There’s a dangerous thread running through the national conversation about kids and food, and it is this: If you talk to your kids about food, if you teach them to understand ingredients and to actually think about what they eat — and, heaven forbid, you actually limit junk food — you are setting them up for, at best, rebellion-fueled binges, or, at worst, an eating disorder.

I cry foul.

The truth is we are doing our kids far more good than harm by teaching them to think critically about food. Food isn’t food anymore. Check the ingredients, take a bite. Even everyday staples contain troubling additives. Foods are now “fortified” because vitamins have been stripped in processing. Flavors have been manipulated to be addictive. And the food supply is increasingly adulterated by pesticides, GMOS and the taint of factory farming. And it’s never “just one” anything anymore. Special treats used to be just that — special. But the combination of relentless food marketing and a harried, mobile society has created a 24/7 food culture that feeds kids any time they gather, a culture that uses food for everything from reward to distraction.

The fallout of this onslaught is astonishing: More than a third of children are now overweight or obese. Kids are being treated for high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes (formerly called “adult-onset diabetes”). And this generation of children may have shorter life expectancies than their parents. Along with this crisis of metabolic syndrome, we’ve seen an unprecedented rise in the number of children with allergies, behavioral disorders and digestive conditions increasingly associated with the standard American diet (acronym: SAD).

That’s what we really need to worry about. Not correlations based on fear instead of fact.

Education, not deprivation

I get it. Eating disorders are scary. If you haven’t experienced one yourself, you likely know someone who has. For me, it was close friends in both high school and college, and then covering the issue as a health care reporter. And now there’s an especially frightening movement called “pro-ana,” which, among other things, glorifies the physical attributes of anorexia. So yes, this is disturbing stuff. But eating disorders are not about food — they are complicated psychological conditions that manifest in food.

So what about people who say they had food-restricted childhoods and then developed eating disorders? Look closely and you’ll likely see one or more of these themes: adult role models who were obsessed with dieting, weight and calorie-counting; food used as reward, punishment or other emotional manipulative; and, in some cases, extreme outright bans of entire food categories (e.g., no sweets ever, no matter the ingredients or frequency).

Then look closely at what’s not there: rational, thoughtful food choices; awareness of how those food choices affect our bodies; and children brought into the conversation in a way that encourages learning and critical thinking.

Done right, teaching children about food empowers them. It doesn’t scare them or make them anxious or cause them to binge. And it does not cause eating disorders. As I often say when people ask whether I give my own daughter sweets or other treats: Food literacy is about education, not deprivation. 

So hell yes we have sweets. And potato chips. And boxed mac and cheese. Even soda. But the sweets are homemade or, if store-bought, made with recognizable ingredients. The chips are the real deal (potatoes, oil, salt).  The mac and cheese is Annie’s, not Kraft. The soda is seltzer and fruit juice, not high-fructose corn syrup and caramel color. And, importantly, Tess knows why we make the decisions we do. We don’t ban or demonize whole categories of food. We choose based on ingredients and sourcing, and how foods taste and make us feel. Even treats can (and should) be high-quality. Kids can indulge in childhood pleasures like lemonade and popsicles, cupcakes, candy and the rest without also indulging in petroleum-derived food dyes, dangerous trans fats and chemical preservatives, and the countless other synthetic additives that make a mess of  even simple foods.

Junk food doesn’t have to be junk food.

Bad foods, bad mantras

Does that mean I think some foods are “bad”? It sure does. Though it’s really about the ingredients, not the food itself. Is cake bad? No. Is a neon-frosted, 50-ingredient, processed-to-within-an-inch-of-palatability grocery-store cake bad? Yes.

Food manufacturers and marketers, and even many dietitians and nutritionists, adopt a mantra of “there are no bad foods” or “everything in moderation” or “there’s a place in our diet for all foods.” In a different time, with a different food supply and a different food culture, those mantras might have meant something. Not anymore.

Just because a company makes something and calls it “food,” just because stores stock it or restaurants sell it or your TV advertises it, that doesn’t mean we have to buy it, eat it or feed it to our kids.

Here’s Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an epidemiologist with the Harvard School of Pubic Health, quoted in a New York Times article about a 2011 study finding that not all calories are equal:  “There are good foods and bad foods, and the advice should be to eat the good foods more and the bad foods less. The notion that it’s O.K. to eat everything in moderation is just an excuse to eat whatever you want.”

