From the category archives:

Brainy

Food literacy, culture and history

Teaching your kids about food will not cause eating disorders

May 17, 2013

There’s a dangerous thread running through the national conversation about kids and food, and it is this: If you talk to your kids about food, if you teach them to understand ingredients and to actually think about what they eat — and, heaven forbid, you actually limit junk food — you are setting them up for, at best, rebellion-fueled binges, or, at [...]

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Another reason to love maple season

March 4, 2013

Fake maple syrup bums me out. And not only because it rarely contains real maple. (Most brands are a mix of high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors.) It’s because maple syrup is perfect just as it is. Naturally sweet, it also retains trace vitamins and minerals, even antioxidants. It’s still sugar, so let’s not [...]

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Thoughts on being rude

February 1, 2013

I knew this post was risky. I knew not everyone would agree with how I chose to handle a drink situation at a recent birthday party my daughter attended. I even was prepared to be called things like “preachy,” “condescending” and “judgmental.” I was prepared for that response because, even though I’m none of those things, that comes with [...]

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You are in charge. Never forget that.

November 21, 2012

I’m guessing kids everywhere did assignments like this the week before Thanksgiving. And we think this one is a keeper. “Family” is a given (one hopes). “Universe,” “technology” and “math” stoked my science-geek husband and also really cracked us up. But do you see that other word in there? “Me.” Our kid is thankful for herself. At [...]

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Boy meets Big Food: book review and giveaway

August 26, 2012

I started Spoonfed because I want people to rethink their assumptions about kids and food. I want kids to get credit for having brains and tastebuds. Amid rampant food-industry manipulation and misinformation, our best hope for raising healthy children is to raise food-literate children — kids who think critically, challenge the status quo and make smart [...]

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Kids and factory farming: Yes, tell them the truth

February 27, 2012

We have a living-history museum nearby. One of those places with relocated old buildings and re-enactors who take you right back to the 19th century. During one visit, I was in the kitchen of a home churning butter with my daughter and chatting with another visitor, telling her we’d seen a pig-slaughtering pen being built at the village’s teaching farm. The museum, [...]

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Farm camp, 19th century style

August 30, 2011

Tess just spent a week playing a 19th century farm girl. She’s done camps at this living-history museum every summer since she was 4. (You haven’t seen cute until you’ve seen 4-year-olds dressed like Laura Ingalls.) But the previous camps were a little of this, a little of that, a sampler of life in the 1800s. Now that she’s [...]

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(No) Judgment Day. Pass it on.

August 17, 2011

On the road this summer, I was struck, as I always am while traveling, by what other kids eat. For all the junk food in everyday life, there’s something astonishing about vacation. Maybe it’s the sheer volume of really bad food. Or the vacation-treat mentality. Or all those wiped-out parents desperate for something, anything, edible. All I know is that it gets to [...]

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“Food Inc.”: Family viewing?

August 9, 2011

PBS is showing the movie “Food Inc.” tonight. So I’m pulling out a review I wrote when the movie debuted. Have you seen the film? Planning to watch tonight? Maybe recording it to watch later with your kids? (See more about kid viewing below.) You’ll never look at food the same way again. I promise. So watch [...]

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Teachable moments

June 10, 2011

Last day of school. Time for a final salute to my daughter’s terrific first-grade teacher. And to all the other teachers who realize that what kids eat — and what they know about food — matters. Poet Tea, local eats I’ve written about Ms. S before (most notably in this post) and how she just… gets [...]

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