Probably worthwhile to point out that 'I'm just naturally by evolution supposed to prefer hourglass-shaped women with perky D-cups boobs' is a load of bollocks. Again, I mean.
Much better if people say "I like skinny women with big boobs, because I'm a real American."
Naturalized Patriot
Totally awesome superhero name.
And generally this: "Most parents force their kids to eat at some point" may be true, but if it is then people are nuts. Barring unusual medical conditions, what on earth is the point of forcing a kid to eat?
what on earth is the point of forcing a kid to eat?
A lot of kids are kid of willful about not eating, even when they're hungry.
what on earth is the point of forcing a kid to eat?
Children are starving in Africa you know.
It seems odd saying this to you, but apo? You really haven't been watching enough porn.
No fair. The story didn't include pictures of the hott ugly ones.
Barring unusual medical conditions, what on earth is the point of forcing a kid to eat?
Builds character.
8: Well, sure, when people are forcing them to eat. Show me any indication that being malnourished is a likely problem among children for whom reasonable amounts of food are available, and then I'll say forcing your kids to eat makes sense.
10: I think this may have to do with my internal dictionary, which equates "perky" with "small".
If your kid is tired and cranky from not eating, you're going to say something like "You can't go until you eat your dinner" or some such. This happens all the time, no? It's not as if kids have a clue about their nutritional needs.
Forcing kids to eat vegetables is pretty common, since left to their own devices, many of them would eat nothing but sugar.
I thought "perky" might be more like this.
And you think forcing them to eat when they don't want to is a good way to help them figure out their own body's cues? Seriously, I think the chance that a parent is accurately diagnosing that a kid is tired and cranky 'from not eating' when the kid is convinced enough they're not hungry so as to need to be forced to eat is really very very small.
Maybe your kids aren't very willful, LB.
16: Eh, maybe. I'm pretty against even on that -- offer repeatedly, don't make more attractive substitutes freely available, but forcing anyone to eat anything strikes me as a really offensive intrusion into someone else's bodily autonomy.
They're just lethargic from lack of food.
My mom needs to be told to eat when she gets cranky. My dad does this diplomatically, Mom eats something, and reason returns. (Mom also gets told to take a nap sometimes. Mom tends to overextend herself.)
Or maybe they've figured out photosynthesis and don't need to eat.
19: How does it make sense that people are different from all other animals in that their young don't have the sense to eat when they're hungry? It's nonsense.
"Needs" should be "is the status quo in my parent's relationship".
Spare me. If your kid gets hungry, it eats. Ogged is living in some fantasy world.
22: That, I can see -- someone gets cranky and you offer them food. That's a far cry from forcing them to eat.
It's nonsense.
Now I'm starting to wonder if you even have kids.
"parent's" should be "parents'"
If we didn't make him eat vegetables, Keegan would have gladly subsisted on crescent rolls, hot sauce, and plain pasta. But we put a small serving of vegetables on his plate every meal that he had to finish, and despite the initial objections, he's gotten to where he'll now willingly eat salad greens, broccoli, peas, beans, and Brussels sprouts.
For some strange reason, though, he still considers mashed potatoes inedible.
I will simply wait for people who have kids not subject to the Lizardbreath Mind Control Child-Rearing Method to come and tell you (and SCMT, who has obviously never even seen a child) that I'm right.
I don't think we can assume that human children have evolved to not want pizza and ice cream at all times, and further that they have evolved to not be able to figure out they can wait their parents out by not eating until they're going to be cranky/low energy.
a really offensive intrusion into someone else's bodily autonomy
I also force my kids to bathe regularly.
But I grow tense. I just know so many parents who fight about food with their kids so much, and it's all a waste of stress and bad feelings. If you feed your kids a variety of reasonable foods, they'll grow up eating normally. The chance that they'll be malnourished in any important regard (assuming you're reading this over an Internet connection) approaches zero.
19: How does it make sense that people are different from all other animals in that their young don't have the sense to eat when they're hungry? It's nonsense.
Reason fucks you up.
If there's one person you should always listen to on food/nutrition issues, it's the guy who is six foot and a size two.
I'm totally going to keep contributing knowledgeable things about how to be a parent to this discussion because I totally have kids and therefore have some special insight into it.
Totally.
Jackmormon saw LB with kids. But how do we know that they were HER kids?
The method in 32 constitutes acceptable force. Beyond that, let them decide when they're hungry and don't make unhealthy crap available, and they'll be fine.
My daughters had haggis when they were one, and liked it.
I think the key of LB's point is that when it comes to a battle of wills over whether or not the kid is going to eat their peas, you can say, "Hey, when you're hungry, the peas/broccoli mush is what's available" instead of locking into combat mode.
34: But you don't have to give them pizza or ice cream, and you can wait them out. That's ridiculous: "I have to force my kids to eat, because if they don't, they might get cranky, and then I'd have no choice at all but to let them live off junk food." Crankiness does not imply "have to let them live off junk food".
40: Anyone who's seen me and Sally doesn't have to ask. She's pretty much an exact 3/4 scale copy. Newt's a little more ambiguous.
If you feed your kids a variety of reasonable foods
This isn't always as easy as it sounds, though. Many kids are quite resistant to anything unfamiliar and getting a balanced diet in them sometimes requires getting them past a knee-jerk resistance to anything green.
7: No, they don't. That was the point.
I wouldn't say a kid needs to be forced to eat if she's not hungry, but that they get hungry and eat their vegetables if you limit snacking.
Hasn't Dooce had a series of posts about the fact that her daughter won't eat for days at a time?
And eventually her kid eats. Toddlers live on sunshine and air at times. No one knows why.
Well, certainly you don't pry open their jaws and thrust a funnel down their throats, like some foie gras goose, but making sure the kids eat a balanced meal is a full time job at my house. The boy actually prefers apples and grapes to candy, but the middle girl would eat nothing but bread and olive oil and garlic given her preference. It is definately a will power battle.
Hasn't Dooce had a series of posts about the fact that her daughter won't eat for days at a time?
Did the kid die of starvation, or did she start to eat at the end of it?
You can eat it or wear it, you horrible little child.
45: This is much less nutty than the generic 'forcing your kids to eat' as if there were some problem about them taking in enough calories if left to their own impulses. My kids would like to be on Atkins, if given their preferences: meat and cheese, and nothing else is all that interesting to them. I do encourage them strongly to try new things, and particularly with the vegetables.
But "You Must Eat" when the kid isn't hungry? That's still messed up.
I routinely badger my children into eating because I know if they don't eat dinner, they will wake me up in the middle of the night saying "I'm hungryyyy, make me a snaaaaack."