Similarly, people like to claim that if you limit sweets and other non-nutritive treats, that you’re asking for trouble when your kids get older. But Kelly Brownell, who just left his post as head of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity (for a new job at Duke), says that’s not true. Here’s an excerpt from an NPR story in March:

Some parents worry that having only healthy foods at home will lead kids to overdo it with junk food when they head off to college. But Brownell says there’s no evidence to support this worry. And, in fact, the reverse is probably true.

Even if the young adults indulge in unhealthy foods at first, they’re far more likely to return to the healthy foods they grew up with. “Having only good foods around the house makes all the sense in the world, and research supports this,” he says.

Backlash and back-to-basics

Are there exceptions? Sure. And there are extremes, too. I had a conversation with another mother before Halloween. She asked how I handle the candy Tess collects trick-or-treating. I explained how we sort-and-toss (or save for gingerbread houses) based on ingredients. (More details in this post.) And how Tess eats a few pieces of the junky stuff and then has no interest. We’ve always let Tess taste whatever she wants, on the theory that it will make her better appreciate the real stuff (and it does). And I’ve also tried to instill the idea that if something has bad ingredients, the only reason to eat it is if it tastes really (really) good. Otherwise there’s no point.

This mother keeps her son and family on a strict diet of extremely low (or no) sugar and fat — it doesn’t matter the source, doesn’t matter whether it’s homemade or not — so it wasn’t a surprise to me what she said next: “I wish (son’s name) would do that. But he gets candy in front of him and he eats it all.”

See, this is where things get tricky. And hazy. And this is why so many people are so quick to paint all food-conscious parents with the same broad brush (namely, orthorexia). As I’ve written before, I believe these fears and criticisms are in part a knee-jerk backlash against the so-called “elitist” organic movement. Apparently it’s OK for parents to say no to, oh, violent video games and inappropriate tween clothing, but limit what their kids eat? Horrors!

Seriously, though, do you know why else I think people react like this? Because they’re scared. And stressed. And overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of food information out there. Every day, there’s a new study or article that contradicts some other study or article. There’s debate about this diet, that diet, the best diet, the only diet. Agendas are epidemic. And staying on top of it all is exhausting. (I know!) So people shut down. They throw up their hands. They eagerly embrace claims that moderation trumps ingredients, and that talking to kids about this stuff creates eating disorders. Because to believe otherwise is to face, once again, that torrent of information.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. My husband and I decided long ago that we’d abide one “food rule”: Eat food as close to its natural source as possible, as often as possible. We don’t count calories or worry about nutrient grams or percentages, or obsess over making sure every bite is nutritionally optimized. We try to select whole foods or else packaged foods that are minimally processed and have recognizable ingredients, foods that generally can be categorized as SOLE: sustainable, organic, local and ethical. When you view food through that lens, things look a lot simpler. Truly.

Though if you want a more guided approach to eating real food, check out the terrific blog 100 Days of Real Food. Blogger Lisa Leake breaks it down and makes real food seem accessible in a way no one else does. And while you’re there, read this heartfelt post Lisa wrote after being told by some readers that she was setting her daughters up for eating disorders.

Education. Not deprivation. Big difference.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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I’m always up for a day of action, especially when the target (McDonald’s) uses marketing purposely designed to get kids to nag parents to death. And that marketing is everywhere: on TV, in movies, on computer games and websites, on children’s products, even in school.

“Pester power” or “the nag factor” is how marketers describe children’s ability to wear down “gatekeepers” (yes, that’s what McD’s actually calls parents). Here’s Lucy Hughes, co-author of the study behind the “pester power” concept: “If we could develop a creative commercial (that) encourages the child to whine, or show some sort of importance in (the ad) that the child understands and is able to reiterate to the parents, then we’re successful.”

Sinister much?

The info above is excerpted from a blog post I wrote in 2010 about McDonald’s insidious marketing tactics. And they haven’t changed since. That post, and several others about McDonald’s marketing, can be found here:

Retire Ronald? Or reclaim responsibility?
Parenting amid predatory marketing. And why McDonald’s should be held more accountable than most.

Forget Happy Meal Toys. Let’s ban McEducation.
McDonald’s holds nutrition workshops for grade-schoolers. Really.

