Kids Menus Are Just for Coloring

Children, but no children's food. The concept of children's food as an entity separate and distinct from well, regular food, is perhaps not the best of recent inventions. The idea is young and seems to be failing any test of time that it is put to. Children raised on processed food that comes from a supply line and has traveled further and longer than most of us is harming their ability to make educated choices and develop sophisticated palettes as they grow into young adults. Gearing taste buds toward salt and sugar, processed and packaged foods, is the first step in a long road that will need to be carefully unravelled eventually. The easiest way to avoid this is to serve the kids what you are having. If they have subtle differences in taste preference, it is fine to leave out a sauce or separate the vegetables from each other so one offending root does not make the whole dish as my children would say "disgusting." But cooking a separate batch of macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers, a tv dinner, or a hot dog when you are eating freshly cooked vegetables or even fresh fish or dare I say it some kind of wild free range animal product, is not the way to go here. The kids should have the adult meal too.

Same goes for snacks. While you the Mom are munching carrot sticks and raw almonds, why grab a bag of chips for the kids? Stick to the same thing or something close to let them develop the healthier habit. I have friends who always carry Oreos, pretzels, sweetened cereal bars, even one old friend who used to carry a Twix bar around but I had never seen her eat anything other than organic vegetables and an occasional nut. Susannah and her friend at the Union Square farmer's market pictured above were snacking on the same snack I was having that day, fresh delicious strawberries.

When they hit high school and eat out with friends, having sophisticated taste preferences is shown to help. While a few years of diversion from healthy eating, especially high school and college years seems to be survivable, it isn't ideal. But studies do show even those temporary junk food junkies tend to go back to healthy eating and their long term taste preferences will return and prevail.

Anyone can slip into becoming addicted to junk, but to give a fighting chance, let kids eat from the adult menu every time you go out. Luke and Lizzie above are at Le Pain Quotidien in Central Park where Luke had a bowl of gazpacho (so did I) and Lizzie had the black bean hummus sandwich with avocado. Susannah had the mesclun salad (so did I) and Perry had the gluten free vegan quiche. I approve of it all for healthy developing youngsters.