Fighting the tryanny of the kids's menu

Susan Dominus has a great article today in the NYT about a restaurateur's philosophy about family dinner, which is influenced not only by his profession but by his European background. Basically, he believes that there should be no "children's menu" of bland pasta and chicken fingers; the kids should eat from the regular menu, trying new things.  Perhaps a side plate of something more kid-friendly can be conjured up, but a special menu is not required. He walks the walks as he demonstrates his own kids' eclectic eating habits fostered at a daily family meal cooked, served and eaten with his wife, while he is at work.

It's not that surprising that a chef's children eat well, but more telling, I think, is that this philosphy begins at home, around the family dinner table.  In order to make the best of family dinner, the whole family should eat the same thing! Too many parents unwittingly turn themselves into short-order cooks when they make special orders for everyone. It's too hard and it makes meal time all about what each person wants rather than setting time for sharing the experience as a family.

In our house, we have the most trouble with our four-year old who is the most picky child of our three children and would definitely eat mac and cheese every night if we let her. As the classic mom, I am always trying to make sure that there is at least "something" on the table that she will eat. My husband, as classic dad, says let her eat what's on the table, eventually she will try it. Reality falls somewhere in between, but the stance of insisting that she at least "try" the family dinner has begun paying off. Recently she enjoyed some Chinese Sichuan fried fish and she's been known to eat bok choy, but only if we tell her its "baby bok choy." Even the "plain" food she might have at our table tends to be more adventuresome that most: rice with Nori (seaweed) or dumpling wrappers. Our basic strategy is to have at least one side dish we know everyone will eat available.

The bottom line is it doesn't matter what you are serving, but everyone should at least taste it and not be allowed to make a special order. Persistence and neutrality are key. Just keep offering the food, without arguments or fights, and eventually it will click and your kid will try it, maybe even like it. Always having the "side" of rice or pasta just gets too boring!

Looking Past the Children's Menu, Susan Dominus, NYT 5.24.10
Sara Moulton's Family Dinners, a restaurant chef talks about dinners with her family on the WNYC Leonard Lopate radio show, 5.10.10
Family Meals from examiner.com, 5.24.10

Eat Dinner May 2010

I started this blog (eatdinner.org) in November 2007 and the posts have waxed and waned a bit over the time, covering all manner of topics related to food and family dinner: family dynamics, local food, organic food, access to food, obesity, health, wellness, fitness, politics (of course!), and everything in between. I never wanted this to be strictly a food blog, outlining what me and my family had for dinner. There are many beautiful, inspiring food blogs out there, but I wanted to explore the idea of family dinner as a topic related to health (in a very broad sense), culture, society, education, and personal and family well-being. Through it all, I realize that the main message I want to convey is that families need to commit to having meals together and that many good things stem from this basic lifestyle commitment to food and family.

Many people "know" that family dinners are a good idea. But many people also chalk it up as "too hard" or demanding in today's busy lives. Worse is the notion that family dinner is a "middle-class" luxury. I want to rededicate this blog to expressly exploring the benefits of family dinner across all kinds of families and the barriers that are in the way of more people adopting family dinner as a way of life.

Stay tuned for more research, support, and advocacy targeted at issues surrounding family dinner.

Join the discussion! I'm now on Facebook and Twitter and you can email me at grace [at] eatdinner [dot] org.

9 by Design: the urban spin on mulitples and family dinner

A couple days after my last post, I read about the Novogratz family of "9 by Design" fame in the NYTimes. I had heard of the Bravo show, but was especially intrigued by the author's connection between multiple kids and an "oddly" sane mom. At some point during their discussion, the interviewer observes Novogratz's calm and comes to a surprising conclusion about herself:

"[this] maxed-out working mother suddenly realizes what she has been doing wrong: too few children!" Susan Dominus, NYT

On the surface, the urban, hipster real estate tycoon is a totally different mom from the Midwestern mom Janine Brogan I wrote about last week, but clearly there are similar coping strategies. Provide structure and freedom, relax about things you can't control, know that each kid is different and that the family as a unit is important too. Not sure how the Novogratz's do "family dinner; " there's a hint about take-out which is a distinctly NYC habit. Still, I thought it too good a connection to pass up.

