Posts tagged as:

kids and food

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 [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
7 comments read the full post >>

National Girl Scout Cookie Day: Money Counts

February 8, 2013

I’m sure the Girl Scouts of the USA didn’t intend to be so, um, honest, when it chose this image to represent the first “National Girl Scout Cookie Day” (today). But check out the sash around that Thin Mint. See the “Money Counts” badge? Yeah. It sure does. But it doesn’t count for the wee Daisy who earns [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
1 comment read the full post >>

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 [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
35 comments read the full post >>

Birthday party mutiny: The case of the pink drink

January 29, 2013

People often ask how I handle other kids’ birthday parties. That’s changed over the years. When Tess was a toddler, I’d surreptitiously scrape off the frosting, give her water over juice, and call it a day. As she got older, we’d talk before the party about making good choices, listening to her body, eating something only if it [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
52 comments read the full post >>

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 [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
10 comments read the full post >>

It’s OK. Limiting candy won’t ruin childhood.

September 27, 2012

My almost 9-year-old trick-or-treats. She roams the neighborhood with friends. She collects candy. She eats a couple pieces. But after the fun is done, we have another Halloween tradition: Divide and conquer. Anything with artificial colors, fake sweeteners, trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup and chemical preservatives gets tossed. Right in the garbage. What’s left (and [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
46 comments read the full post >>

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 [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
30 comments read the full post >>

Real food on the road

May 31, 2012

Summertime. When the living is easy, road trips entice, and that road is paved with fast food and greasy spoons. What to do, what to do. As a longtime vegetarian, I’ve been bringing food on the road for years, if only a few bananas and granola bars to get me through the gauntlet of golden [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
6 comments read the full post >>

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, [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
15 comments read the full post >>

Picture this: Thankful

November 24, 2011

This week at school, my daughter’s class celebrated Thanksgiving with a simple feast: harvest veggie soup, cornbread, pumpkin bread, homemade butter. They’ve been studying flight this fall, so before the kids sat down to eat, they marched through the school with handmade balloon creatures, proudly staging their own version of the Macy’s parade. As I watched these little [...]

FacebookStumbleUponEmailShare
1 comment read the full post >>

← Previous Entries