This is a great book about feeding children. I wish I had read it when my girls were just starting solids.
The author's position is that when we emphaThis is a great book about feeding children. I wish I had read it when my girls were just starting solids.
The author's position is that when we emphasize nutrition and try to control our kids' eating, we create stress and, ironically, UNhealthy eating patterns. She advocates not emphasizing nutrition but the teaching of good eating habits, specifically eating a variety of foods, eating foods in proportion to their health benefits (lots of veggies, less ice cream), and eating in moderation -- listening to our hunger, eating when hungry and stopping when not hungry. She gives multiple suggestions for methods to support learning these habits.
Her idea of what constitutes healthy food is sometimes extreme -- she wants a diet of mostly unprocessed natural foods and, while I agree that that is probably good for you, it can be tough to achieve when you're busy. She emphasize dealing with picky eaters more than dealing with overeaters, which is my situation, but she has advice for overeating as well. She places more emphasis on toddlers and preschoolers and starting right than on shaping things up when problematic patterns around food have been established -- one of the reasons I wish I had read this sooner.
If your kids are adventurous eaters and you don't have struggles around food, you probably don't need this book, but I think it's a valuable read for the vast majority of parents who do not have food and feeding going as smoothly as they would like in their households.
her blog, It's Not About Nutrition, is great too....more
Michael Pollan expands his now-famous dictum "Eat food. Mostly plants. not too much." to a set of 64 (!) rules for eating. There's some wisdom here --Michael Pollan expands his now-famous dictum "Eat food. Mostly plants. not too much." to a set of 64 (!) rules for eating. There's some wisdom here -- eat slow, eat whole foods, eat with friends -- but also some self-righteousness and outright inaccuracy (contrary to his assertion, a recent comprehensive review study suggests that organic foods are *not* more nutritious than conventional ones). Read, but with a grain of salt....more
I lost interest 1/3 in....high point for me was being reminded that chocolate and vanilla, as well as tamales and tacos, are foods we've adopted from I lost interest 1/3 in....high point for me was being reminded that chocolate and vanilla, as well as tamales and tacos, are foods we've adopted from Mexico. ...more
This is a delightful read! Her failures -- recounted with humor -- are very funny. Harold's been reading bits of this, and he's nit usually a food reaThis is a delightful read! Her failures -- recounted with humor -- are very funny. Harold's been reading bits of this, and he's nit usually a food reader, and Michelle had me read to her from it a few times, so it's been broadly popular in the family. One of the big surprises for me was her real understanding if,and sympathy for, all the different pulls on someone trying to cook for a busy family. I knew she was a kindred spirit when she described grocery shopping and being torn by the competing pulls of convenience, ethics, health, environmentalism, and more. I also loved her account if how KFC on the sofa with a dvd can produce more warm family memories than absolutely perfect (and absolutely exhausting) homemade fried chicken. She hasn't inspired me to a lot of scratch cooking I wasn't already doing, but I was amused, intrigued, and supported by her stories of extreme kitchen diy. ...more
Can you name a perennial vegetable? You probably know about asparagus. Another? Maybe you know artichokes are perennial (I didn't!) Another? Is rhubarCan you name a perennial vegetable? You probably know about asparagus. Another? Maybe you know artichokes are perennial (I didn't!) Another? Is rhubarb a vegetable?
This book has over 100 perennial vegetables. There are familiar and semi-familiar things I didn't know were perennial, like chayote and runner beans and shallots. There are lots of aquatic vegetables, with info on how to grow them -- water chestnuts, watercress, and lotus root among them. There are things I've never heard of -- South American greens and root vegetables, edible weeds, air potatoes. (Yes, I said "air potato"!) Some of them are kind of off-putting -- potentially invasive, poisonous if you pick or prepare them wrong, or described as "gelatinous" or "musky". I don't think I'm going to grow many of these things, though shallots and runner beans have piqued my interest, and I flirted with the idea of sunchokes. But if you're a plant geek and/or food geek, it's a fascinationg read.
There's a section on growing techniques, lots and lots of plant profiles, and some resource listings. Check it out!...more
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