Kids Dish

In addition to the links that tie food dyes to cancer, I’ve read a number of opinion pieces and advice columns that have suggested that artificial food colorings can be harmful to children in subtle and not so subtle ways. Ask Moxie, an Internet parenting advice guru, has recommended that parents eliminate artificial colors and flavors from their children’s diets if their kids suffer from sleep disturbances, strange rashes, or are just plain loopy or fussy. Though right now, when I should be the most careful, my habits haven’t been so great, I usually avoid foods with artificial colors just because the colors freak me out.

A British study has found that food additives can be just as harmful as lead and cause tantrums and damage intelligence. Officials are calling for the additives to be removed from the food industry.

The advice, which will be put before the FSA board next week, would be voluntary. However, manufacturers would be expected by the regulator to remove the additives, replacing them with natural alternatives if possible. Some sweetmakers have unilaterally agreed to remove the suspect colours following the latest scientific evidence.

A Philadelphia-based study targeting grades four through six found that changing the school environment cuts the rate at which children become obese in half.

Two years after schools adopted a healthy nutrition intervention, just 7.5% of students had become overweight compared with 14.9% in schools that did not have the intervention, Gary Foster, Ph.D., of Temple University here, and colleagues, reported in the April issue of Pediatrics.

Given the more than 7% increase in new overweight cases even in the intervention schools, there is much room for improvement in the effect, dose, and range of interventions, the researchers said, and those interventions should start even earlier in a child’s school career.

When I originally wrote about the idea of sneaking vegetables into your kids’ foods to boost the vitamin content I hadn’t yet read the book Deceptively Delicious. Honestly, I still haven’t read it, but I’m not yet in a position where I think it would be helpful. I still put extra veggies in foods that allow for it and eat a few vegetable based vegetarian meals a week. Sam is still in a pro-vegetable stage where he’ll cry for broccoli and beg for frozen peas so I don’t really think it’s necessary to slip avocado into a brownie when he’ll probably just want to eat a cracker anyway. I’m sure that someday he may go through a stage where he refuses to eat vegetables on principal and then perhaps I’ll feel the need to slip some kale into a smoothie, but until that day I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing- eating well, enjoying vegetables and encouraging my family to do the same.

In October I wrote

But when it comes down to it, how much vitamin content remains when you steam and puree vegetables then cook them all over again? When spread across six servings of macaroni and cheese how much of the nutrients from the squash remain?

The Houston Chronicle wrote about sneaking vegetables into kids in a piece called Attack of the stealth desserts. Their experts don’t seem to think you’re really getting that much of the good stuff into your kids when you slip some beets into your cake. The hidden vegetables, [Swanson- a Ph.D dietician] continued, do amp up the cakes’ nutritional profiles, offering doses of dietary fiber and vitamins A and C, “but you are kidding yourself if you think that’s a way to get your vegetable quota for the day.”

But the best part of the article was where they addressed the ethics of sneaking vegetables into treats. The ethicist they quoted for the article said,

Incidentally, Phillips has four children. They like vegetables.

Then they asked a 6-year-old what she thought about sneaking vegetables into desserts.

Isabella: (emphatically) Both!!

A recent study looking at the links between poverty and obesity shows that a lack of food isn’t necessarily to blame.

Previous research has suggested that poor children weren’t getting nutritious food and instead ate junk food, such as hot dogs. Or that children may have eaten well when money was available, but would skip meals when cash was short, a cycle that could slow their metabolism and cause them to gain weight.

“Understanding why the rates are so high …. is needed,” she said.

The study, which will be published in the February issue of the Journal of Nutrition, only looked at children who were overweight.

After teaching in poverty stricken areas of the city for four years it never seemed that a lack of food was to blame for obesity. In my experience, a lack of nutritious food, and a lack of exercise seemed to be the cause for the large numbers of obese children. Kids who were eligible for free school breakfasts and lunches (which weren’t all that nutritious to begin with) often brought in their own food- primarily potato chips, cookies, fruit drinks that contained no fruit juice, and fast food. I’m curious to read the study in its entirety to see what the researchers found.

