Getting Kids to Eat Their Veggies

This is the second in a series about eating healthy as a family and the challenges that can come along with it. Click here to read the first blog entry in this series.

Getting kids to eat vegetables can be tricky, especially if it's not always been part of the mealtime routine. My 2-year old has always been served with veggies at lunch and dinner, and usually eats at least some, even if she doesn't finish them. Lucky for me she has yet to realize that everyone's grilled cheese doesn't always come with broccoli on the side. My mom raises her eyebrows at some of the veggies my daughter eats that she never served when I was growing up- like butternut squash and edamame, for example. But it's great that even at this young age, my daughter is learning about a wide variety of foods that can be tasty and healthy at the same time.

Having trouble getting your kids to eat their veggies? One strategy might be to give them cool names. In a new study, 4-year olds were given regular carrots for lunch. Then on other days they were given the same carrots, but they were called "X-Ray Vision Carrots". They ate twice as many carrots on the days when the food had a cool name. Researchers say it makes food more fun for kids and then they continue eating more, even after parents stop using the names.

I know some parents who "sneak" veggies into their children's food by adding purees to spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, or other main dishes where they might not be expected. I have Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook "Deceptively Delicious" and have made a number of good recipes from it. I don't necessarily use it to sneak veggies into my family's meals, but rather just to cook things that are a little healthier.

How do you feel about sneaking veggies into your kids' diet? Do you think it's better to be upfront with what they are eating in the hopes they will learn to enjoy it? Or is that sometimes the only way you can get them to eat vegetables, so it's better than nothing?

Do you have any good strategies for getting your kids to eat vegetables? Any good recipes you'd like to share?

Eating healthy fake versions of your favourite food could be making you eat more

Throw out your carefully spiralised courgetti. Stop replacing your bread with thinly sliced bits of sweet potato. Get rid of the avocado and give your burger a proper bun.

All your healthy versions of your favourite foods might not be doing you any good.
It turns out that taking healthy foods like vegetables and dressing them up so they can masquerade as junk food could be a massive mistake when it comes to getting fit.
Why? Because the mental gymnastics required to eat courgette ‘pasta, avocado ‘ice cream', and the avocado ‘bun' could end up backfiring on us.

You see, every time we eat courgetti or similar healthy fake foods, we have to trick ourselves into pretending that a big bowl of vegetables is actually a big bowl of pasta.
But when we do this, we're always aware that what we're eating – as good as it may taste – is still the ‘healthy' option. And this can cause problems.
Kathleen Keller, a professor of nutritional sciences and food science at Penn State University, explained to The Atlantic that eating these healthy substitutes could lead to the Snackwell effect – when we know we're eating something healthy, so let ourselves eat a larger portion than we usually would.

And because vegetable pasta isn't actually the same as regular pasta in terms of taste and texture, our pasta cravings and expectations when we eat them aren't fulfilled, leading us to compensate by eating more or adding unhealthy topping to satisfy our foodie needs.
It's simple. When we tell ourselves we're eating pasta when really we're eating courgette, we're going to feel like we're missing out. And so we'll eat more to make up for it.

The solution? Stop pretending that courgettes taste like pasta. They don't.
Just enjoy a nice bowl of courgettes for the sake of courgettes. If you're having serious spaghetti cravings, eat the damn spaghetti. ‘Kay?

The RIGHT way to defrost food revealed

Thaw food by placing in cold water, says Susanne Ekstedt, from Sweden
Don't leave meat and fish to defrost in the fridge, the researcher advises
And thawing meat in microwave will make it go hard, says another expert

If you think the safest way to defrost food is by leaving it in the fridge to slowly thaw, then think again.
In fact, we should be thawing frozen meat and fish by placing them in cold water, according to a Swedish researcher.
It's the quickest - and safest - way to defrost food, according to Susanne Ekstedt, who works for the food and biscience unit of the SP Technial Research Institute of Sweden.

