What Makes Mama Mad?

There is no dearth of parenting opinions out there. Just stand around your local school yard and gossip with a clutch of moms. Or surf the Internet parenting sites. It may be possible to name a group of people more maligned than parents but I'll be darned if I can think of any right now. Perhaps the worst part of all of this is the most harpy-like voices amongst a cacophony of criticism are those of parents themselves. For doing a job that requires heroic daily feats of tongue biting and battle choosing, they sure are a shockingly judgmental and contentious bunch.

To wit: try googling "Picky Eaters." You will be treated to a feast of opinions on whether or not choosy children are born or made. I, of course, know the definitive answer to this. But you don't have to take my word for it. There are people with infinitely more impressive qualifications than my own field experience who have studied this very subject in great depth following rigorous clinical procedures. It pleases me to tell you that those with bona fide Ivy League letters trailing their surnames have arrived at exactly the same conclusion as I. Here is one of them.

What makes me mad are the sanctimonious bunch who declare they know all about how to keep a kid from becoming a picky eater; who through their superior parenting skills have unilaterally molded their children into accepting any food put in front of them. To this I reply a word that begins with B and ends with ollocks. What these folks have managed to do is have the great good fortune to be delivered of a compliant, easy going, young human. They have no more engineered their child's non-pickiness than others have chosen not to raise their children to be autistic.

Part of my journey this year while I'm studying at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition is to not only amend my own food habits, but to also improve the health of my family. If I hope to help others implement changes in their diets I had better learn exactly how to go about it myself. One of my particular challenges is getting my strong willed 6 year old to leap aboard the nutrition train. Since she is a phenomenally picky eater, I have my work cut out for me. Let me define picky for those who suffer from some mistaken notion that we are talking about kids who prefer chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, pizza, and grilled cheese to chicken stir fry, brown rice, pasta marinara, and panini. I wish. No, I'm speaking of a child who eats a sum total of thirteen foods. Count 'em. 13.
1. Yogurt.
2. Pancakes.
3. Chocolate milk.
4. Red grapes (under duress).
5. Bananas (under even more duress).
6. Macaroni and cheese but only if it's orange.
7. Scrambled eggs.
8. Toast with margarine.
9. Oatmeal.
10. Corn (under extreme threats of prolonged physical torture [kidding] {kinda}).
11. Hot dogs
12. Crackers.
13. Sugar. Under this single food category I lump baked goods, candies, ice cream, and Dunkin's Boston Cream doughnut.

I dragged this child to more than a year of occupational therapy including weekly trips to the feeding group which temporarily added string cheese, canned pineapple, and deli meat to her diet. All were lost again to the annals of history along with the carrots, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, spinach, peas, rice, broccoli, beef, and salmon of her toddler years. If I can shift her diet this year, I will be able to say I have accomplished something huge and true. Notice I say shift, not change. I am an optimist, not a saint. Nor a fool.

Tonight's dinner, for instance, included a shift. Hot dog, corn, chocolate milk (where's the shift, you're thinking), and a slice of bread spread with margarine. There it is. Did you spot it? If you, like me, are endowed with a picky eater you'll have picked it up right away. Yes, you in the back there? Right! The bread was not toasted. Good, very good. You're paying attention. Untoasted bread has a radically different texture than toasted. This is the level of picky with which I am dealing.

Let me elaborate: the margarine is Earth Balance's organic non-GMO expeller pressed oil spread. Don't want anyone calling the Department of Social Services on me for feeding trans-fats to my kid.

And lest you think it was as easy as simply not putting the bread in the toaster this time, let me tell you that there has been a steady march of margerined, buttered, jammed, or peanut buttered slices from my kitchen counter to the lunch box back home again to the fridge to, eventually and finally, the trash can. Since she started kindergarten. More than a year ago. You can see why I laugh derisively (some may say maniacally) at the standard Pediatrician/Registered Dietitian directive that a child must be exposed to a new food up to fifteen times before they accept it. Oh yeah? Try fifteen months.

Which is furthermore why I have nothing but ire for that sanctimonious lot who declare in that oh-so-self-satisfied tone that they single-handedly wrested their children from the fate of being picky eaters. Or that any child who is one, is solely and exclusively the fault of (say it with a sneer!) the parents. I see your Superior Parenting Techniques and raise you one former rhubarb-consuming 6 year old (see enclosed photographic evidence). Go ahead. Tell me she's picky because I made her that way. That doesn't make me mad at all. Bring it.

Tools I Love, Installment the First

Tonight's dinner was graced by a lovely tzatziki made from garlic, grated cucumber, and Greek yogurt. I adore Greek yogurt -- so gorgeous and creamy! It's thrilling to have it so readily available there are actually multiple brands from which to choose, even at my local downscale DeMoula's Market Basket. The cost, however, is less thrill-inducing and more coronary-threatening. That's where my Tool I Love number 1 comes in. Witness the Donvier Wave yogurt strainer. It's a marvel of simple design with its square plastic container, w-shaped mesh sieve, and handy plastic lid. Truth be told, it's one of those devices that can wind up chewing up a corner of the back of one of your cupboards, causing you to curse as you attempt to stuff your latest whiz-bang gizmo into the already crowded storage space before your spouse arrives home to mutter at you, "What did you buy now?" I have no idea what I paid for this thing back in the day. I think it arrived in a box full of other gotta-have-it-nows from King Arthur Flour's lovely baker's catalog and I probably got free shipping which meant I spent in the neighborhood of seventy bucks (not all of it on the yogurt strainer -- I'm crazy about it but not that crazy).

Look at the gorgeous, cream cheese texture you get after straining low fat yogurt!

Here's the way it works. First you find a recipe which calls for Greek yogurt. Add it to your shopping list. Next, stand in front of the yogurt display at your local emporium gasping and wheezing at the difference between the price of 20 ounces of Major National Brand Greek style Yogurt and 32 ounces of Organic Regional Brand low fat plain Yogurt (hint: when a greater quantity of organic stuff is cheaper you know you're being price-gouged for the sake of au courant marketing caché so flip the fickle finger of fate at the trend and buy the yogurt from Vermont instead). Step 3 entails you remembering the night before you need the Greek yogurt to get your lovely Donvier Wave out of the deepest recess of your Cupboard of Shame, drop the wavy sieve into the box designed to hold it, spoon the entire carton of Vermont yogurt into the sieve, pop the cover on, and shove it in the fridge. Lastly, at the moment your recipe calls for stirring Greek yogurt into your fabulous concoction, spoon the gorgeous dense, creamy, ricotta-textured strained yogurt into your dish and feel smug about all the money you saved while enjoying a vastly superior dairy product.

Here's a recipe for the Tzatziki adapted from one printed in Dinnertime! A Special Edition of Disney FamilyFun magazine:

1 English cucumber, peeled, grated, drained, and squeezed to remove excess liquid
2 cups Donvier Wave-strained or Greek-style yogurt
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice plus zest of lemon removed with soon to be published Tools I Love II, the Microplane Grater
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Smoosh it all together and spoon it atop your favorite gyros or falafel sandwich. Also good shoveled straight from mixing bowl into mouth with home made cumin-and-kosher-salted pita chips. Stin iyia mas!!! (What, that's Greek to you? It means "to our health!")