I feel like I’m the only person who hasn’t taken a look at Jessica Seinfeld’s best seller “Deceptively Delicious”. I really couldn’t be bothered. Mothers have been sneaking vegetables into their kids’ food since the beginning of time. Hell, I’ve been sneaking vegetables into my own food for years, so I certainly don’t need a celebrity cookbook to tell me how. In fact, the only celebrity cookbook I’d even bother with is Patti Labelle’s and that’s solely for her heavenly macaroni and cheese recipe.

The gossip of the day is that Mrs. Seinfeld’s book was plagiarized from another cookbook with the same idea. “The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals,” published in April has similar recipes in addition to a similarly sneaky title about how to trick your kids. Since I haven’t read either book, I can’t really give an informed opinion, but I’ll go ahead and share my uninformed opinion anyway.

Honestly, I don’t think she intentionally ripped anyone off and I don’t think Jessica Seinfeld spends much of her day steaming and pureeing vegetables to sneak into her kids food. Most kids have the same favorite foods so the idea of pairing standard kid-approved recipes with like-colored vegetables isn’t going to have a whole lot of variation. Ms. Seinfeld most likely hired chefs who created the recipes for her based on the foods her children (and 90% of the children in this country) like to eat.

I have no objection to sticking vegetables in foods to boost the vitamin content. But when it comes down to it, how much vitamin content remains when you steam and puree vegetables then cook them all over again? When spread across six servings of macaroni and cheese how much of the nutrients from the squash remain? I never made Sam baby food. He just ate soft foods he could handle as he was ready for them. I can’t imagine going out of my way to make baby food now to disguise vegetables. Of course I’m lucky. So far Sam still likes vegetables. I’m not naive, so I know that may not last forever, but until then, I’ll skip the purees and stick with the old standbys- carrots in my meatloaf, applesauce instead of oil in my baked goods, and spinach in my tomato sauce.

Besides, from what I’ve read the recipes are pretty much horrible anyway. Check out Melissa Summers’ review of the sauce from the macaroni and cheese with squash puree recipe:

Even half this sauce would have been fine for my personal taste, the thickness of the sauce and the bizarre taste of the fat free cream cheese mixed with the squash made this almost intolerable to eat. I rarely say this because I love food and palate is not particularly able to discern subtle nuances in food. However this macaroni and cheese made me want to pull Jessica Seinfeld’s hair. Just a little bit.

Jamie Oliver’s school dinners campaign (which I wrote about here)isn’t going so well according to new reports. The number of students eating school meals has dropped drastically, as mothers sneak chips through the fence so their kids don’t go hungry eating freshly prepared vegetables.

Ofsted inspectors report a failure in marketing the campaign to kids and parents alike and a rise in prices that may be putting off some families. The quality of food in schools has improved across the board, especially in schools with on site kitchens. But dining halls are still rowdy and poorly designed and children eligible for free meals feel stigmatized, a sentiment that’s the same on both sides of the Atlantic. I often had students eat a bag of chips for lunch because they were too embarrassed to eat one of the “freebies.” Cashless swipe card systems can help with this.

The chief inspector of schools, Christine Gilbert, said: “Schools that had the most impact in encouraging healthy choices were those which gave a priority to this as part of their day-to-day work. They encourage pupil involvement in designing school menus, for example, and worked hard to make their families understand the importance of healthy schools.”

Some other problems the Ofsted Inspectors discuss in their report are that younger children in some of the schools don’t know how to use a knife and fork and had difficulty actually eating the meals. At a secondary school counselors had to be brought in because older girls with substance abuse problems were skipping meals to lose weight. Other kids complained that the portions were too small and they were still hungry.

I hope that schools take the report seriously and change their approach to school dinners. Involving parents and children alike in menu planning and giving families input about the program will help increase the numbers of students eating the meals.

Children’s minister Kevin Brennan said: “We are in this for the long-term. Cutting childhood obesity and unhealthy eating needs the backing of every local authority, school, teacher and parent in England.

