No chicken fingers for these kids
Categories: Eating & Nutrition, Development
Have you ever noticed that kids menus - no matter what the restaurant - always seem to consist of the same three items: chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese, and hamburgers. I've often wondered why. I mean, what's wrong with a nice peice of quiche? A savoury beef stew?The New York times has an interesting article profiling child "foodies" - the children of parents obsessed with fine food and beverage.
Children of foodies are offered cooking classes , learning to make everything from thin-crust pizza with gruyere and vegetables, to expertly crafted sushi. And increasingly, restaurants in foodie rich areas (New York, in particular) are beginning to offer children's menus that differ wildly from the standard mac and cheese fare: quail shooters and baby octopus, for example. Restaurants that previously did not allow kids are now wheeling out the highchairs and the posh tot fare.
The editor-in-chief of Cookie magazine explains the phenomenon: "Parents are marrying later, having kids later. They have established sensibilities by the time they have kids which don't come to a screeching halt."
Interesting. I must admit, I haven't shared my favourite goat cheese and olive salad with Nolan just yet. Maybe tomorrow, but I have a hulking suspicion he'd prefer a chicken finger.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Heather 1-29-2007 @ 8:52AM
I am on the other side of the fence. From the time our little one ate solid food, he ate the same thing we did. (excluding the obviously inappropriate foods)
I did this out of laziness, cooking one good meal is enough of a challenge for me, let alone two.
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Jenny 1-29-2007 @ 9:57AM
I think the NYT could have taken a much more interesting spin on this. In this era when so much is said about childhood obesity, here is a way to avoid it: teach your children to eat small quantities of well-made food, and to know where their food comes from. In New York because people live in small apartments and eat out a lot you see the beginnings of it in restaurants and shops, but in suburbia it is an option too. My nephew (8) used to eat nothing but grilled cheese, but now he's fond of goat cheese, mushrooms, and avidly watches the Food Network. I think teaching your kids about food helps them to eat well, and I'm surprised that NYT (who just ran yet another article by Michael Pollan the other day) didn't talk about that aspect of it.
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Laura 1-29-2007 @ 9:39AM
Who cares about what the kids eat- give us the recipe for the goat cheese and olive salad! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
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Amy 1-29-2007 @ 9:52AM
My daughter ate scallops when she was 16 months old. She also went to France and had pate, quiche, and other non-standard baby foods when she was 14 months old.
I am careful to keep a supply of things that I know she'll eat (ravioli) on hand, but we also make sure that she tries what we're having, assuming that it isn't too spicy.
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Ann Adams 1-29-2007 @ 1:16PM
Heather, I'm lazy too.
All of mine have eaten what we eat from the time they had enough teeth to chew. The result so far has been some remarkably unfussy kids.
Of course they still love the chicken nuggets or a burger and fries from time to time but they're also fine with feta, almost all veggies, and many other things kids aren't supposed to like.
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Uly 1-29-2007 @ 8:59PM
I agree with Ann and Heather. The only time my older niece is "picky" is when she observes that other children her age are eating, frankly, crap. (And I'm not talking about chicken fingers, I'm talking about bi-weekly (or more) lunches that consist soly of potato chips and cookies.) Then she wants to share. (Well, she's three - I'd want to share too!)
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Leah 1-30-2007 @ 3:23PM
Every time we go to our favorite sushi place, there's at least one table with a couple kids at it. One half of me rolls her eyes and the other half hopes I have the guts to take my kids for sushi when I have them.
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