Like Apo, I also force my children to bathe, and sometimes even comb their hair.
It is silly to think your children should have autonomy as children. You should be striving to get them to the point where they will have real, effective (nay, Kantian) autonomy as adults.
"You Must Eat" when the kid isn't hungry?
I'm saying some kids won't eat even when they are hungry. I can't believe this is even an issue.
Anyway, Oggers just posted this so we could see his sweet jogging form in the background of the top photo, complete with old-school headphones.
Also: Although Mauritania is the only culture known to force-feed girls, obesity is popular across much of the Arab world.
This drives me nuts. "Mauritania" is not a "culture", it's a state. Perhaps they mean "The Maures (Moors), a Berber/Arab group that makes up a plurality of Mauritania's population, is the only culture known to force-feed girls, though Berbers never do it anywhere else". Who knows what they mean?
And even with the vegetables -- if the kid tries them occasionally, making it a huge power struggle is still way over the top. TLL: Do you really think you're likely to end up looking at deficiency diseases if you let your daughter live on garlic bread until she grows out of it?
If you live in a house where vegetables are conventionally eaten, by the time you're an adult you'll be eating them too. There's no need to make it a battle of wills.
I'm saying some kids won't eat even when they are hungry. I can't believe this is even an issue.
Umm, 'cause you're a psychopath? Are you aware of any cases of a kid starving itself to death? Ever? Six billion people now, and those that have come before -- you'd think there'd be at least one.
I routinely badger my children into eating because I know if they don't eat dinner, they will wake me up in the middle of the night saying "I'm hungryyyy, make me a snaaaaack."
And you tell them to go back to bed -- the kitchen's closed. What, you think they'd keep doing it forever?
Are you aware of any cases of a kid starving itself to death?
This is insane. It's not a matter of whether the kid will die or become malnourished in the manner of some dying African child, but whether the kid is chronically underweight for its age, slowing its development, constantly cranky or tired, etc. This is a real issue, I don't understand why it seems strange to you guys.
Look, LB has weirdly perfect children who do what they should automatically. She already described how they are able to postpone gratification and horde treats. Clearly they will rule the world by the time they are twenty.
The rest of us actually have to discipline our children sometimes.
When I was very young, about two or three months old, I was nearly taken away from my mother because she wasn't feeding me enough. I didn't cry, and so she assumed I didn't need food.
I did see LB with children, though.
47, 48: Right. The daughter is healthy, despite calorie needs that worry her mother. Dooce is being neurotic. She's funny about it, and it's a very conventional neurosis, but she's not doing her daughter any particular good by sweating about her diet.
Just for the record, I'm totally with LB and SCMT on this one. It just doesn't need to be a battle.
59: The damage is done. I'm awake. I don't want this to happen night after night until they learn to eat on their own.
I am mostly with LizardBreath on the forcing kids to eat issue, but that is mostly because, cussedness aside, there is not much distance between her position and that of apostropher, rob helpy-chalk and others. 32, 36 and 43 mostly sum up my approach, and what I think is hte most common one.
62: Honestly, I think the issue is that I'm more of a hardass than most. A kid waking me up in the middle of the night because they're hungry isn't my problem; mine might try that once or twice, but if they don't get any satisfaction out of it, they're not going to keep trying it.
61: It's not a matter of whether the kid will die or become malnourished in the manner of some dying African child, but whether the kid is chronically underweight for its age, slowing its development, constantly cranky or tired, etc.
It's not that this sort of thing never happens, but it's very uncommon, where parents hectoring their children about eating isn't. Seriously, how on earth do you think children survived in conditions of food scarcity if voluntary anorexia was the norm?
You know, one of the great joys of this blog is the variations on comments like 61.
I certainly know anecdotally about kids who were so grumpy about eating that the pediatrician worriedly asked the parents what the deal was.
There's this, too, but I imagine that can be rolled into the "don't pressure them" worldview since it develops somewhat later in life.
57. She's nine, and makes alot of poor food choices. What I am trying to get her to understand is the link between diet and excercise and general health. I do often let her snack on the baguette and olive oil, (which scares me by its sophistication) but I also don't want to make food or body image an issue.
I feel the need to weigh in and say I was raised by parents who thought exactly like LB. Neither I nor my siblings had anywhere near the level of messed-up-ness about food and body image that most of our (female) peers seem to have acquired.
Anecdote not data blah blah blah. Still, the principles are solid, although each child is different. Ogged is insane.
66: I swear to god you'd have to hold your ground maybe three, four times. And then never fight about what they're eating at the dinner table again.
The tradeoff works.
Whereas I think 49 is one of the great joys of this blog.
Well, certainly you don't pry open their jaws and thrust a funnel down their throats, like some foie gras goose,
Of course the kid isn't going to starve to death but the lines of authority must be enforced. YOU WILL EAT THAT CREAMED SPINACH, YOU UNGRATEFUL SHIT, OR NO PRESENTS FOR CHRISTMAS.
75: Or only presents made of creamed spinach.
"I swear to god you'd have to hold your ground maybe three, four times. And then never fight about what they're eating at the dinner table again."
Every parent deserves a good child and a bad child. Then, you better understand the sometimes randomness of whether you have well-behaved children or children who run amuck.
it's very uncommon
How do you know that? How many kids who don't do well in school are just hungry or haven't had enough vitamins or whatever?
And comparisons with life on the veldt aren't apposite. There's a culture of plenty here and food becomes an issue of control and freedom very early on. Through some combination of effective parenting and luck you have kids who don't refuse to eat, but that's just two kids.
A stocking full of moldy, horrible, months old creamed spinach. (There's a truck stop near Scranton that sells souvienirs carved out of coal. I keep on meaning to buy some for stocking stuffers.)
Every parent deserves a good child and a bad child.
I'm having the third one to serve as the tiebreaker.
No doubt LB will view this as evidence that I'm an abusive parent.
YOU WILL EAT THAT CREAMED SPINACH, YOU UNGRATEFUL SHIT, OR NO PRESENTS FOR CHRISTMAS.
Fuck that. You let them open the Christmas presents, then you put them all in a pile and burn them, saying, "You will eat your vegetables from now on."
"Through some combination of effective parenting and luck you have kids who don't refuse to eat, but that's just two kids."
Learn the rules, Ogged.
If your children are well-behaved children, then you are a great parent.
If your children cause trouble, then it is random bad luck.
If other people's children cause trouble, it is bad parenting.
I'm off to swim. I'm sure that by the time I get back, LB will have become a full-blown libertarian who wonders why other people don't just do for themselves.
I'm more curious about the one comment on that post, rob.
81 - it does sound like Caroline was getting attention for not eating the broccoli.
