Breakfast Can Improve How Well Your Kids Eat Dinner

One of the downsides of the nutrition mindset is that it encourages parents to examine the immediate meal.

Actually, sometimes the nutrition mindset focuses parents' attention on the immediate mouthful! But the habits approach encourages you to step back and look at patterns.

Breakfast can change HOW your kids eat.

Here's a favorite post that explains...

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Yes, breakfast is important nutritionally, but it is also the biggest missed opportunity for teaching your kids to eat right.

You’ve heard the nutrition news a zillion times before: kids need to eat breakfast.  It makes them healthier and better students at school.  (Though I’m not sure kids need the chocolate chip pancakes at IHOP which come in at over 600 calories, or the flapjacks at your local diner which are probably just as fantastic.)

But you probably haven't thought about breakfast from the habits perspective.

Used correctly, breakfast can teach kids to eat new foods.   Used incorrectly... well, you probably know what happens.

Here are three ways to get the most out of breakfast:

1) Use breakfast to get kids used to the idea that they eat different foods on different days and they’ll be more open to new foods.

Most parents settle on the same 1 or 2 things to feed kids in the morning.  It’s a busy time, and we want our kids to eat breakfast (after all, we know how important this meal is).

But feeding kids the same stuff all the time gets them used to eating the same stuff all the time.  No wonder they balk when different stuff comes around - even if different comes later in the day.

Read Make "New” Work For You.

Tip 1: Rotate the breakfast foods you serve.  You don’t need to introduce foods your kids have never eaten.  Simply establish the procedure of not serving the same food two days in a row.  If you must serve cereal every day, at least switch up the brands and the flavors.

2) Use breakfast to expand the taste, texture, appearance, aroma and temperature of foods your kids will eat and they’ll be more open to new foods.

Most parents think they are providing a variety of foods, but they’re not. Breakfast foods tend to all have basically the same taste, texture, aroma, appearance and temperature. 

Toast, cereal, bagels, muffins, French toast, pancakes … they’re all relatively bland, bready products.  Some offer a little more sweet, or a little more crunch, but the variation is minimal.  That’s because the main ingredient is the same: refined flour.

Read The Ingredients Game.

Tip 2: Pay attention to which tastes your kids gravitate towards and then slowly introduce them to other flavors.  Do the same thing with texture (do they only like crunchy?), appearances (are they white or beige eaters?), aromas and temperatures.

Read The Variety Masquerade.

3) Use breakfast to reduce your kids’ dependence on sweet and fat-laden foods and they’ll be more open to new foods.

A lot of what we feed our kids in the morning fosters eating habits that run counter to the healthy stuff we’re always begging them to eat.

Do our kids really need to develop a lifelong taste preference for butter, cream cheese, and sugar?  Not if you want them to eat broccoli.

Tip 3: Teach your children that …

• Butter is an ingredient in food, not a topping on food.  Yes, it’s yummy but it’s also 100% fat, and nothing else. Get your kids in the habit of eating toast topped with peanut butter, cottage cheese, hummus, guacomole... anything but butter. 

• Cream cheese is a treat, not a staple. According to the USDA cream cheese doesn’t fulfill your kid’s daily dairy requirement because it doesn’t have enough calcium.  Instead, it’s a fat delivery system - thinkcream cheese - that packs in 100 calories per ounce. Most people slather on at least 2 ounces. Read about USDA Milk Group.

• “Children’s cereals” – which have up to 85% more sugar than those marketed to adults -- are treat snacks, not breakfast foods.  Maybe this is one reason most kids have such a sweet tooth! Read A Spoonful of Sugar? 

• Syrup.  Is there really any point?  Think Coke without the bubbles.  Ounce for ounce Aunt Jemima’s syrup has 5 times as much sugar as Coke.  (Coke has 3.3g sugar per ounce; the syrup has 16g per ounce. A point of reference: those little packets of syrup served at fast food joints are approximately 2 ounces.) Teach your kids to enjoy pancakes with jelly, fresh fruit or -- here's a radical idea -- plain naked (then they'll know what pancakes really taste like).

When it comes to teaching kids to eat new foods every meal counts, especially breakfast.

~Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

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Source: Zinczenko, D. and M. Goulding, 2008. Eat This Not That for Kids. New York, NY: Rodale. p. 74; product labels.

Do You Have a Dinner Backup?

A backup can save the day.

Parents often ask me what they ought to do when their child refuses to eat the meal that's been prepared. A backup is almost always my answer.

I don't need a backup anymore because I'm not parenting a defiant eater anymore. But boy, did cottage cheese save my life.

