It was a gorgeous, sunny March afternoon this week as 7 moms and 11 kids gathered on my friend Monica’s porch to test our “Deceptively Sneaky” creations from two recent books that suggest sneaking food into kids’ meals (see my last blog).
The kids took breaks from running around the yard playing tag to taste homemade chicken nuggets, meatloaf, chicken kebabs, macaroni and cheese and chocolate/peanut butter spread with apples. All had secret ingredients of broccoli, squash, carrots or another vegetable. The kids ate them, the moms ate them–quite eagerly. There was also a platter of fresh veggies that almost entirely disappeared.
We talked about the angsty articles being written about the concept. Many of the moms said good for any mom who does what she thinks is best for her kids, however that works. Taking the time to put a little natural veggie into a meal is by far not on the level of our real national food problems: supersizing, synthetics injected in foods, school lunches. It was really hard to find anything wrong with a beautiful afternoon when moms cooked healthy meals with their friends and then got together to share them with other families.