New fave blog

Still working on the next article in the Injury series. I actually have it written, I just need to take some pictures to go along with it. Should have it up in the next day or two.

In the meantime I would encourage you to check out this blog: Modern Forager. I have seen it pop up in lots of other people's blogs but I had never checked it out until today. Lots of good reading on there. Suggest you first go to Best Posts and start with Nutrition 101 and the follow-on Nutrition 102. Simple, solid advice that you just can't argue with.

My kid eats kale!

Okay, if you are a really astute foodie you may recognize that what's hanging off of her fork is actually collard greens, but she doesn't know the difference. The dish was sauteed collard greens and kale together, so technically she did eat kale.

While not every meal goes down this smoothly, I must say we are pretty lucky that we have a child who takes direction pretty well. She's not a super adventurous eater, but if we tell her that she needs to eat something she'll usually at least try it. Occasionally she'll totally surprise us by eating a fair amount of something we didn't expect she would like, for example, this kale and collard green dish.

Some other things that she eats that most children her age (3 1/2) wouldn't even consider are: brussel sprouts, avocado, asparagus, cauliflower, swiss chard, broccoli (she prefers the stems, can't explain that one), and salmon. She considers fruit a dessert. We can easily get her to eat something that she's not crazy about if we bribe her with some canteloupe, throw some berries in there and I could probably get her to eat liver and onions. Okay, I'm not that cruel.

It took us a few months to figure it out, but about 1 year ago we decided that we would no longer cater to our daughter's every whim at meal time. Too often parents worry too much about what their kids prefer to eat. It's not uncommon for families to prepare two different entrees at each meal. One for the adults and one for the kids. We were falling into this trap. We would have a nice salad and make Piper mac & Cheese and chicken nuggets. It dawned on me that if we continued down this path she would never learn to eat like we eat. So, it was decided, no more separate meals for Piper. She eats what we eat, within reason. I won't force her to eat something that I know will make her gag, but we do coax her into eating things that she wouldn't pick out on her own. So far the experiment seems to be working out pretty well.

She is a normal kid. If left to her own devices she could easily live on cheesy fish crackers, chocolate milk, macaroni and cheese, ice cream and pizza (she prefers the crust, can't explain that one either).

Over the last couple of months we also made the decision to try to significantly reduce the amount of processed foods that we give to her, mostly at snack time. When I say we, I mean my wife and I, certainly wasn't Piper's idea. I had some trepidation at first. Not because I thought it wasn't a good idea, I just wasn't looking forward to the tantrums that were sure to follow. You know what, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. As I said, this kid is a fruit nut. Give her a bowl of fresh fruit and she's happy as a clam. It's pretty easy to please her at snack time with a few macadamia nuts and some berries or a cheese stick and apples.

My conclusion from this is that getting your kids to like healthy foods is not that difficult. First you have to lead by example. Don't expect your kids to eat something you won't. Don't give your kids things you wouldn't put into your own mouth. I think it's a simple as that, most of the time.