You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can't make them eat

You can lead kids to broccoli, but you can't make them eat
Students' reaction to healthier lunches highlights challenges for schools

Anyone who has ever tried to sneak healthy food into kids' lunches knows what Chicago Public Schools is going through.

Sometimes kids openly embrace the new food. Sometimes they eat it without realizing the difference. And sometimes they refuse it altogether.

CPS has met with all three reactions this school year, when it stopped serving daily nachos, Pop-Tarts and doughnuts and introduced healthier options at breakfast and lunch. But in a sign of how challenging this transition can be for schools, district figures show that lunch sales for September through December dropped by about 5 percentage points since the previous year, or more than 20,000 lunches a day.

During visits to several CPS schools over the last few months, the Tribune heard many accounts of students throwing away their lunches. Others say they opt for "cookies and slushies" from the canteen or wait to eat until they get home. And while some kids said they still like their school meals, the vast majority used the same word to describe the food: nasty.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-new-school-lunches-20110220,0,6830768.story

but many recipes with broccoli are delicious and appetizing. What it really means is that the cooks need to learn new recipes and ways to cook. Mostly they get things in 5 gallon cans and they dump into big pots and heat it up.

I can taste a single tiny floweret (the teeny tiny ones that break off the larger floweret) in a dish. My gag reflex will kick into action immediately.

I've tried it at least 100 different ways - from family and well-meaning friends who believe that I'm just not eating the right 'delicious and appetizing' dish. What I've never understood is why people don't tell pea-haters (and they are out there) the same thing? Someone says they hate peas and everyone just nods . . . but say you hate broccoli and the broccoli-lovers spring into action, trying yet again to force you to like it. Broccoli-haters have to hide their disgust or face yet another attempt at indoctrination.

I swear there is some sort of super-secret broccoli cabal out there, attempting world vegetable domination . . .

;)

Now see, I absolutely love peas and can't understand why other people don't at least like them...

Love broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, asparagus, squash, spinach, etc.


then again there are people who like liver who can't understand why others don't share their approval of that most horrid of meats next to tripe and chitlins

:puke:

It's one of my favs. But I do despise cooked carrots so I can understand the hatred.

I went through a huge diet rearrangement not long ago and during the detox phase when I was withdrawing from sugar and flour, I was deathly ill and the taste of any vegetable made me sick. After about a week or two, suddenly my taste buds came back and I love the taste of many new vegetables (still no on the beets!) But, my point is, that if you are so toxic with sugar, etc. and you body is very acidic, vegetables taste disgusting and all you want is sugar and salt and fat and flour. It's going to be a long haul.

over it. How is it served?

And why are slushies even available?

As for cookies, there are healthier cookies to be made/had.

Now, the main point I'd make is the parents. If they don't provide healthy fresh food, the kids aren't going to just take a liking to it.

Eating crap on a daily basis de-sensitizes your palate and brain chemistry to the crap. You basically get addicted to it and tastier, healthy food no longer tastes good.

Don't eat crap for a few months and then taste some and you'll spit it out.

it's a texture thing. My kids could eat chicken caesar salad with a few spinach greens mixed in there all day long and never complain. Only one out of our four will eat regular steamed broccoli, the others have to have it disguised somehow.

I only like it plain, steamed. I don't like it mixed with anything or added to any dishes and I never did.

It's tasty, versatile, easy to prepare and cheap.

I've dated people that are less worthy.

I think it's just an adult/kid thing. As a child I hated it, now it's delicious. I doubt the broccoli changed so it must be me.

It was my favorite vegetable as a child.

It is pretty nasty if you overcook it, though. Perhaps that's the issue.

Not just for broccoli but for all the veggies. NONE of them are any good when they've been boiled into a mushy, gray mess.

then don't give them any choices.

If left to eat what they wanted kids would live off of coke and candy. That's why it's up to adults to coerce or at least encourage them to eat better.

Forcing a child to eat food they do not like is wrong; it assumes that they have no taste buds and no ability to make autonomous decisions about what goes into their bodies. Their taste buds are not like an adults (any more than the taste buds of an elderly person are the same as a younger adults); one size does not fit all.