How is that going for you Apo?
Parenting is driving on ice.
One wrong move and your daughter gets a tattoo right across her chest.
There's a culture of plenty here and food becomes an issue of control and freedom very early on.
Huh. You think that has anything to do with control-freak parents who need to micromanage their children's calorie intake? (Not to malign control-freak parents -- it is so conventional to fight with your kids about food that while I think it's mistaken, I also don't think it says anything at all about your character or general parenting skills.)
If no one's trying to control it, how does it turn into a control issue?
I think if parents have a good child and a bad child, the children know which they are. Not necessarily on a conscious level, which probably is for the worse.
How do you know that?
WTF? How do you know that the specific problem to which you're pointing--kids who won't eat even though nutritious food is provided for them--exists? Because you dreamed it up, so it must have happened?
89 is right on. Families are systemic the way they take on rolls.
80- It's not a tiebreaker, Apo. With the third child you shift from man on man to zone defense.
Families are systemic the way they take on rolls.
But the family in the article has no problem with rolls of fat.
Tassled Loafered Leech:
You aren't implying that it is a fair battle with two children?
But you need to eat some vegetables with those rolls.
With the third child you shift from man on man to zone defense.
TLL is a man of great wisdom.
How is that going for you Apo?
Keegan was the absolute model child that tricked all of our friends into having real children. He still is a remarkably easy kid to parent, one who never requires disciplining beyond "please don't do that again." I'm getting payback with Noah, who is mischievous, stubborn, absolutely fearless, and mostly impervious to pain. We'll see how the daughter goes soon enough.
Wait are we talking crescent rolls? I hear kids love those.
As I think TLL mentioned upthread, different tastes and appetites present a frustrating wrinkle, and that can be stressful. Our daughters have kind of a Jack Sprat thing going on; one is all about the starch, the other loves her meat and veggies, and we do put a little pressure on them to mix it up. But it's always been that way, and they're equally healthy. Won't be attracting any Mauritanian men, though.
And really, my children, while adorable and charming, aren't perfectly behaved (they might be if I were a better parent, because they are pretty sweet, but they're not). We just don't fight about food. We fight about whether garbled TKD moves directed at one's siblings are appropriate play, whether having several pages of a homework packet untouched counts as done, and whether it is or is not desireable to remove enough stuff from the floor of one's room that one can see the rug.
All of those areas are areas where I don't have a primary biological drive working on my side of the argument. Where I do, I figure I can relax.
Ogged, you seem a little too surely convinced that kids who refuse to eat even though food is provided and they're hungry exist, despite most people thinking you're nuts. Were you that kid growing up?
So incidentally, if a kid wants to eat way, way too much, should you stop them? What's different about that?
Huh. That's a good question. Or family members? (I realize that I'm pretty sure that Ogged is any only kid, but maybe he just hasn't mentioned siblings?)
(I realize that I'm pretty sure that Ogged is any only kid, but maybe he just hasn't mentioned siblings?)
Ogged had a sister, but he ate her.
So incidentally, if a kid wants to eat way, way too much, should you stop them? What's different about that?
Eating is fun; starving, not so much. You worry about people overindulging in fun.
95. No, it's like the Harlem Globetrotters versus the Washington Generals. My wife and I do alot of "where did that come from?"
103: Depends on the meaning of 'way way too much' -- it's only a problem if you're talking about a genuinely odd amount of food. It sounds like a pretty unlikely problem without the parents actively supporting the dynamic -- if you're the grownup, cooking the food, and providing normal servings, a kid isn't likely to have an out-of-control appetite barring some medical issue. Mostly, I'd say that you cook and serve normal servings at dinner, and between meals direct the kid at the fruit bowl.
But I'm pontificating there -- I don't have any real experience. Sally has bouts where she eats like a farmworker, mostly related to growth spurts, but nothing that seems like anything we'd need to worry about.
Most parents force their kids to eat at some point, but when the kid is vomiting from overeating, it's safe to say you've gone too far.
I'd like to see your data.
Apo: I'm wondering about that comment, too.
Heebie: The whole evening was actually an exercise in self defeating parenting tactics. I don't call it one of my prouder moments.
I do have a distinct memory of refusing to eat out of pique caused by hunger once when I was a pre-teen.
111.2: I think everyone has some of those: "You will do what I say, you evil little brute. It's a reasonable command and I'm in charge here!!!" And two hours later, the kid's crying and you want to. (Newt at about 3, during a battle of wills like that: "Womens are all too bossy!!!")
Overgeneralizing, I'd say. "Mommy is too bossy" maybe.
113: Smart kid.
Seriously, though, I have known people with kids who really were pretty unbelievably stubborn about what, and when, they would eat. It's certainly possible that the correct solution is to blithely keep on cooking healthy things and wait them out, but I think you might be underestimating what a true battle that can be on an ongoing basis. Just because you have delightful and easily outfoxed children doesn't mean everybody does.
But yeah, I'm speculating, because I don't have kids of my own and I've always eaten anything that was put in front of me.
I've never had any trouble getting my kids to eat. They're active little turkeys, and aren't overly picky.
Rob, that post was awesome. I've been conditioned not to insist so much because a) losing a battle of wills to a toddler is humiliating, and b) when my own parents forced me to eat something objectionable as a toddler, I threw up all over the place. I refuse to concede a lasting victory like that to my girls.
It's certainly possible that the correct solution is to blithely keep on cooking healthy things and wait them out, but I think you might be underestimating what a true battle that can be on an ongoing basis.
I really don't think so. The thing is, I've never seen a kid suffer from the consequences of their parents losing a battle to make them eat. (I've seen kids who eat crap, because their parents buy them crap, but that's a different battle. If the kid isn't doing the grocery shopping, they aren't eating anything you didn't bring home.) There are enough bad (less than competent?) parents out there that the stunted, languid children Ogged fears should be visible, because their parents didn't fight hard enough to make them eat. I've never encountered one.
I don't see why so often people battle with the kids over specific foods. Why force something like broccoli? My kids don't like broccoli (neither do I), so for vegetables we get carrots, or varieties of bell pepper, and other stuff they like. Fruit has never been a problem.
I can't read the whole thread now, so maybe someone said this, but in my entire clan it's very common for children to be very bad at eating until they're at least 8 or 9. I was super skinny and had to be coaxed to eat for a long, long time. There was no bending back of fingers (OW) or anything like that, but it was always a big deal. They would even say things like "the cops are coming, you have to finish your food!" and I'd go a little faster, and then stop. There were definitely times when I was basically not allowed to leave the dining table until I ate something, and didn't leave for hours. And it wasn't a I'll only eat sugar thing--I actually wouldn't eat sweets much, and went through a phase when I would only eat brocolli. Seriously. When I'm visiting my cousins and their children, I see the exact dynamic--kids who are very obedient about everything else will refuse to eat for hours. And even now, I have to be reminded to eat sometimes, and can feel very conflicted about it especialy in the morning when eating too early gives me nausea. My thirst mechanism is also a slightly broken.