This just in: Fast food is unhealthy
Shocking (not) findings about the nutritional value of kids’ fast-food meals.

More McDonald’s madness
McDonald’s advises British food policy. McTeacher’s Nights drum up PR and indoctrination. And why government involvement in food isn’t automatically bad.

Daily (Show) dose of funny. With fries.
Jon Stewart pokes fun at those of us who think food companies ought to lay off our kids. And at McDonald’s, too. Features the Crappy Meal adorned with the Periodic Table of Elements.

Thanks to Corporate Accountability International for organizing today’s #MomsNotLovinIt Day of Action, timed, appropriately, with Mother’s Day.

It doesn’t matter whether you eat McDonald’s or not. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a master at saying no. It doesn’t matter if your kids never watch TV or use a computer. What matters is that corporations need to back off our kids. Tell the creepy clown #MomsNotLovinIt.

And if you want to get even more fired up about how corporations market to our kids, watch this video from Anna Lappe of Food MythBusters:

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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Chances are you’ve heard about the dairy industry petition addressing artificial sweeteners in milk. And chances are that what you’ve heard is wrong.

Here are the facts:

1. Food producers already can add artificial sweeteners to milk and other dairy products.

2. The petition, from the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) — which was submitted in 2009, but is just getting a hearing now — asks the FDA to allow milk producers to include aspartame and other artificial sweeteners in milk and 17 other dairy products without having to include a front-of-package label saying something like “reduced calorie” or “no sugar added.” The food lobbyists claim that flavored milk is flavored milk, whether it’s sweetened with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup or aspartame. 

3. Even if this rule is approved, the artificial sweetener would still have to be listed in the ingredients. Here, from the IDFA itself: “The Food and Drug Administration’s food labeling regulations require all food products that use ‘non-nutritive’ (or non-caloric) sweeteners — such as Stevia, sucralose and aspartame — to clearly list them in the ingredients list on their packaging. This petition would not change that, and consumers would continue to see at a glance whether or not a product contains sweeteners of this sort.”

Also note the distinction in this question, from the FDA’s request for comments: “If the standard of identity for milk is amended as requested by petitioners, milk manufacturers could use non-nutritive sweeteners in flavored milk without a nutrient content claim in its labeling. Will the inclusion of the non-nutritive sweeteners in the ingredient statement provide consumers with sufficient information to ensure that consumers are not misled regarding the characteristics of the milk they are purchasing?”

Personally, I think the answer to that question is yes. Because, let’s get real here. Front-of-package labels are marketing-speak, pure and simple. As rushed as we may be while grocery shopping, as preoccupied as we are with kids and life, there’s simply no way to know for sure what’s in your food unless you read the ingredients. (More on that here: Stop reading labels and start reading ingredients.)

Trust me, I’m no fan of the dairy industry or artificial sweeteners (or commercially sweetened milk of any kind, actually). And I’m especially no fan of flavored milk in schools. But I am a fan of truth and accuracy and anything else that makes people take our food activism seriously. If we spread incorrect information, if we use faulty arguments, if we let hype or fear override facts, then we are no better than the Big Food manipulators we’re trying to expose. So, folks, take a deep breath, check your sources, read the primary source material and help us move the cause forward, not backward.

And then go comment on the petition, because, even though I think reading ingredients is critical, there are plenty of other reasons* to oppose this petition. And I believe in fighting Big Food shenanigans. So long as we fight them with facts.

*In my rush to post this last week, I inadvertently omitted this link to another blogger’s post on why the petition is a bad idea.

Postscript: I mentioned above that I support opposing the petition, but I’d like to note another observation (which I also mentioned briefly in responding to a comment below): Though the petition specifically mentions school milk, I think that’s because the dairy lobby believes it helps their case (with the FDA) to argue that children will drink more milk if the carton doesn’t say “reduced calorie” or some-such. Which doesn’t even make sense, since how many school kids are going to be deterred by that kind of labeling?

But I think the lobby is hoping this desperate ploy will push through labeling changes on all flavored milk, in school and out, plus those 17 other products. So it’s ironic (and terrific) that the school angle (which has raised the most ire) likely will cause the downfall of the petition instead.

