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Thanks to the husband we have every snack food known to man, practically, in our cupboard! He takes the monkey's to am/pm or 7-Eleven multiple times a week.
That being said, my monkeys also love fruits and vegetables. I think one of the things I've actually done right as a parent, that I haven't had to second guess, is taking them to the farmer's market on a weekly basis, since each of them was 2 years old. There they munch on cucumbers and tomatoes, pomelos and tangelos, green beans and sugar snap peas, corn and persimmons, Asian pears and cilantro. All of it is raw and organic. They have learned to enjoy many things un-cooked and to try most items I put in front of them (somehow though, I still have trouble at restaurants getting them to taste something that looks "weird").
Tonight I was cooking dinner and decided to chop up some sweet, yellow bell peppers for us to munch on as I was cooking. The monkey's just went to town on them - the pepper was gone in 2 minutes flat.
Sometimes I think that we don't give kids enough credit. That we try to cover up fruits and vegetables with sauces and creams and sugar so that the fruits and vegetables are no longer recognizable. We cook all the flavor out of these ingredients and don't give kids the chance to TRULY taste them. Our biases are front and center - from when our parents did the same to our food.
It might take a while to break the instant "no" to new foods, but try to slice up some raw vegetables and lay them on the counter. You might be surprised.
This is a picture I took tonight of the two of them eating the raw bell pepper and loving it:
1 comment:
In the movie "ELF", there were four basic food groups mentioned: Candy corn, candy cane, gumdrops and syrup. At the risk of sounding like a bad father, my girls enjoyed balanced meals based on those food groups from time to time.
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