In the absence of health problems related to undereating, isn't it just as likely that you've got a family where the kids have pretty low calorie needs, and are being overfed by adults who are misunderstanding what the kids need?
119: In any case I would argue the outcome wouldn't be stunted, languid children, it would be tired, cranky, unhappy children who, while not lacking in nutrition, are still fighting with their parents every night of the week over food.
I'm not saying it's right, but I don't know if you can 100% blame parents who cave when presented with that scenario.
My parents would occasionally serve me Brussels sprouts when I was young, despite my protestations that they were rather nauseating, until one evening when I actually threw up after eating them. They didn't make me eat them any more after that.
124: Kids need to be 6' of bulging muscle by age 9 if they're going to be competitive on the Jr. Miss Bodybuilding circuit.
Birds have the right idea. Jam it down their throats every time they open their mouth. It's very unceremonious.
126: And thus you were taught the social value of emesis.
Matt F is shunned. Brussels sprouts are delicious.
128: That comment, applied to a different thread than this one, rules.
Interestingly, my younger brother, who as a kid was completely and totally vegetable-averse, made an exception for Brussels sprouts and would eat those without complaint. I am led to believe that they are usually quite high on the nasty vegetable scale.
An extra element in all of this is, of course, the fact that parents aren't the only ones who feed their children, and the battle is often being waged with the interference of grandparents, aunts, uncles, lunch ladies, and the parents of your childrens' friends. And kids are smart enough to know that if they hold out long enough someone is going to give them some corn chips and coke.
125: I'm not understanding what the 'fighting over food' would be about.
Kid: (eats apparently insufficient quantity of food) "I'm not hungry any more. Please may I be excused?"
Parent: "Sure. Go play."
Where's the fight?
Generalized crankiness due to hunger that the kid refuses to satisfy unless forced is conceptually possible -- I just don't believe that it exists in the real world for a normal kid not being harassed about their eating. (A kid that needs to be reminded to eat or offered food when cranky? Perfectly possible. But one who generally needs to be forced or they'll be hungry enough to behave badly I just don't believe in.)
134: Kid, 2 hours after dinner: "I'm hungry! I want a snack!"
Kid, midnight: "I'm hungry! I want a snack!"
3AM, "I'm hungry! I want a snack!"
Repeat daily until they can buy food at McDonalds.
You don't think this ever happens?
130, 132: You know, anything cabbagey, and Brussels Sprouts particularly, tastes good but smells kind of foul. I bet the smell is offputting for kids, rather than the actual taste.
133: This is true, in that you can't control everything your kid eats, but I still don't think you make a significant nutritional or behavioral profit from fighting with the kid about it. The kid will be getting enough food, and much as we talk about bad diets really isn't going to be at risk of vitamin deficiency.
[Some of] you people are crazy. Most of my childhood consisted of being chased around the house by my father with a piece of chicken. "Just one piece of chicken! Just eat something!"
And yet, my parents weren't abusive, and I wasn't undernourished. This is a normal, if not especially productive, thing. Eventually, I learned to eat without the struggle.
I bet the smell is offputting for kids, rather than the actual taste.
Hmm, maybe so. Especially since, the way I've always had them prepared for me, it's difficult to pick out any taste other than butter.
135: No. Kids really don't have a lot of patience compared to grownups. That sort of behavior might go on for a week, but not for a year. And there's nothing keeping you from pointing the kid at the fruit bowl and telling them to go crazy -- if the kid eats a light dinner, and has an apple an hour later, that really isn't a problem.
I absolutely recognize the dynamic in 121. It's actually a little bizarre that Ogged's comment about trying to get kids to eat was received as being so bizarre. There are other, more common conflicts (getting them to eat healthily, getting them to eat at regular times, etc.) but of course the kind of struggle Ogged alludes to happens.
137: Do you think you would have been undernourished if he hadn't chased you? It's a perfectly conventional screwy thing to do, which means that your dad wasn't being abusive at all, but it's pointless.
Brussels sprouts only get that smell if they're cooked a long time, no?
If cooked 'til just tender they smell pretty nice, I think.
Also, yeah, half a stick of butter or whatever is key.
Most of my childhood consisted of being chased around the house by my father with a piece of chicken.
No, that's crazy.
140: I'm the one fighting about this -- I'm not denying that people do fight with their kids about food. Of course they do. I'm denying that (barring occasional medical conditions) there's any useful point to it. Ile and mrh would have grown up healthy and happy whether or not forced to eat.
139: Caroline is extraordinarily persistent. I'm not sure how this happened. A common explanation is that I caved in to her too often early on, so that she has learned that this sort of activity is rewarded. I don't buy this sort of behaviorism, because it makes things my fault.
One thing I've noticed is that the closer in time the society or family or person in that society or familys in question is to a rural or agricultural lifestyle or a period of real scarcity, the more they're into tricking and forcing kids to eat a lot.
Chinese who remember the famine and scarcity prevalent for the 100 or so years prior to the late 1970s, or Greeks who remember the war and early postwar years, for example, or US parents and grandparents who lived through the Depression, Dust Bowl, etc. seem to be much more likely to be worried about feeding young children as much as possible. I'm guessing it's because there's an expectation that there might be lean years ahead or sweeping epidemics or the like and kids well-fed when food is available are the ones who survive.
142: I do them baked in cream and egg yolks with a whole lot of Parmesan on the top... they'd break your heart. (And give you a heart attack, but that's a separate issue.)
146.--I'm not sure about that, M/tch. French people who remember the post-war scarcity tend to LB's side in this argument.
120: Maybe it's a question of trying to get kids to learn how to acquire tastes or to not always go with the path of least resistance? I didn't care for spinach as a kid, and if I'd been given my druthers would have never eaten it, but I acquired a taste for it because the 'rents stubbornly persisted in serving it. It's now one of my favourite foods. (Of course I also had to suffer through dishes that I never developed a taste for, like meatloaf. But on the whole I'd call it a win.)
145: Sure, mine are persistent too, but persistent is weeks, not months or years, right?
146: Or that you have to fatten them up enough to feed everybody else once the lean times hit. Skinny kids don't produce much bacon.
146. The starving Armenians were invoked at my house growing up, which was a cultural artifact of when there were starving Armenians in Armenia. Now the Armenians are all fat and living in Glendale, CA.