And one more thought on the subject of ingredients: Merits of this petition aside, I believe — no matter the product or the label — that the only way to know for certain what’s in our food is to read the ingredients. Yes, some front-package language is there because the companies have no choice, but the rest of it is very strategic manipulation.    

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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Just say no to day-glo

I’ve written at length about the travesty of artificial food dyes (in short: all risk, no benefit). And about how U.S. food manufacturers have substituted better ingredients overseas while still using artificial, non-nutritive and even dangerous ingredients here.

Why have they cleaned up their act elsewhere? Because of public pressure, government support and something called the precautionary principle: the idea that if something could harm the public or the environment — especially in the absence of significant benefit — you don’t do it. If there are doubts, even if there’s no scientific consensus, the burden shifts from proving harm to proving safety.

Other countries get that. Here in the United States, though, we and our kids are subjected to GMOs, synthetic additives and other questionable foodstuffs on a daily basis. Yes, a growing number of us are reading ingredients and making alternate choices and creating our own realities in a world gone mad. But we need to do more. We need to change the food system as well as our place in it.

And while I get frustrated with the sometimes myopic activist focus on single ingredients and specific industrial practices, there’s no denying that it all adds up — in awareness as well as action. It doesn’t matter whether we eat these products ourselves. What matters is that we hold companies accountable for ingredients that have no business being in our food supply.

So I’m happy to endorse a new petition from 100 Days of Real Food and Food Babe that asks Kraft Foods to remove artificial food dyes from its mac & cheese products here, as it’s already done overseas. Yes, the company’s other ingredients are lacking, too. But if I can overlook that, so can you. It has to start somewhere. And it has to start with us.

Check out Lisa and Vani’s video below.  Then go sign the petition and spread the word. Let’s rock this petition out of the house!

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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Maple sugaring, 19th century style

Fake maple syrup bums me out. And not only because it rarely contains real maple. (Most brands are a mix of high-fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial flavors.) It’s because maple syrup is perfect just as it is. Naturally sweet, it also retains trace vitamins and minerals, even antioxidants. It’s still sugar, so let’s not go crazy. But for pancakes or baking, or topping oatmeal or yogurt, there’s no equal.

Great lore, too: Legend has it that a Native American woman brewed up the first batch accidentally. Her husband, heading off to hunt one morning, yanked his tomahawk from the tree where he’d thrown it the night before. Sap ran from the cut and into a container at the base of the tree. The woman found the liquid, thought it was water, cooked in it and got a sweet surprise.

Over time the inevitable happened, and someone got the bright idea to make an imitation of the real thing. Real syrup’s high cost and limited availability no doubt influenced the shift, and early fake versions did contain a decent amount of actual maple. But, really, messing with maple syrup is just plain wrong.

I let my daughter taste the imposter in a restaurant once, because I wanted her to understand the difference, and thankfully she wrinkled her nose and went for the good stuff. (Food nerd alert: Yes, I bring my own maple syrup if we’re going out for breakfast. It’s just what I do.)

But even kids who haven’t grown up with real maple syrup can learn to appreciate it. And one way I guarantee you’ll get their interest is at a maple sugaring event.

Sap on tap

We’re fortunate in western New York to have Genesee Country Village & Museum, a living-history museum that also has a nature center. (And terrific summer camps.) So we get syrup with a side of history.

But you can find maple events throughout northeast North America. And now is the time — New York’s Maple Weekends are March 16-17 and 23-24, and most other states and provinces wrap up by late March, too. If you live elsewhere, but your region has maple trees and cooperative weather, ask around. You’ll likely be able to find maple events near you.  

Tools of the trade

But the best part is the sugaring camp set up to show how early settlers collected, transported and cooked down the sap — techniques that haven’t changed a whole lot in the last few centuries. The equipment is better, operations are bigger, but the end result is pretty much the same. So the girls get a small-scale, up-close view of sap boiled down to syrup, boiled further still to maple cream, and further still to maple sugar. Forty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. No wonder real maple syrup is expensive. But so worth it.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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I’m sure the Girl Scouts of the USA didn’t intend to be so, um, honest, when it chose this image to represent the first “National Girl Scout Cookie Day” (today). But check out the sash around that Thin Mint. See the “Money Counts” badge? Yeah. It sure does.