Encouraging them to try a new food is one thing - my parent's used a "3 meals, 3 attempts" rule on new food and left it at that. I am not a picky eater (hate broccoli and its anemic cousin, cauliflower, though). My one sister used the "you will eat what I serve" rule - and her kid grew up to be a nutritional disaster area. My other sister (and I) used the "try it" approach and our kids grew up to be veg lovers and adventurous eaters.

What you may think is 'best as possible' may be the exact wrong way as far a a kid is concerned. I have a friend who loves spinach best out of a can; the sodden, green wad of goo. When she was a kid that was the only way she would eat it. Opposed to any other method of fresh-cooked, she wanted that mess. As a parent, that wouldn't be my first choice - popping open a can of tinned spinach. Had I been in charge of 'directing' her future eating habits, I would have served her any other version; raw, steamed, wilted, etc. She would have turned her nose up at it.

By the way - my kid hated candy and soda and chocolate (!) growing up. He preferred fruit and veg. As a life-long sweet-tooth, I did not overly restrict his access to sweets; he just never wanted them. Not all kids would 'live' off junk, given a choice. That's something we like to believe, though - makes the idea of 'making' them do the right thing a lot easier for us.

there is a chemical that some people cannot detect and to others tastes bitter, and those who can taste it generally do not like many vegetables, including broccoli.

Seriously. What if schools just steamed potatoes? Just steam them, no seasoning, no salt -- they would be as bland and undesirable as overcooked broccoli. Food needs seasoning and over-cooked broccoli (steamed broccoli) is bitter which is why it should be flash fried in Frymax.

Broccoli fritters may not be healthy for you, but they are veggies.

but the texture of lightly steamed or raw broccoli makes me gag. It's gotta be soft for me, and it's gotta have a little salt on it.

prepare vegetables. Did it ever occur to anyone that it might be a little different cooking for 1000 servings rather than a family of four? Nor is the average family transporting the food across town and serving it an hour or two later.

The cooks in my school district are trying every way they can to make the more nutritious foods now required palatable. But a lot of the problem remains that many people do not eat fruits, vegetable and whole grains at home and their kids won't eat them at school.

buying crap at home, and failing to educate kids on proper foods to eat, ie not candy for lunch. Schools can't do it on their own if parents buy crap and give crap to their kids they are going to want crap until you ween them off it.

I like mine plain but for goodness sakes, there's always butter and cheese whiz.
It's so yummy though.

My daughters, now in their 20s, have loved vegetables all their lives, because I worked hard to serve veggies in ways that we all enjoyed. They used to argue at the table over who got to finish the spinach.

When they were small and got hungry and cranky in the late afternoon, I gave them plates of cut up raw vegetables, sometimes with a mild dip. These could include cucumber slices, carrot sticks, halved cherry tomatoes, cauliflower and broccoli pieces, and red or green pepper strips. This way they could eat all they wanted, and it would be healthy.

I prepare most vegetables in a relatively plain way, not overcooking them or disguising the taste with cheese or heavy seasonings. Things are steamed or lightly sauteed in a bit of olive oil, seasoned with little more than lemon juice, salt and pepper, maybe some fresh garlic. The mother of my first husband was Italian, and she taught me a lot about preparing good fresh vegetables with a light hand.

I don't know whether this type of cooking is possible in school cafeterias, but at least they should offer a variety of raw vegetables with dip every day.

cook in the quantities schools require, never mind keeping flavor and texture in transporting and holding. Only suggestions to serve it with dips, cheese sauce, and salt, adding a lot more fat and sodium than even current regulations allow (which are being further tightened).

It's well past time to quit blaming cooks and start looking at peoples' eating habits at home and what they're willing to pay for a prepared meal in the schools.

Edited to add that I would never advocate not trying to improve flavor and nutrition of school lunches, but this idea that any lack in school lunches attractiveness in entirely due to laziness or uncaring of the workers involved in program NEEDS TO STOP. It's not true and it's not helpful.

many vegetables can be ground up and put into quick breads.

Zucchini squash...carrots...maybe even broccoli.

You can cook up beets, puree them, and put into a milkshake for cool pink color. Or hide pureed vegies in some hot fudge sauce over ice cream.

If the kid likes spaghetti, puree a small amount of vegies and add to the sauce.