144: Oh! Well, of course there's no useful point to it. I didn't realize that was what was under debate. Would my dad and I both have been happier not pursuing me around the house with a rapidly cooling piece of white meat? Yes, yes, we would have.
My grandmother would cajole me into eating using guilt alone; she never had to even get out of her chair.
150: Kids have less patience, but more stubbornness, and more free time to scheme.
152: My grandmother used to talk about kids starving in Japan, which was touching, if a little bit puzzling in the early 80s.
149: This particular point isn't something I'm really all that certain about, but I don't think you need to force the acquisition of new tastes rather than just keep exposing kids to them. I know some people who live on ludicrously limited diets as adults, but they mostly seem to be people who were raised in a house where the only thing served was frozen pizza or similar. People whose parents ate a reasonable spectrum of food seem to do the same themselves, whether or not they were fussy kids.
(I should note that I was a fussy kid -- few vegetables, and nothing with spices or sauce -- until late teenagehood. Then my palate developed or something and now I eat almost anything.)
Very, very early on, my pediatrician disabused me of the notion that I needed to force my picky eater to eat. I fretted like most new parents because she never, ever seemed to eat (once weaned, that is -- when nursing, she never seemed to stop, which was a whole separate cause for anxiety). Kids will not starve themselves, he said. And he was right.
She'd barely pick at her food for days at a time, leading to much concern over how exactly she wasn't fainting from starvation, then roughly once a week pack in a meal that would put grown men to shame. She's fit, does well in school, and is remarkably beautiful (in my very objective opinion). And she thus far has not adopted her mother's inclination to binge on Frito Lay products to (past?) the point of wanting to vomit.
148: That's because French food is so delicious that no-one can resist eating it.
But seriously, my data is limited to personal experience. How scarce was the scarcity in France during and after the war? I know in Greece it was pretty damn dire at points, to the point of actual famine (some of it intentionally produced by the Nazis). Also, maybe it's just more of a hardscrabble farming life versus relatively secure urban life thing or something like that, I don't know. Greece, and especially China, were and continue to be much less urbanized that France over the time period we're talking about, and both include much more marginal farmland than France. Anway, like I said I'm only working from personal experience, so the whole idea may be completely wrong.
My grandmother would cajole me into eating using guilt alone; she never had to even get out of her chair.
You had a really sweet post on your blog about her guilting you into eating -- very touching.
Mostly, I'd say that you cook and serve normal servings at dinner, and between meals direct the kid at the fruit bowl.
And the answer to "Mom, I'm hungry! I want a snack!" is the reheated food you didn't eat at dinner. My parents managed it with four, and we weren't all compliant personality types. We're not all perfect eaters as adults (hello, grad school), but four girls and no eating disorders counts as a win, statistically.
Most bitter vegetables can be made appealing to kids with a healthy sprinkle of kosher salt. Salt leeches out the bitterness.
Parents of broccoli haters should try buying broccolini. It's more stem, and I know they dig the shape of the florets on regular broccoli, but broccolini is wonderfully sweet and easy to chew!
I made my last boyfriend finally like brussels sprouts by drizzling them with a nice asiago cream sauce.
Just remember that there are people in China who don't even get to masturbate.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if hunger could be satisfied by rubbing one's belly.
161. But do they get to cry?
Must admit I hadn't heard that France was particularly badly off. The Dutch literally starved to death in the winter of 44/45, as they were still under occupation and the Germans took what there was. The charity Oxfam was set up specifically to relieve the German famine after WWII, but some countries seemed to do better. My father visited Denmark on leave in 45 and was invited home by a guy who fed him a dozen fresh eggs in one evening as a gesture of gratitude to the allies. Nobody in Britain had fresh eggs if they didn't keep chickens.
162: Wonderful from a "feed the hungry" point of view, I guess, but not from a pleasure standpoint surely. I mean, it'd be no fun if noone ate all the cooking I do.
164: It is impossible for me not to imagine this as your the dutchman stuffing hard boiled eggs into your father's mouth, one after the other, Cool Hand Luke style.
I apologize for this.
The Dutch literally starved to death in the winter of 44/45, as they were still under occupation and the Germans took what there was.
I thought there was also a specific policy to starve them, maybe the local commander's strategy to punish/defeat the resistance?
"your the dutchman"?
No, you are!
Here's what wikipedia says:
After the national railways complied with the exiled Dutch government's appeal for a railway strike starting September 1944, to further the Allied liberation efforts, the German administration retaliated by putting an embargo on all food transports to the western Netherlands.
As for developing a broad palate, our rule has always been that she has to try everything once before she can protest that she doesn't like it. One bite is enough. Believe me, this kid will eat just about anything -- an most of her Halloween candy tends to remain uneaten.
169: True, but he had the opportunity to make it work. Slightly OT, Audrey Hepburn, who was Dutch, attributed her figure to being malnourished during the war, so we might be able to trace the fashion that forces women to look as if they had an eating disorder to the initiative of some murderous Nazi in 1944.
144: I'm sorry LB, I totaly have to disagree, and I'm a little baffled at your insistence. I was a very sickly child, and my sickliness was directly correlated to my not wanting to eat, and greatly abated when I learned to like food in large quantities. It was really not a taste issue---I was willing to eat small quantities fo almost everything, but not large enough quantities of anything. I was mostly okay b/c my parents worked very hard to feed me, but during the short intervals when I was nt in their care, the caretaker's relative devotion to this point would become immediately manifest in my health. This pattern holdswith my neices and nephews. I come from a clan of doctors, and it was well understood that many of us were/are, in fact, eating too little as children, especially when left to our own devices. It may be that we all suffer from some weird unhealthy gene, but we almost all suffer from it, and it's very common in our wider community. So maybe most kids won't starve themselves, but some kids definitely will.
I mean, I have a very good memory going back to being 3, and I even remember what this was like. Like I said, I still have it sometimes. It's a kind of low-level nausea that trumps hunger--unless you get yourself some forward momentum and some enthusaistic zest for your food, then you simply can't get past it. You *have* to be forced to eat a few bites, because until you try those first bites, nothing can convince you that eating won't make you feel worse. And if you don't eat fast enough after that, the conviction goes away and the process has tobe started over again. I mean, it really had nothing to do with not liking the food. When I went through my brocolli phase it was more b/c I didn't think the brocoolli would make that feeling worse.
It's not about nutrition, it's about control. If you don't force them to eat every bite on their plate, they'll never respect your authority. Next comes the hard drugs and heavy drinking. Unfinished dinners are basically gateway drugs, like marijuana.
