Some of them may be okay. I definitely would't try the Quesadillas or Chicken Nuggets. What did you think Trudy?

My thoughts are that I would never hide an ingredient in order to trick a child or an adult for that matter, in to eating something that they don't like. Good way to lose the trust and respect of your child.

When Matt was young he had to taste everything and if after tasting he didn't like it then he didn't have to eat it. But he had to at least try something before saying he didn't like it. He is 26 now and will still try new foods and he is a very good cook. He seems to like Renee's seven year rule. He keeps trying mushrooms and lamb but still doesn't care for them.

Ann

beverlyal, I do bake alot and thought it would be fun to get some nutrician into my baked goods. I was looking for the chocolate chip cookie recipe and couldn't find it though.

Ann t: When I was growing up my Father told me to keep trying foods even if I don't like them and
you will acquire a taste. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be eating half the things that I eat now.
I not only acquired a taste but actually got to like the foods.
My Grandmother helped too. She would save something I didn't eat for the next meal.

At that time food wasn't as plentiful as it is today,
with Rationing and all that.
We were lucky to have a few Farms in the Family.
LOU

I'm totally with her in her quest to improve the diet of the typical American child. If I made her recipes I certainly wouldn't hide the ingredients or lie to my kids. I'd probably just say this is a new recipe for brownies or whatever and if they asked what was in it, I'd tell them. My oldest child can tell when something is different or off. I made some brownies the other day with coffee powder in them and he tasted it immediately whereas the adults I served them to didn't notice the coffee flavor until I mentioned it.

I'm lucky to have kids that will eat everything. I'm a firm believer in eating healthy,but I do have to agree with Ann, that I don't think I would lie to my kids, just to get it down their throats. When I was a child if we didn't like something, we didn't have to eat it. It's funny how your tastes change when you get older. The things I hated when I was a kid, I love now.
When I was young I had a friend whose Mother bought everything from the store, and my Mother made everything homemade. She got Twinkies in her lunch at school, and I got homemade cake. I hated that as a child, but as I got older I realized how much luckier I was. My mother taught me to eat healthy, and if you had to eat something unhealthy, then make sure it was homemade. That's what she alway's said. Diana55

I agree with Ann, There should be no reason to have to hide healthy foods to get kids to eat them. I think if kids are served nutritious foods right from the start, they will learn a healthy way to eat. To me the problem isn't that kids will not eat healthy foods, it is more that so many grow up on and/or are allowed to gorge themselves on junk!

My kids had to at least taste whatever I served. They were not fed a lot of convenience foods, I made most everything from scratch. Heck, even their Easter baskets contained raisins, nuts, fruit and non-food items along with just a few candies!

Back to the original question, I don't think any of those recipes sound appetizing! (Oatmeal cookies packed full of spinach???? Yikes!)LOL

Linda

I avoid Oprah....and now I have another reason why....

With Rhiannon she will eat any and all veggies and fruits. She will go out into the garden and pick and eat spinach out of the garden. Also she loves tomatoes, broccoli, and her favorite, Kohlrabi. Now Peyton she won't eat fruits or veggies at all. It drives me nuts. I try and try with her but she won't eat them. I would love to try some of these recipes to get some nutrients into her. DH is another one who doesn't like veggies and could get some into him too. Not trying to be tricky, but don't know what to do with Peyton. She is only 2 and sure thinks she is 2 but was exposed to the same things as 4 yr old Rhiannon but her tastes are so different.

Stacie

I throw hidden nutrition into food all the time. I don't find it deceptive at all.

My kids don't like squash, and I've prepared it all sorts of ways. When I puree it into a lasagne, they eat it because they can't taste it. If they ask, I'll tell them it's there, but they really don't care as long as it tastes good. I also grate carrots into meatloaf, not to be deceptive, that's just how I make it. I squirt flax seed oil into loads of things and add flax seeds to baked goods and anything else that makes sense.

If I make a new food the kids have to taste it, but I would never force them to eat a full serving of something they don't like. They can choose a "no, thank you" portion, which is about 2 small bites. They're people, they're allowed to have food preferences.

Stacie, you're doing the right thing, keep offering, but don't force and by all means throw those veggies into anything that you can!

As far as the Jessica Seinfeld recipes go, that looks like another pitiful attempt by a pseudo-celeb to use her husband's name to get some PR and sell some books. No thanks, I'd rather buy a cookbook by an actual chef or nutritionist, not someone who would never anything published without her famous husband.