But it doesn’t count for the wee Daisy who earns that badge. While about 70% of cookie proceeds go to the local council, individual girls and troops keep only 10% to 20% of the price of each box. That’s a pretty lame profit for the foot soldiers of an organization that calls itself “the world’s largest girl-led business.” So yes, money counts, alright. But for whom?

And shouldn’t health count, too? And setting a good example? I’ll say again what I’ve now said countless times: I am not anti-Girl Scouts. I am not anti-cookie. I don’t want to deprive kids of their childhoods. But I am against inferior ingredients. And hypocritical organizations. And practices that force children to sell unhealthful products under the guise of “opportunity” and “tradition.” (Including the new healthwashed Mango Cremes — same-old ingredients dressed up with “NutriFusion” fruit powder.)

It doesn’t have to be this way. A growing number of parents, troop leaders and scouts are questioning the status quo, putting on their (critical) thinking caps and advocating for change. California troop leader Monica Serratos, for instance, whose troop opted out of cookie sales, dreamed up a great alternative service project for her girls: Because the troop can’t raise funds for itself unless it also sells cookies (a policy that varies across the country), they’ll be raising money for their school’s edible garden instead. Instead of buying Thin Mints, help the girls plant some actual mint. Instead of Lemonades, how about a lemon tree? Sheer brilliance.

Interestingly, only 65% of registered Girl Scouts participate in cookie sales each year (according to the GSUSA itself). I don’t know how that number has changed over the years (I’ll do some digging and let you know what I learn), but I find that encouraging. Maybe there is life after the cookies, after all.

Past cookie commentary from the Spoonfed archives:

Let’s talk Girl Scout cookies (January 7, 2011)
The first post, in which I ask people to look objectively at the cookies, their ingredients and the mixed messages surrounding the sales. (The comments on this post are illuminating: on Spoonfed and Fooducate, and on Fooducate’s Facebook page.) An excerpt from the post:

“Oh, there’s no way I’d let her sell them. Our food habits are far from perfect (whatever that means). But I’d feel like a hypocrite. Or a drug dealer. Go on, tell me I’m overreacting. But, seriously, I couldn’t in good conscience let my daughter sell something I believe to be patently unhealthy. (Just as I’m not a fan of donating Girl Scout cookies to food pantries.) And not that I’ve personally tasted one lately, but people tell me the cookies aren’t even that good. Maybe that’s because of ingredient changes. Or maybe because when you eat more real food, you lose your taste for crap. But, no matter. No selling.”

It’s not just a cookie (February 19, 2011)
The follow-up, in which I discuss reaction to the first post (for and against) and tackle the moderation myth. An excerpt:

“People too often confuse activism like this for an anti-treats or anti-fun or other extreme agenda. But this isn’t about never eating sweets or taking away people’s cookies or letting food control your life. And this isn’t just about Girl Scout cookies. This is about holding corporations accountable for ingredients that have no business in our food supply.”

No fooling: Girl Scouts are green and the FDA is making us blue (April 1, 2011)
A what-the-what? about the Scouts’ “Go Green” initiatives. Includes a link to a terrific letter by blogger and Girl Scout leader Jennifer McNichols. An excerpt from Jennifer’s letter:

“To me, Girl Scouts of the USA’s stance sends a frightening message to girls, and that message is the one they already receive on every corporate-sponsored kids’ cartoon and in free teaching materials provided by fast food chains: That ‘making a difference’ is all about thinking small, and keeping it that way, and making the easy choices while putting off the hard ones until it’s too late. Picking up litter and encouraging recycling but never asking where all this waste is coming from and what can be done about it. Getting fresh air and exercise but never examining the food we eat or where it comes from. Running ‘Save the Rainforests’ educational campaigns while selling cookies that contribute to their destruction. You — we — were supposed to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”

Girl Scout cookies and… a locavore badge? (November 11, 2011)
A round-up of previous posts and update on palm oil (as it were). Also mentions the Girl Scouts’ then-new locavore badge, along with a commenter’s suggestion that the badge requirements are missing a step: “Bake your own damn cookies.”

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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Lately Tess is obsessed with Harry Potter. (If you have an HP fan yourself, you know what I’m talking about.) She started reading the series in September, and since then it’s been Hermione this (Halloween costume) and Hogwarts that (Hogwarts Express train for Christmas, pretty please), and lots of wizarding and spell-casting all around. (Though yikes no Avada Kedavra!)