Yesterday at Nursing Your Kids I wrote that The New York Times reports that the FDA plans to ban over the counter multi-symptom cough and cold medicines marketed to kids. The drug hasn’t been tested children under the age of six yet it’s marketed to kids as young as two. This ban could effect 800 different medications including Toddler’s Dimetapp, Triaminic Infant and Little Colds.

Since Sam’s too little for cough and cold medicines I’ve got to get ready for a germ-infested winter in other ways. In preparation for cough and cold season here’s a recipe for good old-fashioned chicken soup. While there’s no real proof that chicken soup has medicinal effects, my Jewish grandmother and millions of other grandmothers will swear otherwise. This recipe is the real deal. It’s 100% homemade without a single boullion cube or can of stock in sight. So make a big batch and freeze some for later.

Chicken Soup

1. Put the water, chicken and giblets (not the liver) in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Skim off the froth.

2. Make a bouquet garni with the herbs, reserving two tablespoons of dill, tying them together in a piece of cheesecloth.

3. Add onions, garlic, celery, turnip, parsnip, 4 carrots, parsley, bouquet garni , salt and pepper to the pot. Return to a boil, cover and simmer for 2 1/2 hours. Adjust the seasonings to taste.

4. Remove the chicken from the pot and set aside. Strain the soup, discarding the vegetables and bouquet garni, and refrigerate the liquid until the fat solidifies at the top. (If you want to eat the soup immediately, skim as much as you can and refrigerate the unused portion.) Remove the skin and bones from the chicken and cut the meat into small pieces or shred it.

5. Remove the fat from the soup. Just before reheating cut the remaining carrots into bite sized pieces. Add the carrots and chicken to the pot and cook until the carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Serve with the remaining dill sprinkled on top. If you like, you can add cooked noodles or rice to the soup as well.

This soup is darker than the stuff that comes in a can, so if you like it lighter peel the onions- the dark color (and some of the flavor) comes from the skin.

FDA banning OTC children’s cough and cold medicine, multi-symptom medicines for toddlers and infants unsafe, cough and cold season, chicken soup recipe

Just kidding. I’m not going to actually write about xantham gum though I will tell you it’s not one of those especially scary and creepy food additives so don’t worry too much if you see it in your ice cream ingredients.

Sadly X is one of those letters that’s not going to get me much food ingredient mileage. The only other ingredient I could find that starts with the letter X is X-cat-ik, a type of chile pepper I’ve never heard of. So instead of the letter X I’m moving on to the letter C- for cupcakes!

Gothamist reports that Assemblyman Michael Benjamin of New York is pushing to make cupcakes the official state snack as a way to foil school cupcake bans. Many schools, in response to the obesity epidemic have restricted cupcakes from classrooms, even for birthday celebrations.

Benjamin said, “Making the cupcake the official state children’s snack is my way of saying, ‘Let’s put some brakes on what’s happening to the cupcake.’ The way the American eagle is the official national bird and it’s illegal to harm one — my thought is, you make the cupcake something similar, and leave the cupcake alone.”

Oddly, I kind of agree with him. As much as I think school cafeterias need to clean up their acts and start serving tasty, healthy foods on a daily basis, I think that banning cupcakes is ridiculous the same way I think that banning all food at classroom parties is ridiculous. Let parents decide what their children can and cannot eat and teach them how to monitor their choices. Why make all the kids suffer? I LOVED when kids brought cupcakes in for their birthdays when I was in school and hated that my birthday almost always fell during spring break so I almost never got to bring them in for my classmates. What was better than homemade Halloween cupcakes with candy corn on top or Valentine’s Day cupcakes decorated with red hots? Even we Jewish kids appreciated the cupcakes decorated with green and red sugar for Christmas.

Michael Benjamin, I applaud you for taking a stand, no matter how insignificant it may be. Teach parents to cook for their kids instead of buying them Happy Meals every night and let them bake some cupcakes for a school party a few times a year. Kids (and teachers) need to celebrate once in a while.

photo by Orange County Girl on Flickr

Dietitians advocate teaching children to read food labels instead of relying on their parents to do it for them.