Here's an old post about backups for you to read while I finish my book! And do read this post on Cook. Play. Explore. which describes the author's experience using this technique.

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Cottage cheese gets a bad rap.  It has the misfortune of being thought of as a diet food (and a pretty awful one at that).  But let me tell you how it changed my life.

My daughter likes cottage cheese.  She doesn’t LOVE it, would never choose it over something preferable – something like sushi, steak or even mac ‘n cheese – but when I serve up meatloaf, a spicy chili or a new dish that doesn’t quite make it, cottage cheese is her “go-to” meal.

I learned a long time ago that giving my daughter the option of eating cottage cheese whenever she didn’t want my dinner enabled me to cook whatever I desired.  And that opened up the culinary world to my husband and me – and, as it turned out, to my daughter as well.

Cottage cheese is our backup.  And, sometimes, having a backup is all you need to turn a tense meal around.

Kids have all sorts of reasons to decline your meal: they don’t like it, they don’t feel like eating it today, they’re cruising for some control.  Having a backup eliminates the sting of your kids’ snubs. 

Having a backup means you don’t have to beg, bribe or cajole your kids into eating, you don’t have to cook an alternate meal (or multiple alternates if you have a couple of kids) and you don’t have to worry about starvation.  You can simply say, “There’s always cottage cheese.”

A backup gives your children the safety net they need.

The backup gives your kids control over what they eat because they know exactly what the options are: they eat either the meal you’ve prepared or the backup.

The backup gives your children the freedom to try new foods because they know there’s always an out: the backup.

The backup eliminates the power play.

Your children don’t have to like cottage cheese.

Don’t panic if your kids don't like cottage cheese. There are lots of other foods you can use as a backup: tofu, hummus, plain yogurt, beans (or anything else out of a can that can be consumed without cooking).

Whatever backup food you choose, make sure it meets the following criteria:

1) The backup must always be the same food item. Pick ONE food and only ONE food to use as a backup.  It will undermine your efforts if your give your children choices for the backup of if the backup changes from time to time.

2) The backup must always be available. Use a food that isn’t highly perishable and which you usually stock. Cottage cheese works because it comes in small snack sizes that stay fresh for weeks at a time.

3) The backup must be nutritious.  That way you won’t worry when your children choose it.

4) The backup must be a NO COOK item.  The point is to make your life easier, not harder.

5) The backup must NOT be a preferred food.  Don’t choose cereal, sandwiches, flavored yogurt, or anything else your children would rather eat. You don’t want to give them an incentive to choose the backup. Instead, select something your kids like, not LOVE, and which they find kind of boring.

The backup works by changing the dynamic at the dinner table.  When you set the overarching parameters, and your children make the choices, you alter your interactions so there's no more fighting about food. And your kids end up eating more of what you serve.  Now that's a habit to cultivate!

~ Changing the conversation from nutrition to habits. ~

The Magic of (Plain) Yogurt

Stonyfield has increased the sugar in its yogurt!

Apparently, it's not sweet enough. A reader on Marion Nestle's blog Food Politics writes:

• The French Vanilla (6 oz cup) used to have 17g of sugar, now it has 27g! 
• The Peach (also 6 oz cup) used to have 20g, now it has 26g. 

For a point of reference: an 8 ounce bottle of Coke has 27g of sugar. (I know, and none of the calcium, or protein...) Read Yogurt vs Coke. 

 

You know my opinion:

• The sugar drives our kids' habits. No matter what form the sugar takes, it's the taste that counts.
• The more our kids get used to eating sweet foods, the harder it is to get them to eat "real" foods...like broccoli or apples.

Stonyfield’s Vice President for Communications and Social Media, Alice Markowitz explains (also on Marion Nestle's blog):

In 2011, we replaced some of the sugar in our Smooth and Creamy style nonfat yogurts with organic stevia. Our fans didn’t like the switch, so we went back to using just organic sugar with our new Blends. 

Organic sugar...it's supposed to make you feel better.

Ms. Markowitz goes on to say:

In fact, the slight increase is due primarily to an increase in milk in the product, resulting in more protein, more milk sugar.   As with many of our products, Blends has a mix of naturally-occurring sugars from milk and fruit and some added sugars. 

This just goes to show that yogurt with fruit is sweet already. Why add more?

Healthy yogurt is plain yogurt.

• Healthy in terms of nutrition. 
• Healthy in terms of habits.

Here's a post I wrote a few years ago on the Magic of (Plain) Yogurt.

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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).  ReadMake "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. ~