Bite-size butterbeer

So when her class of third- and fourth-graders decided to write and perform a Harry Potter-inspired skit for a school assembly, the kids thought it would be super cool to have butterbeer cupcakes for their after-play “cast party.” Tess’s teacher is on the ball, so when she noticed that all the recipes she found online included artificial ingredients, she asked me to hook her up with the good stuff. I also volunteered to make the cupcakes. I tend to do that with school treats. But, most importantly, I’d totally blown the Harry Potter cake for Tess’s 9th birthday sleepover in December, so I owed the kid one.

When Tess was tiny, my sister and I took one of those Michael’s cake-decorating classes, where I learned that it’s really not that hard so long as you have some decent tools. So now I trot out my decorating skillz exactly once each year — for Tess’s birthday. This year, I had visions of an elaborate Harry Potter cake. But it required fondant. And since the commercial stuff is loaded with artificial junk and may not be vegetarian (if it contains gelatin), I figured I’d make my own. Except I’ve never made fondant. And I didn’t allow time for a trial run. So I ended up with, well, glue. Naturally colored and lovingly made glue, but glue nonetheless.

Huggable Hedwigs

Fortunately the girls liked plain chocolate cake just fine. And Tess sent them off in proper Hogsmeade fashion by giving everyone stuffed “Hedwig” owls with thank-you scrolls tied to their feet. But when the idea for the play came up and, with it, the opportunity to make a Harry Potter-themed sweet treat, well, I couldn’t say no to that.

So here you go: butterbeer cupcakes with no artificial butterscotch chips, butter flavoring or vegetable shortening. Though make no mistake: These things are not healthy. They contain a lot of sugar. They are very sweet. But they were a huge hit. (Even though I made mini cupcakes. Or maybe because I made mini cupcakes. Did I mention these things are sweet?)

All-Natural Harry Potter Butterbeer Cupcakes

Inspired by these Amy Bites cupcakes and this Smitten Kitchen butterscotch sauce

Like potions class, only tastier

Cupcake ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour*
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup maple sugar or appropriate amount of other minimally refined sweetener**
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup natural cream soda (I used Virgil’s)

Ganache ingredients
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup maple sugar or other minimally refined granulated sugar**
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Frosting ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup butterscotch ganache (above)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 16-ounce package powdered sugar**
Heavy cream, as needed

*We have a couple gluten-free kids in class, so I actually used Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free all-purpose flour. If I were to make these again, I’d sub whole-wheat pastry flour or whole-spelt flour instead, my usual baking flours.

**As I mentioned, these cupcakes were sweet, which was fine for the mini size I made. But if I’d had more time to experiment, I would have reduced the overall amount of sweetener. I’d also try a powdered-sugar alternative I make using maple sugar and (organic!) corn starch: mix 1 cup maple sugar with 1/4 cup corn starch in a blender, food processor or spice grinder.

For the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake tins with paper liners. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and set aside. In a large bowl, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and beat until well-mixed. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add buttermilk, cream soda and dry ingredients in batches until well-mixed. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full, then bake for 15-17 minutes. (Note: For mini cupcakes, I baked about 13 minutes.) Cool completely on wire racks.

For the ganache: Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar, cream and salt, and whisk until well-blended. Bring to a gentle boil and cook about five minutes, whisking frequently. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Set aside to cool and thicken.

For the frosting: Cream butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add cooled ganache and salt, and mix well. Beat in powdered sugar in batches until it reaches desired consistency, adding splashes of cream as needed.

Assembly: Fill a squeeze bottle or pastry bag with ganache and insert into the center of each cupcake, squeezing until filling begins to overflow. (Note: For mini cupcakes, I skipped this step.) Use a pastry bag (or a plastic bag with the corner cut off) to frost the cupcakes, then drizzle the tops with ganache.

Enjoy!

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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I knew this post was risky. I knew not everyone would agree with how I chose to handle a drink situation at a recent birthday party my daughter attended. I even was prepared to be called things like “preachy,” “condescending” and “judgmental.” I was prepared for that response because, even though I’m none of those things, that comes with the territory. You can be tactful to a fault — hell, you can even say nothing at all — and there will always be people who see your choices as criticism of their choices. It happens on the interwebs and in real life. All. The. Time.

