Tonight at dinner:

Me: “How’s your spaghetti?”
FoodieTot: “Not good. There’s something wrong with it.”
Me: “What’s wrong with it?”
FoodieTot: “It has tomatoes in it.”

He did consent to eat several bites, trying to avoid the visible tomato pieces. I used a different brand of crushed tomatoes tonight, which had a more visible chunk I guess. We’ve been waging battle over tomatoes his entire 3.5 years of life (well, once starting solid foods). He’ll occasionally try one, only to spit it out. We ran into his best friend at the market one summer day and she was buying herself a pint of cherry tomatoes. He declared he did like them then, so we bought a pint as well. Once again, there was a bite quickly followed by, “eww, yuck!”

So I was relieved to read this part of (ChowMama) Stacie’s interview with Feeding Baby Green author Dr. Alan Greene:

“… on average, most kids in the US don’t like whole tomatoes but, if you have them help to chop the tomatoes (carefully, of course), they’re about twice as likely to like them. If they go into a garden and pick a tomato or get a tomato from a farmer’s market before chopping it, they’re about twice as likely again to like it. And if they plant the tomato and watch it grow, most children will actually like tomatoes, just from watching them grow.”

Since the first two suggestions have failed thus far, you can bet we’ll be planting a tomato plant this spring!

For more funny things kids say about food, check out Jenna’s new weekly “Big Words, Little Foodies” round-up over at Food with Kid Appeal.

And in other feeding kids well news, I’m sure you all saw Michelle Obama’s launch today of “Let’s Move!” — a campaign to fight childhood obesity by increasing access to healthy foods (at home and at school) and encouraging physical activity. (Watch the GMA interview with the First Lady.)

You can get involved by becoming a fan of Let’s Move on Facebook, and visit Slow Food’s Time for Lunch campaign to send a message to your legislators urging increased funding for healthy school lunches.

As Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel explains, “One in three children will grow up to get type 2 diabetes, one in three is overweight or obese, and in the last thirty years, childhood obesity rates have tripled. Fortunately, this is not a mysterious disease. We don’t need to search for a cure. We know what the cure is. Eat healthy food, in reasonable quantities, and stay physically active.”

We’re fortunate to have ready access to fresh, locally grown tomatoes, even if the boy doesn’t yet appreciate them. We have a long way to go to make sure the same is true for every child in America. I’ll be following along and sharing more with you as the “Let’s Move” campaign progresses.

FoodieTots @ the Farmers Market Week continues with some background on why we love the market for teaching healthy habits. This post was originally a guest contribution at Food with Kid Appeal ~ visit Jenna’s blog for more tips to inspire healthy eating with your kids.

This weekend, my son rediscovered his toy shopping cart and insisted on hauling it out for a pre-bedtime grocery shopping trip. He proceeded to entertain us by driving back and forth across the living room and kitchen, visiting the orange juice guy, the ketchup guy, the jam place, and returning his empty milk carton to the door for the milkman to refill. I love that he thinks we have “a guy” for everything!

My son has been shopping our weekly farmers market since he was an infant in a baby carrier. At the time, it was the perfect Saturday morning outing when he woke up at the crack of dawn and nothing else was open. At two and a half now, his tastes are still fairly fickle but he generally will at least try a bite of anything that comes from the market. By engaging my son in the shopping experience, and the sensory wonderland that is available at a farmers market rather than a grocery store, I have found that he is genuinely curious and excited about food.

Shopping at a farmers market or organic grocer provides you with a much wider array of fruits and vegetables than what are generally available at the big box grocery. From heirloom tomatoes in shades of yellow, green, red and purple to orange cauliflower and purple beans, they provide a rainbow of choices that appeal to kids visually. My son was never a huge fan of green beans, but the day we brought home purple beans from the market, he was enthralled. One day this past fall I asked him to bag some beans, giving him the choice of yellow or green. To my surprise, he chose to take some of both, and when we had them for dinner he proudly held them up to his dad and exclaimed, “I picked these yellow and green beans all myself!”

I also find that while my son may look skeptically at a new item placed on his dinner plate, he is almost guaranteed to sample something handed to him by a vendor at the market. Our neighborhood market’s cheese man is his favorite, no doubt due to the generous sample of cave-aged cheddar he receives each week. My son devours it, exclaiming to everyone in sight that, “Tom the Cheese Guy gave me this!” (He now asks at home, “Are those Tom’s eggs? … is that Tom’s cheese?” before determing whether to taste something. Heaven forbid we run out mid-week!) One of our favorite fruit vendors will sometimes slip him a perfectly toddler-sized Seckel pear, which he enjoys with relish. A while back, I was checking out something new to me, sunchokes. When the farmer handed me one to sample, my son demanded a taste as well. He declared it “too spicy,” but I can guarantee that he never would have been interested in trying it had I tried to slip it onto his plate at home.

As parents know, kids love to feel like they are in control, so empowering them to choose their favorites while you shop is a great way to get them engaged in what they are eating. By shopping at a market or organic grocer where virtually all the options are healthy, it helps reduce the temptation of processed foods and gets them excited about healthy foods. My son will often request fruit or cheese as a snack, which I hope will remain a habit as he gets older. When he’s older, I plan to use the market as an opportunity to teach him about money as well, by giving him his own budget and letting him determine what, and how much, to buy. And of course I will be encouraging him to join me in the kitchen as much as possible to learn how to cook his healthy selections, too.