Yeah, I wouldn't hide or lie about the ingredients in a recipe but I also had children that would eat almost everything. My kids never complained or cried like the children did on the clip Oprah had on her show yesterday. I felt so sorry for some of those children. My son loved all foods and then one day decided he didn't like squash. We tried to fry it in french fry form and he still didn't like it. To this day he avoids it like the plague.

I don't know much about Jessica Seinfeld, but I do know I have an ultra-finicky kid, and I don't often succeed in my attemps of hiding vegetables (particularly, the ones of the green persuasion) in the foods he normally eats, because his BS detector is -almost always- ON.

So, for me, being a plotting, but well-meaning mom [G] has proven futile. That does not mean I've stopped trying. Oh no-oo.
So, when Thumper asks what's in his food, I tell him, without compunction. However, if he doesn't ask, I shut my pie hole and do a victory dance around the room.

You know, I remember being the same way as a child, and the foods I despised then, are the very same foods I love now. I just hope the same holds true for my boy. In the meantime, I'll do all I can to get some nutrients into that boy, one way ornother.

Sol

I've always loved vegetables and so did Amanda but Ashley is the proverbial junk food junkie. She's never liked vegetables or very many fruits and she still doesn't. She's odd, she'll eat spinach cold out of the can but doesn't like carrots or squash or broccoli. Cauliflower is only eaten raw and she won't eat green salads at all. She hates tomatoes. Go figure.

My girls were always required to taste whatever I cooked but if they didn't like it I didn't make them eat it. There was always peanut butter because I also refused to make special meals for my fussy eater. I didn't usually tell my kids what was in their food unless they asked but I sure wouldn't lie to them about it if they did ask. It just seems too dishonest to outright lie to them.

Truthfully, I'm probably the pickiest eater of the three of us, and I go with Renee's 7 year rule. At least every 7 years I try things I don't like. I just tried an olive stuffed with feta at the Michigan Run. I didn't gag, but I still don't like olives. Same with lamb, blue cheese and pizza sauce, LOL.

Annie

So THAT'S where the spinach brownie recipe came from. LOL. I have no problem with making food more nutritious. Why not?

Well I just watched Oprah (tivo'd it) and I enjoyed it. Laughed out loud several times and found it very informative. I like Jessica Seinfeld, she seems like a real down to earth person.

My son and my husband are both picky eaters. So I'll try anything to get good food into them.

They never ask me what the ingredients are anyway so there won't be any trust issues with them. And if they did ask, I'd tell them. My son just the other day was helping me make a pound cake and saw me putting sour cream in it. He couldn't believe I was putting yucky ol sour cream in it and said "it's a good thing I don't watch you making our food, I'd never eat anything you make!" hahahhah!!! So? What's the difference if I dip his chicken nuggets into squash/egg & panko and then fry it? It's all part of the preparation.

I just think of it as a way to get good food into their bodys. I know there are no food allergies so it can't hurt them.

Trudymom, thanks for the heads up on the Oprah Show.

My son and daughter-in-law have two little girls. One loves veggies, the other doesn't. I think if Jessica Seinfeld is trying to get veggies into her children, even if hiding them, is not a bad thing. Lo fat, nutritious, why not? I know when I was young I wouldn't eat many veggies, now I love them all..except squash.

I don't get Oprah here on TV and I haven't seen Jessica Seinfeld but I know that if I had kids that were finicky eaters I'd be among those moms that would use every trick in the book to get some nutritious food into them, including hiding vegetables in whatever way. However if they asked about it I would be either honest or rather vague about the new ingredient, depending on the circumstance. I wouldn't force or threaten them to eat some food they didn't like, although I had to do so when I was a kid as food just wasn't tossed out or wasted then.
We had to eat everything on the plate, sooner or later.

When my girls were small and we had just arrived in Spain, they went to a Catholic nuns' school where they had a hot lunch. On one occasion they were served octopus, not the sort of food young Canadians were used to having for lunch. My elder daughter, who was very adept at clueing in on how to push the right buttons, told the nuns that it was against their religion to eat octopus. So they were let off the hook by the nuns who must have thought these strange foreigners had even stranger religious beliefs LOL! They got to eat something else.

SharonCb

I don't think hiding the veggies in various foods is deceptive at all, if you tell them what's in there if they ask. Mother's need to use whatever means possible to get good nutrients into the bodies of their picky eaters. My grown daughter always was and still is picky. I did force her to eat veggies when she was at home because all she wanted was junk or fried food. Perhaps I was wrong to do that, but I'm not sorry because I was more interested in her health. Since she left home all she has eaten is junk and fried foods and now she's terribly overweight. The part I don't understand is that she's a very smart lady and is well read. I worry that she won't live to get her children grown. Yes, by all means, give them veggies any way you can get them to eat them!