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2013 Christina Le Beau

People often ask how I handle other kids’ birthday parties. That’s changed over the years. When Tess was a toddler, I’d surreptitiously scrape off the frosting, give her water over juice, and call it a day. As she got older, we’d talk before the party about making good choices, listening to her body, eating something only if it tasted really (really) good. These days, it’s evolved to where most parties she attends are for kids with like-minded parents, so it’s not much of an issue. And, at age 9, she makes pretty good choices herself. But while the strategy has varied, one element has not: I have never said anything to the hosts. Ever.

Until now.

Imagine this filled with melted bubble gum

Heading to a party a couple weeks ago, I knew from the invitation that there’d be pizza and cupcakes, and I’d assumed juice, as well. Not great, any of it, but I could deal. Especially because Tess is a chocolate girl to the core, so most other sweets only get nibbled, if that.

But there I was, talking to other parents, waiting for our kids to come up to the party room from the play gym, when I noticed one of the workers pouring a drink from a pitcher into paper cups. It was the brightest pink liquid I’ve ever seen. Seriously. It is not an exaggeration to call this stuff neon. If I hadn’t left my phone in the car, I would have snapped a picture, but just imagine a pitcher of melted bubble gum. That’s your visual.

I started plotting how to handle it. I knew Tess might want to taste it (for the novelty), but wouldn’t actually drink it. And usually I encourage that kind of taste-testing to reinforce how good the real stuff is. But I was so bothered by its brightness — and I didn’t want the other kids drinking it, either (most of whom had been dropped off and didn’t have parents there) — that I did something I’d never done at someone else’s party: I spoke up.

I walked over to the worker, quietly, on the side, and asked whether there were other drinks available. He told me there was water (in a tone that said, “but why would any kid want that?!”).  I said OK, let’s give the kids water. “Which kids?” he asked. “All of them,” I answered. “Just put cups of water next to the other drinks.” He gave me an odd look, but did it.

While he was doing that, I walked back to the party hosts (school friends) and said, as lightly as I could muster, that I’d taken the liberty of asking the worker to pour water, too. “Oh,” the mom said, “what did they put out? Juice?”  No, not juice, I told her. “Neon pink stuff.” And that’s when I saw an opening. Knowing the hosts hadn’t selected or brought the pink stuff made it easier to take things up a notch. “If it were my party,” I told them, “I’d nix the pink stuff altogether. But it’s not, so I figure the kids can at least be offered water, too.”

This got a laugh and a response about how their family doesn’t make  anything “taboo” and how they allow everything in “moderation.” But I’m used to that. Soon enough, I’d get around to explaining what I always do: that moderation is meaningless in a world of ingredients that shouldn’t be consumed at all (including — and especially — petroleum-derived food dyes); that just because products are sold in stores and approved by the FDA doesn’t mean they’re safe or that we have to eat them; and that parents already do (and should) make plenty of things “taboo” (smoking? drugs? alcohol?).

For now, though, the kids were coming upstairs, marching by to wash their hands after an hour of running and tumbling (and getting thirsty). One by one, they sat at the table. Then something beautiful happened.

One of the little girls (not mine!) looked at the pink drink and asked the worker: “What is this?”

The guy answered: “What is it? Well, pink lemonade, of course!”

Little girl: “What’s in it?”

Guy: “Pink lemonade, of course!”

Little girl, looking skeptically at the guy, then back at the drink: “Is this poison?”

I kid you not. Then there were little echos around the table: “Is this poison?” The staff looked absolutely flummoxed by this until another mom (not me!) stepped in and said: “I think, because of the school these kids go to (progressive with many real food-appreciating parents), you’ll have a lot of water-drinkers today.”

Then most of the kids pushed aside the bright pink drink and reached for the water. A couple sipped the pink stuff. A couple drank a lot of it. But the vast majority didn’t touch it at all. Now, before I say anything else: “Poison” is not a word I recommend using when talking about food. I think that’s hyperbolic fuel for people eager to peg us as crazy controlling health nuts. But the point is that this little girl knew something wasn’t right about that drink. And because I’d asked the staff to pour water, too, the kids knew they had an alternative and, for the most part, chose it.
 