The quickest and safest way to defrost food, such as a whole chicken, is by placing it in cold water, says Swedish researcher Susanne Ekstedt

'This is something food scientists have known to be true for a long time now,' Ekstedt told Science Nordic.
'But this knowledge is mostly confined to the food industry. Most people don't seem to be aware of this.'
To thaw frozen meat or fish properly, put it in a freezer bag to keep water out, and then place into a bowl of cold water.

The food will then thaw quickly, as water conducts heat more effectively than air, which hastens the process.
Putting in cold water will prevent bacteria to grow.
The method follows the same principle for freezing food: that it should be done as quickly as possible.
Ekstedt made the discovery after experiments with freezing and then defrosting different foods.

Bjørg Egelandsdal, a professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Norway, supported Ekstedt's recommendation and said there has 'never been any good scientific evidence' behind the advice to thaw food in the fridge.
But what about defrosting in a microwave, a method we've all been guilty of using at some stage?
For microbiologist Per Einar Granum, of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, it's a no-no.
He only advises thawing in the microwave if you plan to use the meat in a stew - otherwise the meat will become too hard.
'It's a little too brutal for the meat,' he said.

How low-income countries are targeted for distribution of junk food

There is a huge global battle, often covert, over what constitutes healthy food. But civil organisations in countries such as Mexico are taking on the propaganda of ‘Big Food' – and winning. HEALTH-E's KERRY CULLINAN reports.

Healthy food? It's hard for ordinary people to get an accurate picture of what this is, amid the spin and manipulation of our "choices" by food and beverage companies.

Not long ago, fat was the enemy and "fat-free" diets were in favour. It has now emerged that food manufacturers simply pumped fat-free foods with sugar, which is even worse for our health.

Food company spin doctors would have us believe that the worldwide explosion of obesity is a product of human laziness. While a lack of exercise plays a role, the key driver of obesity is the mass consumption of processed food and sugary drinks.

This has become a global trend as multinational companies selling junk food and drinks – "Big Food" - are increasingly targeting low- and middle-income countries to compensate for a loss of consumers in North America and Europe, who are becoming more health-conscious.

While US consumers cut their consumption of fizzy drinks by 25% between 1998 and 2014, the Mexican Coca-Cola bottler, FEMSA, doubled its revenue between 2008 and 2013.

Meanwhile, South Africans' annual consumption of Coca-Cola products increased from 130 items per person in 1992 to 254 in 2010.

Coca-Cola is projected to be investing over $40-billion in "emerging markets" between 2010 and 2020 – with $17-billion going into Africa alone.

Despite the negative health risks associated with calorie-dense, nutritionally-poor junk food and drinks, the multinational companies bring much-needed revenue in tough economic times and often get special government protection.

Last week, the Colombian government banned a TV advertisement warning people of the health dangers posed by sugary drinks – not because the advertisement was misleading or inaccurate.

WATCH THE AD HERE:

A division of the Colombian Ministry of Industry Commerce, the Superintendent of Industry and Commerce (SIC), ordered a civil society coalition to stop all their mass media advertising against sugary drinks.

Activists surmise that the SIC took action after pressure from Postobon, the largest beverage company in Colombia, as the SIC used Postobon’s arguments verbatim in the wording of its banning order.

In Mexico, the country’s two major television networks, Televisa and TV Azteca, refused to air advertisements showing the negative effects of sugary drinks, and advocating a tax on them.

Mexico has one of the highest consumption rates of fizzy drinks in the world – riding alongside the world’s highest rate of childhood obesity, second highest adult obesity rate and an epidemic of diabetes that cost around 87,000 lives in 2013.

There is a close association between the political elite and “Big Food”. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox was head of Coca-Cola’s Latin American operations before becoming president of the country. Similarly, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Shanduka Investments owns significant shares in Coca-Cola and introduced McDonalds to South Africa.

In the face of the Mexican government’s inaction against the companies selling the products fuelling obesity, a progressive organisation dedicated to protecting citizens in Mexico, El Poder del Consumidor (“Consumer Power”), took on Big Food – and won significant victories.

After a harrowing two-year campaign, Mexico introduced a 10% tax on sugary drinks and a tax on junk food in 2014.