174: If that's your experience, I'm not going to argue about it. I still think that it's very uncommon, and I would speculate that the pressure to eat did more harm than good. But you know more about your own family than I do.
Unfinished dinners are basically gateway drugs, like marijuana.
Are they a gateway drug *to* marijuana? Because I've reached the age where it's getting tricky to find regularly and things sure would be easier if I could just steal it from my kids.
175, 178. Smoke the Weed, get the munchies, eat your vegggies. Problem solved.
the extra "g" makes the veggies extra delicious
178: I mean, you know you're going to be doing that in a couple years here, right?
My mom was a great cook. Eating one's veggies is not difficult when they are fresh and lovingly prepared. I have friends who somehow made it to adulthood without ever having had veggies that weren't boiled or previously frozen or canned.
Of course, my mom fed me to the point of abusiveness, for which I've long condemned her in my heart, but she meant well.
156- our son is just now starting to eat things other than breastmilk, and so far he seems to hate them all. Well, actually, he loves playing with them, but anytime any morsel actually gets anywhere near his mouth his face curls up in disgust and he just coughs and gags and hacks until he manages to get it all out. Hopefully eventually his tastes will change.
184: He doesn't appear to be lacking for nutrition.
183: I never did understand that, either. I mean, I can see economizing sometimes, but no fresh produce when it's cheap and locally in season?
I knew a kid who made it to adulthood without ever having more than 8 particular evening meals at home.
185: Geez, apo, you're going to give the kid a complex.
186: 8 meals is a lot for one evening. Did he have a weight problem?
LB- I'm more or less with you here, in that people shouldn't fight with their kids excessively or needlessly about eating, and the whole "clean your plate!" crap mostly is just that, but I think some of the pushback your getting may be because you're close to implying that any fighting at all is likely needless (in some comments; in others you pull away). It's true that none (or very, very few) kids will starve themselves to the point of unhealthiness, but on the other hand your kids sound like great eaters. A lot of kids will exhibit a strong preference for junk, and fight off things that are good for them. (And whine, and whine, and whine until they get some...) Are they going to become clinically malnourished on such a diet? Probably not, but it'd be nice to teach them some decent eating habits. Which in some cases just doesn't happen without a little parental coersion.
The the extent that your point is just that some parents make too big a deal about this (and about the wrong things), I think most people here agree.
The article in 181 is very interesting. Man, no matter what weird symptom you can imagine, there's a named disease for it.
155: This particular point isn't something I'm really all that certain about, but I don't think you need to force the acquisition of new tastes rather than just keep exposing kids to them.
It's on a continuum, I guess. I never had spinach literally crammed down my gullet or anything, but definitely the "no dessert until you've cleaned your plate" tactic was in heavy use (even, I kid you not, the "don't you know children are starving in Africa" tactic on bad days), and I'd say it worked pretty well*. Does that count as forcing the issue? Sort of, I think.
And I have to agree with Ile again. I just don't think stubbornness about not eating is really all that rare. In some cases it may not be a physical thing so much as it is a way of asserting autonomy in a "you're not gonna tell me when and how much to eat" sort of way. (I'm probably talking out of my ass, here, I'm no pediatrician or child psychiatrist, but I remember a lot of my kid-self's stubbornness as being born from an aggrieved sense of how terribly unfair it was that other people could schedule my day and tell me what to eat.)
(* Meaning that these days I at least feel guilty when I don't have a balanced meal, a few times a week I'll actually cook something and make an honest-to-Bob salad, and I'm largely fearless about trying out new foods even if they don't seem like the sort of thing I'd normally have a taste for.)
181 is interesting. I knew there was a syndrome associated with never being full, but I'd never heard of any of those other symptoms. If it weren't for those, I'd wonder if I had that syndrome; I very seldom feel genuinely full, and I don't think it happened at all until I was almost a teenager. I've had to develop coping strategies, e.g., I will clear my own plate until it's shiny, but I won't eat anything off anybody else's plate.
On the other hand, I also very rarely get affirmatively hungry. I eat if there's food, I don't if there's not.
Makes dim sum a challenge, let me tell you. Shopping, too.
it may not be a physical thing so much as it is a way of asserting autonomy in a "you're not gonna tell me when and how much to eat" sort of way.
That's the thing, and this is probably part of what LB's getting at: kids, like all other people, don't like feeling controlled, especially for no good reason. They value their autonomy, and so when you try and force them to do something they'll likely resist. Stop forcing the issue and their need to "assert automony" in this way will very often go away.
194 cont.: (says the guy who's never dealt with the issue with kids of his own), so take with a grain of salt. But I have dealt with a lot of kids generally, and I believe this to be true.
Prader-willi gets even weirder. It depends which gender parent you inherit the abnormal gene from. IIRC, If you get it from your dad, it's Prader-willi. But if you get it from your mom you'll have Angelman syndrome, which is really awful. And has the bizarre symptom of making you look like you're always laughing, whenever you try to talk or anything. I think it used to be called "happy puppet" disease or something.
I've no idea what's going on with the punctuation there. Best just to pretend it didn't happen.
you'ree s/b you're, obviously.
Angelman syndrome
According to Wikipedia, among the other symptoms, people with this syndrome rarely develop a vocabulary bigger than 5-10 words and are fascinated with water.
I still think that it's very uncommon
You're so stubbon it's a wonder you ever eat, LB.
They can apparently develop useful skills, however.
194: kids, like all other people, don't like feeling controlled, especially for no good reason.
Sure, but proper nutrition and regular family mealtimes are both pretty good reasons. The kid may even understand that at an intellectual level -- I know I did -- but still have a perverse stubborn streak, so in some cases forcing the issue won't be avoidable. (And yes, grains of salt here too, since I also am fabulously childfree.)
199: Wikipedia is great; note the style contrast in that paragraph. To me it read like someone trying to convince themselves that their 'angel' wasn't a burden. "Life-changing" but not "life destroying." For you or the kid?
194 is right -- battles of the will are something that most kids will get into, but only over stuff that you're fighting about. If you're not fighting about food, then there's no reason for the kid to make it a battleground. They'll eat when they're hungry.
202: I'm all about the family meal times -- they have to sit politely with us for at least a while. I'm just not demanding that they eat more than they want.
189:
It's true that none (or very, very few) kids will starve themselves to the point of unhealthiness, but on the other hand your kids sound like great eaters.
The thing is, they aren't unusually 'good eaters'. They love junk food when they get it, which isn't all that rare, and they both tend to eat a fairly solid lunch and then mostly ignore dinner -- a couple of bites of meat, a bite or two of a sweet potato, and that's it. I'm not backing off because their eating habits don't sometimes look weird to me, I'm backing off because as long as they're behaving politely, and most of the food available to them is pretty healthy, I figure that they aren't going to do themselves any harm by eating no more than they want.
