FASTING & FURIOUS
Toddlers will ingest anything — as long as it’s not nutritious
WHOEVER came up with the idiom about leading horses to water could not have been a mother. If so, she would have chosen the feeding of human children as her image, rather than stubborn equines.
Mealtimes resemble cat-herding, with plenty of running around, unwilling participants, and usually poor results.
It is no wonder there’s a glut of cookbooks about catering for kids. They feature nifty ideas like camouflaging puréed marrow in pasta sauce — because nobody under 25 will eat a marrow willingly, and do you blame them?
One recipe features spaghetti plated to look like Justin Timberlake in his ’N Sync days, with nood- ly hair and a pink mouth made out of viennas. Those youth-friendly sausages can also be shaped into octopi, or stars if you cut ridges in the sides and — never mind. Nobody should eat viennas.
But ask parents if it is necessary to make pasta that looks like a pop star or serve octopus-shaped mashed meat, and they will weep into their hands in defeat.
Why would sane adults mimic aircraft to get a spoonful of pear purée down a developing gullet, when the child has no conception of what an aircraft is? Because it gets the plane into the hangar.
Don’t blame them for resorting to McDonald’s just so some semblance of nutrition will enter their offspring’s little bellies, which are full after two chips and a bite of bun.
Someone wise said that no kid has ever starved itself — but this truth never stopped parents from practising deep meditational breathing before meal times during a teething spell.
And when they finally start to eat well, they go to school. There, family dietary influences are gone with the wind, with one peek into their friends’ intriguing lunch boxes. “Vegetarian? What? Give me that chicken nugget.”
Pity the poor healthy parents brigade. One mum mentioned sleepless nights after tallying up her boy’s nutrition at the end of the day. “Did you see that article about the rare illness kids can get from too little zinc in their diets? Where the hell do you get zinc?”
Is there worse playground torment for a child than being laughed at by her peers? An organic fruit and vegetable merchant, who shuns bread, was shattered after hearing that her child was teased about her “smelly” homemade lunch. And as good as lentil cottage pie is for you, the sad truth is that it smells like flatulence at lunch time.
Bring me that horse anyday. LS @ShantzN