Reality TV's Annoyingly Perfect, "Oddly" Sane Mom, Susan Dominus, NYT, 5.10.10
The Talent, Sixx Designs, by Susanna Salk on 1stdibs.com. A cool profile of the Novogratz's with great pictures.

Family Dinner for 12

Here's a little inspiration for you: Joanie Brogan and her brood has family dinners for 12, nearly every night of the week. I found their story, which was in the March 2010 edition of a local Michigan magazine, through my favorite Google search (um, "family dinner").

The numbers say a lot: 10 kids, ages 3 to 19 (with 9 living at home), 230 meals per week, 6 dozen eggs per week, 3-5 loads of laundry a day. This is a household that must take some serious management to run. When the kids outnumber the adults, you have to depend on the kids themselves, and your partner, to play as a team and "pick up the slack." In Brogan's kitchen, the kids really help with the cooking prep, with the 11 yr old wielding the cleaver and the toddler helping mix the sauce. Helping out is not "optional" or to teach some kind of abstract moral lesson; it is absolutely essential.

As the mom of "only" three kids, I do think that having multiple kids does demand a different level of scheduling and balancing. It becomes almost impossible to keep up with everyone and everything at the same time. What happens, then? Well, all chaos breaks loose, of course. (Not really. OK, sometimes.) What really happens is you let go of your assumptions and prioritize. For me, family dinner is the touchstone in an otherwise hectic life; a chance to remain connected amid competing schedules and busy lives. Whether you have 10 kids or 1 kid, or no kids, it's about making a commitment to what's best for you and your family.

I love Joanie Brogan's statement:

“I really fight for the family dinner. I think it’s a dying tradition,” said Brogan. “Being the youngest child of seven, when I was growing up, [dinner] was one of the only times I had with my older siblings. And with schedules today, we could stop every night and grab something, but we don’t. I really fight for us to sit around the table.”

You go, girl! Just another testament to make the family dinner commitment and sticking to it.

Fighting for the Family Dinner, by Julie Becker, Capital Area Women's Lifestyle Magazine, 2.24.10

Social Responsibility Stouffer's Style

Image from Stouffer's Let's Fix Dinner

I stumbled upon "Let's Fix Dinner" by Stouffer's and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. I’ve only gone through a couple of the family stories, but it was very moving and dare-say inspiring. Yes, it brought tears. But of course, this is an issue I feel passionate about. Though it’s a Stouffer’s branded website and You-Tube channel, I did not see one Stouffer’s product in the first set of videos (The Joneses), so kudos to them for some restraint and authenticity. The second set, The Bensons, did have one quick screen grab of a Stouffer's box of something. And, who knows, by the end of the series, they may be all in Stouffer's costumes, jumping up and down and giving a cheer!

The meals, for the most part, were all home-cooked from real ingredients. They were basic American fare of hamburgers, lasagna, and pasta. Maybe not the healthiest choices, but families may need to start in a comfort zone. Just getting to the table can be a challenge, and once that is accomplished, more healthy meals can be the next goal.

More important, family dinner was shown as fitting into the families' busy everyday lives, with a few bumps along the way. One very real moment included the realization of the Jones family that they didn’t have a dinner table big enough to fit them all! The next scene shows the family en masse going out to buy one. In the Benson family, mom had to be encouraged to simply "sit down," which I think is a metaphor for many a harried parent. Sometimes the kids were in total melt-down and refused to even come to the table. But overall, the families are surprised how fast and effective family dinners were in establishing connections and improving family life. The kids literally soaked it up and their faces show how happy they are to have this "simple" family ritual. It takes a commitment and an investment, but family dinner reaps rewards.

Can big food promote socially responsible messages? For this campaign, Stouffer's teamed up with CASA, the family dinner advocates at the Center for Alcohol and Substance Abuse at Columbia, so that may be why there's such great messaging. While Stouffer's prepared foods are known to be high in fat and sodium, but it's also important to acknowledge that sometimes shortcuts are necessary. French Bread pizza (which brings back childhood memories for me) and a green salad is still better than take-out.

Clearly, Stouffer's would rather increase sales of their frozen dinner products than let those dollars go to fast food or restaurant outlets. Still, I would argue that this campaign is at the very least a nice gesture to throw some corporate dollars and support toward promoting the social good of family dinner. I hope the videos and commercials are compelling enough to inspire families to get around the dinner table regardless of what they decide to eat.