El Poder’s director, Alejandro Calvillo, said it was “imperative to speak out, to expose, to shed light, to point the finger” against the increasing consumption of over-processed foods, particularly sugary beverages.

Calvillo, the former leader of Greenpeace Mexico, believes that “western” food and drink has been marketed to poor communities as offering access to a better life.

“In regions where poverty prevails and most people do not participate in the world of hyper-consumption, drinking a Coke or other extremely sugary and intensely marketed drink is an aspirational act, the desire to belong to a world from which they are excluded,” said Calvillo. “Those instances of marketing ‘happiness’, of belonging to that advertised world, are accompanied by the activation of the pleasure centres in the brain by the high quantities of sugar.”

A year after the Mexican sugar tax, the purchase of sugary drinks had dropped by 10% in the most affected communities while the purchase of bottled water had increased by 13%.

As part of its campaign against junk food and drink, El Poder helped to form the Nutritional Health Alliance (NHA), a coalition of about 25 national organisations drawn from the health, children’s, small farmers and human rights sectors.

Five foods that (probably) won't kill you

Kale's leathery leaves may need some work, may not be delicious, but definitely won't be the death of you.

As every lifestyle-savvy media brand is aware, the easiest way to get eyeballs in these click-competitive times is to have endless stories on the topic 'How You're At Risk Right Now'. And the quickest and easiest way to do that is to write stories about how [insert literally any foodstuff here] has just been shown to be fatal.

Approximately 100 times out of 100 the actual study being cited in the article will have merely suggested there may be a correlation at work – that people who eat a lot of whatever it is suffer higher rates of cancer/heart disease/diabetes/vampirism/whatever – and added that the actual increase is well within the rate of statistical error for the size of the study. This is for several reasons, but mostly because science is complicated.

And it's true that everything can hurt you if there's enough of it. Too much of any substance is harmful, because that's what "too much" means.

And sure, people at website with "wellness" in the URL will tell you to eat whatever superfood – or, to use the scientifically accurate term, "food" – is in vogue, but the advice of such people should be taken with many, many grains of salt. Which, to be fair, you should probably try to cut down on since salt increases the amount of sodium in your bloodstream, making it harder for your kidneys to remove excess water in your body and thereby raising your blood pressure.

On a related note, there are three circumstances in which someone can legitimately refer to toxins in food and not be peddling garbage:

1. If they're talking about chemistry (that bitter almonds contain hydrogen cyanide, for example).
2. If they're talking about environmental pollution (such as lead getting into drinking water).
3. If they're the scheming Grand Vizier revealing their sinister plan to secretly murder the Sultan.

So, with all that being said, what are the foods that aren't going to kill you, probably?

LEMONS

When was the last time you felt ill after chowing down on some lemons? Photo: 123RF

They're incredibly rich in vitamin C which is hard to overdose on because it's metabolised in your body very quickly. All citrus contains vitamin C, but when we're talking about food that won't kill you, it's important to acknowledge that the beauty of getting your vitamin C in lemon form is that they're in the form of lemons, the least bingeable of the fruits. When was the last time you felt ill after munching down on a big ol' sack of lemons? Never, that's when.

KALE

It's high in fibre, it has zero fat, and you can't possibly eat a dangerous amount of it because it tastes like urine-dipped newspaper. It was turned into a hot food fad in 2015 because food writers thought it'd be hilarious, and they were right.

COFFEE

Not a good idea to be a slave to coffee. Photo: 123RF

The active chemical in coffee is caffeine, which is pretty damn difficult to overdose on since it leaves your body really quickly: depending on your age and weight, it's completely gone in between six and 12 hours. The only consistently negative health effect is that caffeine molecules bind to the same receptors in your brain as the adenosine molecules which tell you it's sleepy time. If you still have caffeine in your system when you want to hit the hay, it can mess up your sleep cycle, and that does have negative health effects. So, y'know, don't bring a thermos to bed.

BOOZE

Alright, fine. Alcohol really isn't good for your body. It's an addictive substance and the negative health effects are well known – everything from diminishing liver function through to septicaemia from improperly sterilised needles when getting your drunken facial tattoos.