(Now, I do have an easy time sticking with this because both of my kids are big -- tall and solid. It might be harder to reassure myself that they were fine if I were looking at 35th percentile in height and weight, rather than 90-98th. But someone at the 35th percentile is still probably perfectly well-nourished, just little.)
they have to sit politely with us for at least a while
And they do, apparently. You don't happen to have kids who say "I don't want to." Then, god forbid you say "You have to eat" and then it's all "I don't want to eat" for who knows how long.
Of course they say "I don't want to" sometimes, at which point they get told "Tough." I don't think forcefeeding children is a bad idea because I'm opposed to telling children what they have to do, I think forcefeeding children is a bad idea because for the vast majority of children, their own appetites are a better measure of how much food they need than the amount of food that makes their parents happy.
LB probably hasn't seen the new book. Apparently the most common single factor shared by serial killers, erial rapists, and psychopaths, is that their parents didn't strictly discipline their mealtimes.
207: Well, that, and head trauma.
I didn't care for spinach as a kid, and if I'd been given my druthers would have never eaten it, but I acquired a taste for it because the 'rents stubbornly persisted in serving it. It's now one of my favourite foods. (Of course I also had to suffer through dishes that I never developed a taste for, like meatloaf. But on the whole I'd call it a win.)
So it's hardly a foolproof method, is it? The first time I had avocado, when I was about 12, I thought it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever eaten. The next time I had it, 6 or 8 years later, I thought it was quite tasty.
Some tastes change; some don't. I've never liked fish - my parents wouldn't have dreamt of trying to make me eat it. When I was about 30, I decided saying I didn't like fish was pretty stupid - after all, there are hundreds of fish - so I started eating it. I still don't know how to cook fish, but I'll often eat it when we're out. There is still something about it that I don't like though, but on the whole I've got used to it and do enjoy it.
I'm totally with LB - making a big issue out of food is surely unproductive in the long run. Battles over food are something that I have avoided thus far (10 years) and hope to continue to avoid. Serve them a variety of food, don't have junk in the house, have a well-stocked fruit bowl (or three ....).
But then lots of parents have arguments with their kids about whether to wear a coat or not, which is something I don't understand at all.
"This isn't a restaurant. Eat what's put before you". My mom was always right.
My brother lived all summer off apples from the back yard. He wasn't allowed to feed himself out of the refrigerator after refusing dinner, but they couldn't guard the trees.
202: "Sure, but proper nutrition and regular family mealtimes are both pretty good reasons."
The thing is, we get accustomed to this idea that "good nutrition" has to be measured on a daily basis. RDA and all that. But that's not necessarily true -- a balanced diet can sometimes balance out over several days or a week rahter than being rigidly enforced each 24 hour period. The opposition to "force-feeding" isn't opposition to enforcing nurtrition. You can certainly limit and monitor your kid's food choices without having to force him/her to eat when s/he's not hungry.
209: So it's hardly a foolproof method, is it?
Neither "foolproof" nor "surely unproductive," just defensible. Any approach is going to have pitfalls.
211: a balanced diet can sometimes balance out over several days or a week
It can, sometimes, balance out, sure. OTOH, it can also be useful to develop good daily eating habits so's you don't have to balance it out over a week, right? (I don't think I've been arguing the merits of "rigid enforcement" or "force-feeding," really; that's not really what I was describing in 191.)
Oh for god's sake, are we arguing over how to feed kids? It's simple. Provide a variety of nutritious food and the kid isn't going to starve. If they don't like X, there's no point making them eat it beyond, perhaps, insisting that they at least try. If they try and don't like it, then don't force the fucking issue. It's not that hard to cut up (say) a tomato for a kid who doesn't want the asparagus the rest of the family's having. With PK it's helpful, often, to explain what nutritious value X disliked food has, and then he'll often eat a little, but obviously not all kids are scientifically-minded in that way. If the kid's ridiculously picky, then give him a multivitamin with breakfast. Or for breakfast, if need be.
And making them eat reheated food they rejected the first time around as a "snack" is just mean. Cheese and apples isn't that hard to make.
Of course, obviously if you're poor, then the "don't waste food" thing is more of an issue, but I don't imagine that most of us are or will be in that situation when we have kids.
My friend Tonks, who sometimes lurks here, has taken to Carnation Instant Breakfast. It's disguised as a shake, has vitamins, and the kids like it. It's not exactly all the food groups, but it's a rational approach to the breakfast situation.
When I was growing up, my mom and I used to lock in ridiculous power struggles because she wanted me to drink a glass of powdered skim milk every morning for breakfast.
You know what tastes like ass? Powdered skim milk.
214: I had that pretty much every morning in h.s.
98- but luckily you don't have to accept any responsibility here whatsoever. The most logical explanation for any and all behavioral differences: two different women!
214/16: I had that pretty much every morning in from childhood through college. Gets old after awhile. But my mom wasn't up for making much of anything else, and I suppose that's at least reasonably nutritious.
As if skim milk isn't nasty enough, now you're made to drink *instant* skim milk? Child abuse.
212: I think perhaps I am simply disagreeing with you about what "good daily eating habits" are. To me, if a kid doesn't feel hungry and, as a result, refuses to eat, that's a "good daily eating habit," because the kid is listening to his/her body's cues and will get all the nutrition s/he needs over the course of the week if healthy choices are available.
LB, I'm genuinely curious: do you regulate your children's sleep habits? Do they have bedtimes on school nights? If so, what's the difference? I don't think many little kids have killed themselves through voluntary sleep deprivation.
(And if your answer is "no", well, you're crazy.)
Oh shoot, I forgot LB's not around here anymore.
My parents deny ever making us eat stuff we hated. Although both my sister and I have discussed this and we have distinct memories of particular food stuffs that we were made to eat despite hating it. Broad/fava beans, for some wierd reason, made me want to vomit as a kid -- and I was a totally unpicky eater about every other foodstuff -- but they still made us eat them. Wierd.
However, BPhD in 213 seems generally right.
Fwiw, my brother regularly refused to eat when he was little and usually just seemed to pick in a desultory fashion at what he was given. Despite that, he was huge -- I think the doctor mentioned he was two standard deviations bigger than average at age 2.
LB, I promise not to type "GO AWAY" at you if you come back just to answer my one question.
My kind parents were regulatory to a degree that would seem strange today, I think. I can remember being left at the table in front of something I thought—and probably really was, I'm sorry to say—very unappetizing. My wife's mother used "I'm going to give you a very small piece, and you must at least try it" and so does she.