Beverly

I don't have a problem with this at all. As Shaun and Sol both said, if they don't ask for everything that is in a dish then it is not deception. I do agree that lying about what is in a dish is plain wrong. DH's step mother once served him and his brother "cow pie" on several occasions before they found out it was really rabbit. Turned them off her cooking and possibly trying rabbit in the future.

I actually rename foods all the time so my boys will eat them, or eat them in a normal way. For example when I first served my oldest sugar snap peas he opened them all up and only ate the tiny peas from the center. So now I call them sugar snap beans. When I first served barley to them I made the mistake of calling it, well..."barley." My oldest wouldn't touch it. So the next time I made it I called it "barley rice." He ate it and loved it, eventually I dropped the rice part.

I mentioned on a different thread that a friend of mine puts pureed frozen spinach in chocolate muffins. She adds pumpkin puree in many places as well. this does not mean that she does not serve her boys veggies at every dinner. It just means she does not get in a tussle with them about food that might lead to an eating disorder later.

I am lucky though. My boys love and eat veggies and fruit etc.

-Robin

I didn't see the show so can't comment on it. But putting pureed veggies in food to get kids to eat more healthy foods seems like going around the barn. Wouldn't the nutritional value be lost in the baking, as in spinach in brownies? And how does that get them to eat spinach in the future? Not everyone is going to hide spinach in brownies? To me you either eat the vegetable or not.

Clare

Couldn't agree with you more Clare.

My mom forced me to eat carrots as a child, hated them then and I hate them now. I would never insist someone eat something that they don't like, nor would I trick them into eating it by mixing it into something else to hide it. Just seems very wrong to me.

Ann

The point is not to get them to eat spinach in the future. the point is for them to take in foods with nutritional value. I don't think parents who hide veggies in other foods are the same ones who would force a child to eat something they did not like. If they were forcing their child to eat a certain way they wouldn't be worried about their nutrition.

My friend with the chocolate and spinach muffins welcomes her sons help in the kitchen. Her oldest helped by pureeing the spinach and dumping it in. In a house where cooking is done he could recognize that the spinach was just an ingredient in the muffins he loves. Arabella mentioned her son helping with dinner prep by shredding the carrots that were being hidden in the meal. He still ate dinner happily.

btw, I don't hide food on my kids. I do make sure that everything I feed them has some form of nutritional value. So for example my cookies have some whole wheat flour. But not so much they lose their cookie quality. ;-) For my children I can be more of the motto if you feed them good food they will eat well.

-Robin

I have to chime in here. While I have no small kids that I need to get some nutricious foods into, I do have two seniors that I cook for. I have no problem hiding veggies and fiber into thier meals.

Cauliflower into mashed potatoes, a vegatable lasagna, pot roast with some "things" mashed to thicken it works here and it tastes good.

Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies is my motto some days. Hiding it is one thing but forcing you to eat a known dislike is another. If you hate carrots and they are obvious, you will hate them because you were forced to eat them. Grated into a good meatloaf and it is Moms best dish.

I can't say I find this deceptive. DS is 7 and has previously been a very good eater. He always ate his veggies... brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, all of them. But I've noticed over the past year he's become very picky. Things he ate before, he will now turns his nose up at. So for my own piece of mind, we've switched to a carrot/fruit juice, so I feel like he's still getting his nutrients. And yes, I'll grate carrots or zucchini or other things into muffins and he'll gobble them up.

He still has to try everything on his plate when we have dinner. But if he doesn't like it, and doesn't finish his squash one night, I don't worry that he's missing out on any vitamins.

I don't find it deceptive either. Young kids need the nutrition the veggies offer. If the kids don't get it in the foods they will eat, put it in in other ways. As long as they get the nutrients, that is what matters. So keep finding ways to get your picky eaters what they need. All ways are acceptable. NancyLouise

I'm still trying to get past the pureed cauliflower. Wouldn't it have to be cooked to death in order to puree it? As someone already pointed out, it seems that the nutritional value of some of these veggies would be cooked out of them by the time they get done.

The only time I "hid" a veggie from my kids was when I made a recipe from a magazine that was sort of a stew/soup kind of thing that called for smoked sausage, canned tomatoes, turnip greens and black-eyed peas. In spite of not liking turnip greens, all my kids loved this dish. When DD and I went vegetarian, I omited the sausage and subbed smoke flavoring, and most of the family still loved it. (DH really missed the sausage.) I didn't intentionally hide the turnip greens, but from then on, I was glad to serve them that dish.

Sally

A note to clarify for those that did not watch the show. Jessica did say that she makes sure to serve obvious vegetable side dishes along with the veggie "enhanced" dishes so that her children are exposed to them and asked to try them and also to see her eating them as part of her healthy diet.

