There is a shloka in the Bhagavad Gita that says - ‘A man is what his thoughts are’. True, and I strongly believe good thoughts only occur when there is nutritious and clean food in your stomach.
Whether it’s an adult or child, the equation remains the same - more so for a child: if you want children to grow into beautiful human beings, you need to fill their minds and bodies with nutritious inputs. But in the case of children, how do we implement this? Through seeking compliance. Yes, that’s a pretty intimidating word. And perhaps herein lies the problem with our approach to children’s nutrition. We tend to seek obedience and a reverence to our authority. After all, parents know best! Right? Well, perhaps. But certainly not in the approach that I see a lot of parents follow. I too have been guilty of this misguided approach in the initial stages of motherhood. I too made meals devoid of fun and used mealtimes as yet another occasion for preaching the virtues of healthy food.
In following this approach what we end up doing is creating an unhealthy relationship between our children and food. And this is a serious handicap that we bestow them with. As research increasingly suggests, our gut is the source of health and hence, we can hardly for our children to have an antagonistic relationship with food.
Well, it doesn’t have to be. Food can be fun and nutritious at the same time. And before you roll your eyes, give me a moment to elaborate. Look, I am no rocket scientist who figured this out overnight! My own experiences in what it entails to be a “real mom” versus a “reel mom” helped me realise that I needed to stop the “mini wars” at the dining table with my so called “fussy eater.” Why did he scoff at the nutritious food I prepared for him at home but love the junk food that he got at birthday parties or at friend’s house while on a play date? If I needed the correct answers, I would have to swallow my pride, not allow my ego to take over and pressurise him to eat what I wanted him to eat; instead, I needed to start thinking out of the box!!
I started experimenting with ingredients in my kitchen. Even though I am totally against fooling our kids, I started allowing myself some leeway in the form of white lies, keeping in mind the larger picture of providing the best nutrition to my child. And that’s when the eureka moment happened. Suddenly my son was gobbling up oats in the form of chocolate chip muffins, millet flour in his pizzas, veggies that I had turned to colourful purées to brighten up his brown rice, or whole wheat pasta and of course parathas that didn’t look so boring anymore.
That’s when I realised, it’s really not what we are feeding our kids - it’s how we are presenting it that is evoking the Pavlovian response of healthy being boring and unappetising.
We sit with the nutritious food and start rattling off its benefits hoping that they will understand and appreciate the intelligence of their parents, and even use force if we must just to prove our point; but children- well their minds are elsewhere. Their brains are telling them to finish eating in five minutes and get back to playing, so yummy food gets gobbled up. With the so-called healthy but unappetising fare, their strategy of coping entails just have a few bites till their tummy is partially full and parents partially happy - and then off they run.
Which tell us that to capture their attention for a short span, we should stop preaching to them and almost become kids with them and give them food that appeals to their eyes and their spirit and not to their mind. They don’t care about the fact that healthy food will make them perform better in school, in studies, in sports. Believe it or not, every child thinks they are super heroes and super girls! They think they can survive on thin air, unless the food is too good to resist.
So give them all the healthy stuff you want, but with a junky disguise. Don’t tell them almonds are healthy, just make their brownies with almond flour instead of maida. Don’t extol “Popeye” strength to feed them spinach; just feed it to them in their burger patties. Beetroots are pink, use that colour to your advantage, add it to rice and, cakes if you must, but feed it to them without them knowing what they are having. Fruit mixed with yogurt or milk and a few chocolate chips make delicious shakes and smoothies. Kids don’t need to know there is fruit when the taste and look, both are camouflaged by that of good quality dark chocolate.
So, enough sai! Let’s erase the word “fussy eater” from our vocabulary while addressing kids. Just put on your thinking caps on and acknowledge the “hidden super chef” in all of you who can magically transform any boring food into its healthy , exciting and yummy avatar! ... trust me if I can do it, so can you.