But we struggled over food with our kids much much less than some of the stories related here, and I know my kids are both more adventurous and willing to eat than many their ages.
I think our way with food, letting them eat from what's available at that meal or easily substituted, is a subset of our reluctance to be any more coercive than necessary across the board.
222, 225: What, you thought I could keep myself from lurking?
They do have a hard and fast bedtime (well, it's hard and fast when I'm home before it -- Buck's laxer). One difference there is that there are real social consequences to when you sleep. If you don't eat enough at one meal, you can make up for it at the next, whereas if you don't get to sleep early enough, you can't just sleep until you're done: you have to get up for school. Another difference is that postponing sleep when you're tired is genuinely attractive -- you want to continue having fun. There's no similar attraction to not eating when you're hungry other than contraryness/power struggles, which don't occur if no one's struggling with you. Another difference is my and Buck's convenience -- after 8:30, we're off duty and can relax. Neither one of those factors works for eating.
(We're pretty relaxed about reading in bed -- "Bedtime" means in bed lying down, not necessarily asleep yet.)
re: 227 GO AWAY (Come back next week) [you asked]
Seriously, LB. No one wants you in trouble.
227- Thanks. But hmm. I'm not going to engage this seriously, because I don't want to drag you into something you're trying to stay away from, but I think you could make arguments about eating that are reasonably parallel to each of these points. Lots of kids would rather keep having fun than stop to sit down and eat. And I think your parental convenience point is one that has been stressed repeatedly -- didn't rob emphasize not having his kids wake him up all night complaining of hunger as a motivating factor in making them eat dinner?
But again I don't know what I'm even arguing about, since at the end of the day I think you've got more or less the right approach.
Hmm. I'm not trying to give the impression that I don't care if LB gets it trouble. Sorry LB. Please stay away. We don't want you here.
Oh for god's sake, are we arguing over how to feed kids? It's simple.
make sure they actually eat a reasonably well-balanced diet, by whatever means necessary.
Thanks Becks. For that you earn a kissy-face.
He seems like such a cheerful, laughy little fellow, though I must admit that this picture is my favorite.
The pictures of Baby Brock are really sweet.
I didn't actually realize you could access those. Huh. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for never spending any time using flickr.
Are fava beans and lima beans the same? because I still remember having sobbing red-faced hysterics when my mother tried to force me to eat those. Why, mom, why? Why did you hate me?
Are fava beans and lima beans the same?
No. I've always liked lima beans, too.
Lima beans were the one thing -- NO OTHER VEGETABLES, JUST LIMA BEANS -- that I would not eat. I threw up all over the carpet once after being forced to eat them. I must have forced myself to do it somehow.
Always liked Brussels sprots, broccoli, spinach. Don't push your luck by insisting on EVERY vegetable, parents.
Lima beans are oddly absent from Peruvian cuisine.
Lima beans have such a mild flavor, though. I have trouble understanding what people find objectionable about them. Is it the texture? Because that I understand.
re: 240
Yeah, that's the way I was with fava beans. Totally gave me the boke/boak [how DO you spell that?].
I don't spell it, ask a Scotsman.
I hereby declare it to be 'boak'.
I don't know why parents insist on feeding their kids obscure vegetables like lima beans and brussels sprouts. I didn't try either until I was an adult and liked both immediately. In fact, I had some delicious brussel sprouts (shredded, with a shit-ton of butter and likely other yummy stuff) just last night. Feed kids something that is hard to fuck up, like, you know, lettuce, broccoli... I don't know what the reasoning is in thinking your kids have to try every single vegetable; in fact, if they wait to try them until they want to, they're not going to grow up with weird experiences of vomiting up food cause it tasted bad.
The only obstacle I had to eating when I was a kid were my older siblings. They were picky about certain things and I would copy their preferences ("I don't like fish either!!). When I got to be a teenager I discovered that fish was pretty good, and hey, I like bananas!
I have a feeling I will end up at least trying to feed my offspring obscure vegetables, because we like them, and I like to cook things that we like.
Feed kids something that is not hard to fuck up? I think you had it right the first time.
I don't know why parents insist on feeding their kids obscure vegetables like lima beans and brussels sprouts
How about wanting to eat more varied meals yourself, and not wanting to be restricted to the same boring food meal after meal, or cooking separate meals for your kids?
246 I feel similarly about taking your kids to unnecessarily high-brow culture. If they enjoy it, fine. If they're not ready for it, don't force it. I was dragged to a lot of excruciatingly boring classical concerts under age 10.
I discovered that fish was pretty good, and hey, I like bananas!
Freak.
obscure vegetables like lima beans and brussels sprouts
Weird. I've never thought of these as obscure vegetables, because they were on the table *all the time* when I was a kid.
Lima beans and brussel sprouts are not at all obscure in the American South. I think they're relatively obscure elsewhere.
Feeding kids obscure vegetables is cool; making them eat them even if they hate them is not.
Lima beans...are not at all obscure in the American South.
I read this as, "Lima beans ...are not at all obscure in South America" and thought, Oh! Lima, Peru!
Feeding kids obscure vegetables is cool; making them eat them even if they hate them is not.
My brother-in-law was out to dinner with us, including my two teen-aged kids, last weekend and was reminiscing about "You must try it." He still has a very limited palette. He said he would cut the musttry into a pill-sized cube and swallow it with water, to be in (minimal) compliance, although utterly out of the spirit. He's a lawyer, and seems always to have been that kind of a "but you said..." parser.
Brussels sprouts? Maybe it wasn't slavery that fucked the South up, after all.
Lima beans have such a mild flavor, though. I have trouble understanding what people find objectionable about them. Is it the texture? Because that I understand.
Yes. Horrible.
232: By make sure they actually eat a reasonably well-balanced diet, by whatever means necessary I specifically meant not "force them to eat" but "if they don't like vegetables, feed them fruit without making a big deal out of it, even if you think it's inconvenient to have to go cut up an apple in the middle of dinner."
help; gardenning time is here.problem, brussel sprots never grow right. i get little nubs. plenty of plant. can any one help? thankyou janet
Quit planting fucking Brussels sprouts. Everyone with any sense hates them. Making kids eat Brussels sprouts is child abuse.
But John, they have the power to bring dead threads back to life.
Brussels sprouts are delicious.
I disliked Brussels sprouts for a long time, though I doggedly tried them a bunch of different ways and also liked cabbage. Then one night, the switch flipped and now I love them. In fact, I'm about to make a batch of these for us to take in our lunches next week.
Fun fact: Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, collards, cauliflower, kale and kohlrabi are all cultivars of a single species.
Fucking rabbits just ate my cauliflower plants.