Okay, last post for the day...Someone asked last week about how to make meat
more interesting to her daughter.  I don't have that particular post in
front of me right now.  I have some suggestions which actually apply to more
than meat foods.

1)  Have her help you grow, gather, and prepare the food.  Kids who help in
the process tend to be more interested in the outcome.  Let her help you
pick out the vegetables, meats, and fresh herbs at the market,  Let her mix
and squish the seasonings into the ground meat (with clean, bare hands,
she'll love it), then form it into meatballs or burgers; rub the spices into
the roast before cooking; tear the cooked chicken into bite sized pieces;
mashe the eggs for egg salad;tear the lettuce for the salad to go under or
next to the meat.  You get the idea.

2)  Show enthusiasm for the foods.  Make happy faces while making and
tasting foods, new foods especially.  Try a new food each week--a new fruit,
new veggie, new type of fish, fowl, or meat.   Serve a new food with a
familiar food that you know she enjoys to make it more familiar.  Say with
enthusiasm and fun in your voice, "let's try this to see what it tastes
like!"  Laugh, have fun.  Model adventurousness.  Also try familiar foods in
new recipes to broaden her tastes.

3)  When buying, preparing and trying new foods, explain to her about the
value of the foods; tell what they will do for HER or for both of you.  Tell
her where the food came from too, put it in story form.  Help her understand
the cycle of life, the food chain, and how food affects her.  Make it as
tangible as possible.

I have been amazed at what my friends' kids have said when they have done
this.  One said recently, while in the checkout line of a local market
(buying fruit): "Mommy, all they have up here is junk food!"  Another
friend's 4-year old son said, in the so-called "health food" store, when
they walked by the cookies "Mommy, we don't eat that, it's not good for us!"
 They learn from you/us.  It's never to young to teach them about food.  Of
course, it pays to emphasize the postive aspects of healthy foods more than
the negative, although you can still tell (or show with pictures, say from
Dr. Weston Price's book) the effects of unwise choices.

Okay, enough words.....for today!
Rachel Matesz

(This will go in the book....thanks for the stimulus!)