I have grown children but had this book been out when mine were young I'd have certainly been thrilled to have it! As a matter of fact, as an adult I have a difficult time getting in my 5 veggies a day and intend to pick up a copy of her book to see how some of her recipes might translate into my diet.

As to the deceptive issue that's cropped up...I can't even picture my kids asking me what all the ingredients in a certain dish are, so how is not telling them considered lying?

I'm sure there are some, but I'd wager not many, kids that ask "what's in these cookies" actually wanting to know about the salt or baking soda...they want to know chocolate chip or peanut butter. Of course if I tell them there are also garbonzo beans they'd say yuck and run off...but if I tell them chocolate chip and they think they're yummy then what's the problem?

Sally I make cauliflower mixed with potato just because we like it and it's one way to get that mashed potato look on the dinner plate without all the calories. When the cauliflower is lightly steamed ....as nearly all of our vegetables are....it will mash down nicely with one of those wavy potato mashers. There's no need to cook the death out of anything....you just have to mash it and mix it with something else.
Or serve it raw and grated into a salad or a tortilla wrap with some spicy sauce.

I've always avoided over processing food until it's unrecognizable for what it is, but again I will say that if I had finicky kids I'd mix their needed vegetables into any form be it casseroles or cookies, stews or lasagne. Even a little is better than none and it will occupy the tummy space they might want to fill with salty or sugary junk food.

SharonCb

My mom was and is my hero. She never made us eat anything we didn't like growing up. I know my grandma deceived me a few times. I hated onions as a kid. My grandma would divide whatever she was making into 2 pots. Little did I know until years later that she wasn't making a 'special' batch with no onions. Just chopped them so small I most likely wouldn't see any. Caught her a couple of times....just the thought of the rememrance brings a smile to my face.

Duane

I want to clarify what I said about making my pick daughter eat veggies when she was young. I didn't make her eat things she hated such as gravy, sauces, all types of beans except green, peas, asparagus, cauliflower, turnip greens, green salads. And on and on the list goes. I did not give her a choice between fried and junk food and the veggies I had for each meal, which were not the ones she absolutely hated. I would cook veggies that she didn't want sometimes. She didn't hate them though. I would prepare carrots and corn even though she really wanted fried vegetables all of the time or else junk food, so I would prepare them and made sure she ate one small helping of each. Once she got off of her baby bottle she didn't want milk anymore. She was a real pill to cook for. She also refused to drink any water and doesn't drink water to this day. As a result, she has had kidney stones several times, starting when she was only twelve years old.

Tess, I agree that most kids probably do not ask what is in each dish, especially younger children. What I take exception to is hiding an ingredient in a food that you know a child doesn't like. In my opinion that is wrong. And the first time you get caught by your child, you will have lost that child's trust, at least where food is concerned. And I would bet that once a child caught the parent lying about what was in their food, if they weren't asking before they would be now.

Because cooking/food was always a big part of my life, it was also a big part of Moe and Matthew's and we did talk about what we were eating. So it wouldn't have been unusual for Matthew to ask what was in a dish. And I would never lie to him or try to trick him into eating something that he had already expressed a dislike of.

Ann

Ann, many children i know have previously liked these foods and then go through a picky stage and don't like old favorites. There are also children who say they dislike a food when they have never tried it before.

As a child I hated bananas, I tried them and really disliked them. However I did like banana bread (unless they had too much banana in them). I was aware that it had bananas in it (well duh) as i helped make it. I just don't always think food dislikes are black and white.

-Robin

The only thing about this discussion that put a kink in my knickers is how often the "deceptive" label has been tossed around.

Look, I started out as a child too ;-Ã and a finicky one at that. My parents struggled with me for years because I managed to make all the wrong choices, as I hated anything and everything that was remotely good for me.

Every day, my mom would come up with unremitting and creative concoctions. Yes, she was certainly sneaky about the things she fed me, just to keep me healthy.

Do I disrespect or distrust my parents for trying to do what was best for me? Of course not! Fact is, I'm surprised I'm still allowed in their house, after what I've put them through.

I may not have appreciated their efforts back then, but I certainly do now, especially since I have a few finicky kids of my own, who would only eat crap, if I let them.

Deceptiveness is telling a child: "You'd better eat your vegetables, or you'll never grow up."
That, is deceptive, wrong, and a little melodramatic. But I was trying to prove a point.

And my point is this: Trying to supplement your children's diet with healthier alternatives, should not be called "deceptive." It should, however, be called "Love."
Pure and simple.

