pop_nutri_milk_choc.html - accessed 6/15/10

Pollan, M., 2009. Food Rules: an Eater's Manual. New York, NY: Penguin.

The Magic of Yogurt

Want a magic pill to get your kids to try new foods?

Here it is… YOGURT! Yes, you can teach your children to eat new foods using only yogurt.

I’ve written about yogurt before, about how great plain yogurt is (and how bad sweetened yogurt is) for teaching kids to eat right -- Read Yogurt vs. Coke, But Plain Yogurt is Gross, Yogurt on the Brain.  

Even still, I never realized before how many things you can do with plain yogurt, and as a result, what a boon it is for parents: you can use the same old food your children already love and eat to expand their repertoire, just by switching things up.

Cindy at Fix Me a Snack is on a mission to develop 101 recipes for yogurt.  She’s up to 80 and all I can say is you’ve got to check this out!  Read the list.

Last night I made a version of the Rhubarb Mango Yogurt (#51), only I used frozen blueberries instead of the mango.  Everyone loved it.

But the recipe I can't wait to try is the Banana Coconut Pie Yogurt (#65).

Look at it.  Doesn't it look yummy?  It's made with mashed banana, coconut extract, shredded coconut and plain yogurt. Brilliant!

The imagination, the creativity and the variety on this list are amazing.  Reading through the recipes, it hit me: You could teach your kids to eat new foods using only yogurt.

Here's how it would work:

1) Start with the recipe that you’re sure will be a winner.  

Look over the list with your child and pick the recipe that looks the best.  Not the healthiest. Not the most creative.  The best. 

Consider the Banana Toffee Yogurt (#61). Or the Smore Yogurt (#79) pictured here. It's made with graham crackers, chocolate sauce, marshmallows and plain yogurt.

2) Next, move onto a yogurt that might be a little more challenging, but stay in the Love Domain.

Consider the Cinnamon Toast Yogurt (#73), the Jamtacular Yogurt (#77) or the Banana Nut Butter Honey Yogurt (#12).

By now, your child will probably be thinking that this new food thing is alright!

3) Then, as people of my generation used to say, “Keep on Truckin'."

• Nutty Yogurt (#69)

• Yogurt Salad (#46), made with cucumbers. (Pictured here.)

• Garbanzo Bean Yogurt (#49)

• Avocado Yogurt with Fresh Mango (#39)

One day you might even find yourself trying out #50! (If you do, let me know how it goes.)

Why this strategy will work:

1) It will get two ideas into your child’s head. The first is that plain yogurt is a good food.  The second is that new foods aren’t always bad, boring and healthy.  Training the brain is just as important as training the taste buds.  Read Mind Over Matter.

2) The familiarity of keeping one dimension of the dish constant – the yogurt – helps reluctant children feel comfortable trying new foods because it helps them know what to expect.  Read Look Into My Crystal Ball.

3) Alternating what goes into the yogurt doesn’t just alter the taste, it alters the texture, the aroma, the appearance and even the temperature.  Mixing up these sensual properties is a huge part of learning to eat new foods.  Read For Extreme Fruit and Vegetable Avoiders....

Half the battle of getting kids to eat new foods is teaching them that "new" can be fun, exciting, and, yes, tasty. 

I’ve contributed some recipes to the list, but that’s not why I’m so enthusiastic about Cindy’s project.  I love it because it offers 101 ways to accomplish one of the most important components of learning to eat right... trying new foods.

But you don't have to stick with just the yogurt. Here's another way to introduce new: try some of Cindy's interesting presentation methods: The fish bowl (#30), the parfait glass (#61), and the bear bowl (#68).  Read Make "New" Work for You.

Get your kids in the new groove and before you know it, they'll start complaining when you go back to the old standards. Now that's a problem to behold.

 ~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

Mind Over Matter.

When it comes to eating, our brains bias our buds.  Research shows that we like what we think we’ll like and we taste what we think we’re eating.

Consider the following study:

A group of people were asked to taste-test strawberry yogurt, but researchers gave them chocolate yogurt instead.   What happened? More than half the participants said the yogurt had a good strawberry taste.

Why? The lights were out! Tasters ate in the dark.

The tasters believed they were eating strawberry yogurt, and so that’s what they tasted.

Here are some other brain twisters reported by Brian Wansink, the Director of the Cornell Food Lab, in his fantastic (and entertaining) book Mindless Eating.

In his studies, Wansink has found:

• Tasters think brownies presented on china plates are excellent, identical brownies presented on paper plates are good and the same ones handed out on napkins are only okay.

• Belgian Black Forest Double Chocolate Cake sells better than chocolate cake, even if they are both the same, old cake.

• People like Traditional Cajun Red Beans with Rice more than plain Red Beans with Rice.

And with regard to things we think we don’t like…

• Identical PowerBars are rated worse when tasters think they contain soy than when they think they don’t - regardless of the actual ingredients.

Food cues and expectations shape your kids’ taste buds too.

That’s why every expert out there encourages you to make your kid’s food fun – sprinkling Parmesan snow onto broccoli trees was always a big hit in my house – and why it’s so important to help your child accurately predict what something will taste like.  Tapping into your child’s imagination is one of the most crucial components of shaping new food acceptance.

According to Wansink…

• Kids eat more veggies when they have cool names.  In one study X-ray Vision Carrots were almost twice as popular as plain carrots.

• Playing dress up also works.  In another study, putting stickers on bags of healthy snacks enticed kids to eat them over unhealthy snacks.

Here are some other things to try:

(1) Prevent your kids’ imaginations from hijacking their taste buds by linking new foods to familiar favorites.  Point out the similarities in taste, texture, aroma, appearance, and temperature.  Read Look into My Crystal Ball and Collect Clues & Eliminate the New-Food-Blues.

(2) Pair new foods with favored flavors, even if it’s not the most nutritious combo.  Read When the Less Nutritious Choice is Right and Yogurt on the Brain!

(3) Teach your kids to taste and tell.  Read Nix the Negativity.

(4) Be mindful of the messages you send. Fun is in; healthy is not. Read How to Help Your Kids Hate Spinach and The “Look”: How YOUR Emotions Shape Your Kids’ Eating.

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

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Sources: Wansink, B., 2006. Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. New York: Bantam Books. Pp. 119-138.  Food Brand Lab. 2009. The Mindless Eater. Spring.