Let's Fix Dinner Home Page

You Tube Stouffer's channel: Let's Fix Dinner

CASA's National Family Dinner Night, 9.27.2010

Stouffer's Attempts to "Fix Dinner", BrandWeek, 2.10.10

Another Blogger's View: New Breed of Advertisers Post on Stouffer's Let Fix Dinner, 03.10

Big Food, Big Fat, Big Trouble

Alarm bells are finally ringing over the rising rates of childhood obesity in America. There has been a lot of buzz and a lot of ideas about promoting healthy eating and active lifestyles to combat this problem, not just for children but for all Americans. Someone in corporate America is saying: "Is this a marketing opportunity?" Big companies, especially ones that have products offering questionable social goods, have long looked for a “halo” effect that will counterbalance negative images that their customers might have of their products or business activities. Target gives out community grants for education and schools, as does General Mills through its cereal box-tops program. Big Food now wants to contribute to the fight against "Big Fat" in America.

This is a little more troubling scenario for PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, who have tasty "refreshing" drinks with no nutritional value. For years, their marketing campaigns have centered on being the drink of young, cool kids, and no one in the commercials looks overweight. It’s a hard sell to promote soda as “healthy.” Thus, many beverage companies have been expanding out into alternative beverages, like juice or sports/energy drinks, even flavored water, which has the same amount of sugar and empty calories, but can cop the appearance of being more healthful.

Nonetheless, the beverage companies must realize that they have to be in front of this issue, lest they are caught dealing with the consequences of looking like the bad guys. If "soda becomes the new tobacco," Coke and Pepsi will not be in a happy place. Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics, summed it up.

“While visionary CEOs and enlightened food company cultures may exist, society cannot depend on them to address obesity voluntarily, any more than it can base national strategies to reduce highway fatalities and global warming solely on the goodwill of the automobile industry.”

On the other hand, big corporate dollars and their skilled marketing experience could be used to great public benefit in the fight against obesity. Still, healthy skepticism is needed if public health advocates decide to dance with Big Food on this issue.

More reading:

Can Big Food Fight Fat? NYT, Bitman Blog, 4.23.10

Soda: A Sin We Sip Instead of Smoke? NYT, Bittman, 2.12.10

Can Pepsico help alleviate world hunger? Marion Nestle, foodpolitics.com, 4.16.10

The Bronx Paradox and other new food policy research

Many articles and issues about food security popping up lately: here's a quick look a few.

The Obesity-Hunger Paradox, NYT 3.12.10
A fascinating article in the Times about the co-mordibity of hunger and obesity, dubbed here "the Bronx Paradox." It's an issue I've long suspected but never saw the data put side-by-side. Some of the highest rates of food hardship are in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn; right where there are high percentages of food-related illness. This is another example about how socioeconomic problems are often a complex web with very few easy prescriptions. As quoted in the article,

“If you look at rates of obesity, diabetes, poor access to grocery stores, poverty rates, unemployment and hunger measures, the Bronx lights up on all of those,” said Triada Stampas of the Food Bank for New York City. “They’re all very much interconnected.”

Multi-pronged solutions of income support, nutritional support and education, improved access to better food choices in schools, in local stores and in neighborhood supermarkets, and improved spaces for recreation are all needed to combat the twin problems of hunger and obesity.

Rise in Soda Price Linked to Better Health, NYT 3.15.10

New research provides evidence that a proposed soda tax could reduce soda consumption and help young people make healthier choices. In nearly a one-to-one ratio, a 10% increase in price led to a 7% decrease in soda consumption, and less calories consumed overall. Full study is in the March 8 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign wants ideas:
A new White House directive has created the interagency Childhood Obesity Task Force which is developing an action plan for how federal, state, and local governments, along with the private and nonprofit sectors, can come together to fight childhood obesity. In a call for ideas, you can submit suggestions here. The regulations.gov form is a little daunting, but you can use the comments button to write in your suggestions. They say whatever ideas you have are welcome, and they want ideas from parents and educators as well as from professionals. The deadline for submitting comments is March 26, 2010.