Kid Food

     Mike, like many men, doesn't have a broad palate.  The more highly processed a food is, the better he likes it.  Chewy, whole grain bread is rejected in favor of whitest white, spongy soft Wonder Bread.  The doctor advised less soda and more water, so we have cases of flavored water - water laced with citric acid, sodium polyphosphate, potassium sorbate, potassium benzoate, and sucralose.  He couldn't believe I boiled and mashed potatoes.  Hungary Jack®s were his spuds of choice.  My sister dubbed his preferences "kid food."
     Growing up, we didn't have kid food at our house.  The only liquids were milk in the frig and water in the tap.  Okay, there was a case of beer in the basement in the summer - Dad's reward after working in the yard on hot days.  Breakfasts were oatmeal, eggs (rarely bacon), and pancakes on the weekends.  I remember we had boxes of Cherrios®, but not often.  I delighted at the site of individual sized boxes of all sorts of cereal the summer I went to camp.  Split the side of the box along the perforations, dump in sugar and milk, eat.  How cool was that?
     I don't know if offering only healthy options makes children better eaters.  Maybe it just sets them up for junk food addiction the first time they go to other kids' homes or get a look at what's in other kids' school lunches ... or go to camp.  I suppose getting kids to eat a healthy diet is like everything else I have heard about parenting - a job that requires constant vigilance, endless patience, and regular reinforcement of the rules.  Maybe it also involves compromise.
     One day my normally not-very-creative-in-the-kitchen mother offered dry Cherrios® with a big dollop of applesauce on top.  That might have been the summer the apple tree bore so much fruit that my father had to stake up the limbs, so they wouldn't snap off.  Darn, that was good.  It took my mind off Lucky Charms® and Fruit Loops™.
     I saw my friend's older sister water down juice for her toddler.  I thought Sis went to extremes stretching the juice, but a mixture of 50% water to 50% juice wasn't bad.  I still mix juice and water (or seltzer) to this day.
     I never saw a cup of yogurt until I went to college.  It seems yogurt is all people eat these days.  A friend of mine halved white, seedless grapes and mixed them into vanilla yogurt.  I think it makes more sense to use yogurt as a vehicle for getting fresh fruit into a kid rather than a vehicle for getting fruit-on-the-bottom jam into a kid.
     I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it, but I like to take credit for inventing a kids' fusion food.  I add peas or chopped broccoli and cauliflower to a Kraft mac 'n' cheese mix.
     So, you can lead a kid to the salad bar, but you can't make him eat.  Unless you give him a bowl of ranch dressing for dipping.