Shared with Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade — check out the round-upround-up!

Calling all farmers market fans! One Local Summer returns in June. If you’re up for the challenge of cooking one all-local meal each week, click the image above to sign up. Here’s a reminder of some of the Chesapeake Bay foodshed meals we enjoyed last year.

I’ve been thinking about the best way to celebrate the holidays here at Foodie Tots. It seems that there are already gift guides galore for every man, woman, child and pet on your list, and no shortage of holiday cookie recipes to choose from. As I began hunting for healthier toddler-friendly holiday treats, it occurred to me that I could share with all of you some of my favorite fellow Foodie Mamas (and Grandmas, Dads, etc.). I am delighted that one of my new favorite bloggers, Jenna of Food with Kid Appeal!, agreed to guest post here with some advice on giving your favorite holiday treats a healthier twist. In addition to being mom to two young boys, ages 2 and 4, Jenna is a nutrition educator and her blog is filled with tips for getting your kids excited about the nutritional aspects of their food — who couldn’t use advice on that? Thanks so much, Jenna, for sharing your advice! Be sure to bookmark her blog, and follow her on Twitter.

Tips for Baking Healthier Holiday Treats

Baking sprees are going on in many homes around the holidays. More candy, cakes, cookies and treats are available at school, at parties and at home for your kids to nibble. So how do you make sure they get enough “grow” food during the holidays? Can a treat be healthy? Healthy isn’t the right word, but you can add some “good” to that bad carbohydrate treat. Here are some tips to make tasty treats a little better for kids, when you’re doing the baking. By adding fiber and/or protein you can make those treats a little easier on your little one’s blood stream.

Healthy add-ins for holiday treats:

• Ground flax seed (fiber and protein), substitute ¼ cup for flour, or use as an egg substitute.
• Chopped nuts (fiber and protein) add them into batters or sprinkle on top. Walnuts have omega 3s, why not boost brain function while we indulge in treats?
• substitute ¾ cup, plus 2TBS whole grain flour for one cup white flour (fiber and protein)
• choose recipes that call for whole grains: oats, whole wheat fiber (fiber and protein)
• choose recipes that call for fresh or canned fruit-in water not heavy syrup (fiber)

Other tips:

• Reduce sugar amounts. Most treat recipes are super sweet. I generally omit ½ cup (or more!) sugar from recipes and they are still tasty.
• Add fresh or canned fruit- adding canned pumpkin, crushed pineapple, bananas, carrots, zucchini, etc. to cakes, muffins, and breads provides moisture and natural sweetness and allows you to reduce oil/butter and/or sugar from recipes. See this recipe for Pumpkin Morning Glory Muffins from Blissfully Domestic on how to eliminate ½ the oil from a recipe!
• Icing is high in sugar and often in fat. Reduce icing amounts. Drizzle it on, instead of icing the whole top of the cookie.
• Look for recipes using honey as a sweetener. The body still digests honey as sugar, but when in its raw state is a less refined product than refined white sugar. It also has the health benefit of being anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and in some studies has shown to help treat cough and upper-respiratory symptoms. Be careful with conversions from sugar, honey is sweeter than sugar teaspoon per teaspoon. Click here for tips on baking with honey.
• Using whole grains-oats, whole wheat flour, etc.-will make your loaves and cookies heavier. Their texture will be altered. Most people appreciate an oatmeal raisin cookie even though it is denser than a chocolate chip cookie, you can enjoy your denser cookies and loaves for what they are. Just don’t expect them to be their white flour counterparts.
• Choose recipes that use oil instead of butter. Oil is a little more health promoting that butter. Save butter for a treat on veggies!
• When choosing recipes it’s best to use those that have been created or modified for alternative flours and sweeteners. Each grain has a different combination of gluten, starch and/or fiber, all of which effect the way a baked item rises.
• If budget permits, use natural food colorings in lieu of traditional petroleum-based food coloring (Yes! There are petroleum products in that box of Adams Extract food colors in your pantry). Try Seelect Tea’s or India Tree’s products. Others have purchased Dancing Deer’s product at Whole Foods, but I was unable to confirm they still sell this at the time this article was published.

Recipe links from my fellow healthy foodies:

• Meal Makeover Moms has a bunch of recipes using less sugar, oil instead of butter and including fruits, veggies (shhhh!), whole grains and/or nuts. Their Sugar Plum Fairy Treats recipe was published in a Kiwi article about a healthier cookie swap (pdf). They are packed with nutrition using two kinds of whole grain cereals, omega 3 nuts and plenty of dried fruit for a super natural sweetness. Now that’s a fruit cake made for kids! Thanks Liz for all the great suggestions!
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies- I have already made these and they were a hit with the family and playgroup. Thanks Cookie Madness!
• Black Bean Brownies- Thanks Karin! Haven’t tried these yet, but I like the idea of protein packed beans in dessert.
• Roasted Pears -This delicious fruit treat is simple enough to make for a family dinner. Thanks to Michelle at What’s Cooking! Sprinkle some nuts on top for a little protein.

Jenna Pepper teaches Kid’s Nutrition classes for parents in Houston, TX. Jenna is on a mission to bust the myth that good food tastes bad. The Kid Appeal! blog can inspire the parents of even the pickiest eaters to help their kids make better food choices. The Kid Appeal! Forum is a place for parents to ask questions about concerns they have about their kid’s diet.

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