Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

They do give surprisingly sane advice elsewhere on the website--like "Picky eating is a typical behavior for many preschoolers. It is simply another step in the process of growing up and becoming independent. As long as your preschooler is healthy, growing normally, and has plenty of energy, he or she is most likely getting needed nutrients." I really think they--or at least SOMEONE there--mean something pretty reasonable about "food habits", even they are all wet about establishing food preferences.

They won't do it at all? Horrors! But I don't think there's evidence to back that up, even though it seems like common sense. There IS evidence that tastes and preferences change over time. And I'm of the opinion that a preschooler's strong dislike for a certain food is as valid as my own, as an adult. Kids WILL learn to overeat, or that mealtime is an unhappy time, if that's what their parents teach them inadvertently at a young age; they can also get set up for health problems early (especially dental problems). But it isn't like if you don't serve them the "right" number of whole grains and vegetables now, they'll never eat them.

Anyway, Matthew, I do agree with them that it's an important time for establishing food habits--it sounds like you do yourself, because you're reinforcing the habit that food is something to be enjoyed. There are few things sadder than children who have learned that being picky eaters is their only way of controlling their parents, or very young children who hoard food or eat until they throw up (both things I've seen in the hospital). Those might not be the food habits the authors were thinking of--but then again, they might be.

I did manage to make a customized food pyramid for Iris--in Firefox, with Adobe 8--but it was pretty useless. I'm no fan of the either the old pyramid or the new fancy one, but this preschoolers' one was worse than either. Assuming it's meant for parents to use, I don't know why it's dumbed down from the regular pyramid; and the pyramid concept doesn't add anything in this case, because it just tells you to serve her certain amounts of grains, fruits, vegetables, milk, and meat/beans, and doesn't display "choose often" and "choose seldom"; so a simple list would be just as good. There's also a mysterious unlabeled yellow stripe, which I think must be fats, but it MIGHT be potstickers.

I am not sure why I'm even justifying the last two posts with a response, but I guess I'll chalk them up to ignorance. I can see how people without kids are less aware of the problem.

A. More kids are more allergic to nuts, especially peanuts, than they were twenty years ago or whenever you were in school.

B. Lots of kids are so allergic to nuts that they could go into anaphylactic (i.e. deadly, throat-closing) shock by being around someone eating peanut butter, or by using the water fountain after someone who ate peanut butter touched the handle. It doesn't matter how careful they are about not eating nuts.

I hope this makes it clear to anyone who is wondering. The schools are trying to protect kids from dying.

--Wendy Burton, RN BSN

Matthew, I think you should do a pasty internship with Granny Burton--her crimping is almost musical in its fluidity. But when I commented that Mom's comes out different (even though she learned from Granny), Granny said quite definitely that there's no One Best Way. (As long as the crimp is on top.)