The FDA partnered with the Cartoon Network earlier this year to launch a public education campaign encouraging children ages 9 to 13 — or tweens — to read the nutrition facts on food labels. An interactive Web page on the Cartoon Network’s Web site teaches kids to avoid foods high in fat, cholesterol, sodium and sugar and consume more foods with potassium, fiber, iron and calcium. It offers information on serving sizes and calories (40 calories is low, 100 is moderate and 400 is high).

Here’s the thing. I think it’s great that nutritional programs are teaching children how to read food labels. It’s fantastic that kids are learning that hydrogenated fats are bad and that fiber is good. My main concern is that children need to be taught about ingredients. Kids need to learn that if they aren’t familiar with the ingredients on a food label they probably shouldn’t be eating it. If an ingredient is difficult to pronounce, you probably don’t want to eat it. Kids have to learn that just because a package is labeled “wheat bread” doesn’t mean it contains any whole grains. They need to understand that if corn syrup or partially hydrogenated oils are in the first five ingredients the food isn’t good for you, even if it’s a whole wheat cracker.

Jamie Oliver is super cute and his school dinners program is working even though BBC news reports that students are “shunning” healthier meals. Since the start of the move to healthier meals there’s been a huge drop in students eating school meals, especially at the secondary level. But Oliver is not discouraged. He forecasts that “we’ll see that negative turn into a positive”.

…They found 32% of children eating five portions of fruit and vegetables in 2004, compared with 44% of children in the 2006 study.

The researchers observed: “It should be noted that the largest increase was in vegetable consumption, not fruit, which may indicate that changes in school meals had a greater impact.”

…Children eating school lunches ate “significantly” more vegetables at lunchtime (0.94 of a portion) compared to those with packed lunches (0.18 of a portion).

For further proof that Oliver’s school meals are a success, fried foods will be banned from Walsall school menus.

…Councillor Zahid Ali, Walsall Council cabinet member for children’s services, said: “I’m afraid that deep fat friers have had their chips at Walsall schools.

“We have gradually been phasing out fried food and I’m pleased to say that our menus will be fried food free when children return to school.

In other UK food news, organic food sales were up 22% in 2006 and children think “chips grow on farms.” A new survey shows 1 in 20 children believe chips grow on farms, 7 percent thought chicken kievs grew on farms and 6 percent did not believe milk was produced in farms. The good news is that looking at the figures a vast majority of British children know exactly where their food comes from. I fear that US numbers would actually be worse, considering how little our urban children know of life outside their neighborhoods.

Scientifically speaking, terrible twos aside (and it appears we are, at just under 18 months, in the terrible twos according to Dr. Karp) a new study shows that childrens’ fear of new food is hereditary. So if your child is just an all around picky eater has a discerning palate, rest assured it’s not entirely your fault.

In a large UK study of twins, researchers found that nearly 80% of a child’s reluctance to try new foods is inherited. Both humans and animals have a reluctance to try new foods. This reluctance, which scientists call “food neophobia” had an evolutionary advantage as unknown foods could potentially be toxic. Of course now that food is usually safe to eat this neophobia usually leads to kids avoiding vegetables and avoiding vegetables is unfortunately an evolutionary disadvantage. So don’t give up. Offering foods repeatedly may wear a kid down. The more a child sees you eating foods the more likely she’ll be to try them later.

A few words of advice from the article at WebMD

“Research in laboratory and real-world settings has shown that neophobia for specific foods can be reduced,” Cooke and colleagues note. “New foods can become familiar, and disliked foods liked, with repeated presentation.”

The researchers warn that bribing kids to try new foods and punishing them for not eating are strategies that fail to achieve the intended effect.

picky eaters, food neophobia

New, not so shocking research, says that kids need more fat than adults because they burn it more rapidly. To grow and develop properly children need fat in their diets. Families should stay away from low-fat menus. What does this mean for families who are trying to lose weight? I’m not a licensed nutritionist but I do have some common sense. Here’s my advice.