What’s the takeaway? Am I telling everyone to turn into crusading party guests? No. I really don’t recommend that. But here’s the thing: Once you plant a seed, put a bug in someone’e ear, nudge a step outside a comfort zone, there is no going back. It might not change anything right away. It might not change anything ever. But as someone once said (and I wish I knew who!): You can’t unlearn something. And that’s where it all begins.

So speak up (when it’s appropriate). Look out for all kids, but especially your own. And give kids some credit. The only reason kids eat synthetic crap or drink neon drinks is because at some (probably early) point in their lives, an adult offered it to them. And kept offering it. We’re responsible for starting it. We can be responsible for ending it.

Ever spoken up in a situation you normally wouldn’t? Been surprised, pleased, gratified by the response? (Or maybe not so much?) Would you do it again?

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

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I’m guessing kids everywhere did assignments like this the week before Thanksgiving. And we think this one is a keeper. “Family” is a given (one hopes). “Universe,” “technology” and “math” stoked my science-geek husband and also really cracked us up.

But do you see that other word in there? “Me.” Our kid is thankful for herself.

At first I thought that was funny. Then I thought that was fantastic. Then I decided we all should be so lucky. Confidence is where it’s at. 

Over on the Spoonfed Facebook page, we’ve been talking a lot lately about junk-filled school parties and snack culture gone crazy, those evergreen topics that fuel both anger and a sense of helplessness. We’re mad and we’re not going to take it anymore! And yet… we do. Day after day. School event after school event. “Special” treat after “special” treat. All those “it’s just a…” situations that add up until it’s happening all the time.

We worry about offending teachers, other parents, family members, the nice bank teller. We don’t want to be “that mom” (or dad). We don’t want our kids to be “different” or to feel left out. So we shut up and let them eat the crap. And then we rage inside (or online) about the injustice of it all.

But you know what? We are in charge. YOU are in charge. And we — you — have the power to change things. Talk to teachers, offer alternative ideas, organize the next party. Skip the drive-thru. Pack your own snacks. Reject “kid food” and kid menus. Rally other parents. Say no when you want to say no, and don’t take no for an answer when what you want is a yes.  

And, above all, teach kids that being different is not only OK — it’s great. Teach them that different people eat different things (for different reasons). Teach them that peer pressure isn’t OK for drugs, and it’s not OK for food, either. Teach them to be confident in their choices by being confident in your own choices.

And remind yourself, if you need reminding, what we’re up against:

“It’s not just one day a year. It’s Halloween night and class parties and community events and then the winter holidays and Valentine’s Day and Easter and birthday parties and swimming class and soccer games and the bank and the shoe store and restaurants with kid menus and the grandparents’ house and anyplace else kids set foot, including, of course, school. The sugar culture is so strong, the highly processed foodstuffs so epidemic, that we no longer have the luxury of viewing these things in isolation. It’s not just a few Halloween treats or one blue cupcake. It’s a crushing pile of chemical-laden pseudo food. And at some point we just have to make it stop.”

Then take matters into your own hands:

• Spoonfed Resources page
  Lots of links to info on food, food additives, health and behavior; food-literacy resources; real-food snack and treat ideas; non-food ideas for school celebrations and rewards;  and ideas for healthy school fundraisers.
• Why school and junk food don’t mix. And what educators can do about it.
  Five reasons to avoid junk in the classroom. And five ways educators can help.
• Preachy little foodies (and how not to have one)
  The importance of teaching kids to be gracious about different food choices.
• Want kids to eat better? Stop calling them “picky eaters.”
  Why labeling kids is bad and patience is good.
• I am so over the rainbow (cake)
  Why artificial food colors are detrimental to kids’ health and well-being.
• Orthorexia vs. chocolate milk: Will the real eating disorder please stand up?
  Sugar justifications. Big Food shenanigans. And why chocolate milk shouldn’t be sold in schools.
• Stop reading labels and start reading ingredients
  Why we should ignore numbers and nutritionism, and just eat real food.

Our kids are worth it.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.  

Spoonfed is on Facebook. You’ll find links to blog posts, news and commentary on raising food-literate kids, questions and comments from readers, the works. Stop by, like the page, chime in, spread the word. (Thanks.) Also please consider subscribing by e-mail or RSS feed (which you can do at the top of the blog).

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2012 Christina Le Beau