Sol

Thanks for the tip, Sharon. I'm going to try that trick of mixing potatoes and cauliflower.

Well, I guess we used to deceive our kids when they were very small. They liked a cookie for each hand, and for a while we were able to break one cookie in half and give them "one" for each hand. However, they were smart enough it didn't take long for them to catch on to the fact that they were only getting 1/2 cookie for each hand. I don't think they resent us for that, but then again, they were very young when we did that to them.

Sally

Sol, LOL at Do I disrespect or distrust my parents for trying to do what was best for me? Of course not! Fact is, I'm surprised I'm still allowed in their house, after what I've put them through I agree about the deceptive word, however unfortunately it is in the title to Jessica Seinfeld's book.

I was just looking at the Amazon info on this book and it had some answers in my mind to the debate and if Seinfeld our right lied and tricked her children or just steered their eating habits.

-Robin

Amazon.com: Are your kids interested in cooking yet? Are there ways to introduce healthy eating habits with the child helping in the kitchen?

Seinfeld: My children are interested in baking because they love any excuse to be around sweets. But I make sure whatever we bake has pureed veggies in it and is actually low in refined sugar. So my children actually think baking cakes, brownies, and cookies with sweet potatoes, carrots, or beets is the proper way to cook.

Amazon.com: How are the reading skills of Sascha, your oldest child and pickiest eater? Have you blown your cover by publishing your secrets?

Seinfeld: My daughter is almost seven and she not only can read, she's fully aware that her mother cooks with vegetables all the time. Two years ago, she was a picky four-year-old who thought she hated vegetables. But once she was converted and started seeing those purees going into the desserts she loves, she started to ignore the fact that they were going into the rest of her foods as well. Now it's the only kind of cooking she knows. So, to anyone with young children--start cooking Deceptively Delicious food when they are young! It's much easier than trying to change habits later on.

Let me try this again. I don't see a problem with parents trying to get healthy food into a child. And if they don't ask then don't tell. What they don't know won't hurt them. But what I find deceptive is adding a food, be it spinach or carrots or cauliflower in potatoes, or whatever, if the child has already expressed a dislike for that vegetable.

Based on what Robin just posted, it sounds like Seinfeld has been upfront with what she feeds her children and wasn't being deceptive at all. I just know that if I had tried to trick Matthew into eating something that I knew he didn't like and if I'd got caught doing that, then he would have a reason to mistrust and I suspect it would have made him more of a finicky eater.

Ann

Ann, I got what you said, the first time.

I'm referring to the fact that there are many creative ways to turn certain foods kids may normally find repulsive and icky otherwise, into something, both, healthy AND appetizing, via unorthodox methods.

Meaning, I'm thankful my mom never gave up trying until she found the right formula for me. And I'd encourage other parents struggling with the same daily rituals to experiment.

;-D Robin, I realize Seinfeld is trying to sell a book, but I think she made a mistake using the word Deceptive in the title. If only for what it's doing to this thread.

Can we now switch the subject to "Sugar in Corn bread?"
Yeh or Nay. What are your thoughts?

Sol

Sol said it....she, Seinfeld is selling books....and if she titled the book something like "Putting Veggies in Your Brownies", she wouldn't sell any....
But also having Oprah shill for her doesn't hurt either.
I think the dividing line between "deceptive" and simply "delicious is....does the veggie addition enhance the finished product?
Sweet potato muffins, chocolate cake with beets, zucchini bread, pureed veggies in your meat loaf, carrot cake all are enhanced by the addition of the veggie, but I think there is a huge difference between "hiding" things ion sweets and making a sweet that also includes veggies.
And....I put sugar in my corn bread....and also in my spaghetti sauce and frequently sprinkle some on my meat as it's browning to brown it faster!
So There!!!
Linda C

Linda, never thought of the sugar on meat to brown it faster.....you are so full of..... great ideas and tricks!

I gotta tell you, right now the only veggies Chance eats willingly are babyfood jarred sweet potatoes, and cucumber (does that even count???) You can bet I am going to get that book! But I won't hide anything from her......but I am sure if it is good she will eat it. And I bet she may start trying cauliflower done in other cooking methods, if it is good in mac and cheese.

One thing no one mentioned here is that on that same episode Dr. Oz spoke about how kids are basically hardwired thru years of being "hunters and gatherers" that their taste buds prefer sweet. Poison was alway bitter, but sweet was safe. Also, kids have apparently way more tastebuds than adults (forget the actual comparison) so food doesn't "taste" the same. So there is a physiological explanation to their preferences!

All this talk of deception! Wow! Hmmm. I'm wondering if there was any Santa Claus, Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy for these kids.