When you go to the grocery store stock up on the foods on the outside aisles, like fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and bread. Give your kids foods with healthy fats in them, like nuts, avocado, yogurt and real (not processed) cheeses. When you cook, stay away from margarine and use healthier fats like olive oil. Small amounts of butter, while not necessarily good for you, will add more flavor to your food and strike me as being better than chemical sprays or spreads.

Stay away from fat-free junk foods. Prepackaged processed junk food may not have fat in it but that doesn’t mean it’s low in calories or good for you. Instead, bake your own cookies, muffins and cakes. That way you can control what goes into them and make healthy substitutions, like applesauce for some of the oil. If you prefer salty snacks, read labels. If you don’t recognize the ingredients, don’t buy the food. Your foods shouldn’t have partially hydrogenated anything in them. Try and get whole grain, whole wheat crackers. Sometimes they’re higher in fat and calories than the regular versions, but it’s usually the good for you fats and you’ll get more fiber as a trade off.

My last bit of advice? Exercise! Get out and take a walk after dinner instead of sitting in front of the TV. Play catch with your kids while the meatloaf is in the oven. The more you exercise the less you’ll have to worry about weight gain. If you really need an ice cream cone after dinner walk to the ice cream shop instead of driving and you can call it even.

A study from the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine shows that low-income children between the ages of 3 and 5 prefer the taste of food with McDonald’s labeling. When presented with five identical food items wrapped both in plain packaging and McDonald’s packaging children liked the McDonald’s wrapped food better. They even preferred the carrots, an item that isn’t even a menu option in the actual restaurant. The number of televisions in the house and the frequency of eating at McDonald’s were two factors that increased the branding effect.

The authors write

…branding effects were evident in our low-income, ethnically and culturally diverse, 87% nonwhite, and 38% Spanish-speaking or bilingual English-Spanish–speaking sample of 3- to 5-year-olds.

These results add evidence to support recommendations to regulate or ban advertising or marketing of high-calorie, low-nutrient foods and beverages, or all marketing, that is directed to young children. This approach has been advocated based on evidence that advertising to young children is inherently unfair because most children younger than 7 to 8 years are unable to understand the persuasive intent of advertising.

Our findings also suggest a need for research on marketing in general, and branding in particular, as strategies to promote more healthful taste preferences and food and beverage choices in young children. In this experiment, children preferred the taste of carrots and milk if they thought they were from McDonald’s. This is an opportunity for heavily marketed brands to respond to rising rates of childhood obesity by changing their product offerings…

The full article is available online at the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

advertising, McDonalds, taste preference, advertising to children,

I like the convenience of bottled water but I hate all of the waste of the crinkly plastic bottles which I was reusing for weeks on end anyway because it seemed sort of silly to buy water. So I bought a sturdy, reusable bottle with a straw that’s easy for me and Sam to drink from.

And now I feel justified in not spending my money on bottled tap water. Aquafina (owned by PepsiCo) is now going to include the words “Public water source” on all of their bottles. A public water source is, of course, tap water. I’m sure Dasani, owned by Coca Cola will follow suit.

According to a BBC article, feeding your baby pureed foods might be unnatural. Gill Rapley, the director of Unicef’s Baby Friendly Initiative says that feeding your baby pureed foods can cause health problems later in life. Giving your child breast milk or formula for the first six months then weaning onto solids could prevent your child from becoming a picky eater.

Her approach, baby led weaning, is described more fully in an article about implementing a baby-led approach to incorporating solid foods. The basic idea is that babies who are ready to begin eating solids are capable of taking food into their own mouths and chewing it. Allowing your baby to feed himself soft foods at first puts him at a smaller risk of choking because he’s in control. Larger pieces, like whole fruits are easier for a baby to handle. Giving your baby whole, separate foods allows him to experience flavors, textures, colors and shapes and make decisions about what he eats. Those early decisions will make him open to new foods and flavors as his abilities to self feed develop.

If you’ve had trouble getting your baby to eat foods with chunkier textures, if you’re pregnant or if you’re the mother of a newborn take a few minutes to read about baby-led weaning. This article is a great place to start.