Yellow's a Fruit
I love feeding fruit to my kids. Fruits are generally healthy, or at least healthier than the cheesy or sugary cracker-based snacks they usually eat. They’re easy to prepare. They’re fairly clean, although we can run into problems with canned fruit, especially if they step on a thrown chunk. They’re usually cheap as long as no one gets a craving for Bing cherries in February. Fruit would be the perfect food to feed my kids if only they’d eat it.
My kids usually do pretty well eating fruit, much better than every other food group in the pyramid except for that tantalizing “fats, oils, and sweets” group. They eat raisins for breakfast, some canned fruit for lunch, and a little fresh fruit for supper. I have to keep the fruits varied, though. Abbie ate canned peaches for lunch every day for months. It was my fault for not offering her more variety, but it’s hard to change fruits right after I open that 6-pound can of peaches I bought at the club store. One day she decided she didn’t like peaches, and ever since I’ve been unloading peaches on her brothers. Now she demands apricots every day while I try to switch fruits on the boys occasionally to keep their palates diverse. For example, I just opened a 6-pound can of pears.
Sometimes I switch fruits and forget about the old ones. The boys used to love bananas. I kept bunches in the house at all times to cut on top of their breakfast cereal or serve beside their lunch yogurt. Sometimes I’d do both in the same day depending on the peels’ numbers of brown spots. Possibly taking a cue from Boots, they ate their bananas greedily for months, and I was satisfied that they were eating a healthy and cheap side dish.
One day a few months ago, the boys stopped eating bananas. This probably happened right after I bought a multi-pound bag of bananas that bragged “$.10 off when you purchase this bag!” I probably kept serving them bananas everyday, hoping they’d accept them again before the peels changed from having brown spots to being giant brown spots. I probably wound up throwing away several bananas when they softened too much to serve. Mushy bananas would be perfect for banana bread, but as a full-time father of three children 3 & under, I rarely have time to cook anything that doesn’t come directly from a box.
A couple weeks ago, mommy brought home bananas from the grocery store. She bought them for herself, probably after she developed a hankering for bananas since they were absent from our home for months. I figured the boys would turn their noses up at the bananas like before, but at some time in the past few months the boys forgot that they hate bananas.
As soon as mommy peeled a banana, the boys swarmed her. I told her they probably wouldn’t eat it if she offered it to them since they didn’t want any a few months ago. She held out a banana chunk anyway, and almost lost a finger in the frenzy.
Starting the next day, I gave them bananas for meals. It was a wonderful couple of weeks as they wolfed down bananas, but in the past few days they started picking at the banana pieces, and finally leaving most of the banana. I knew what I had to do at that point: Make sure I had enough free time to bake banana bread with our rapidly browning bananas.
We now have a loaf of banana bread in the refrigerator. The boys like bread, so they can take in some fruit in bread form. Abbie still hates bananas, and never liked bread, so she’ll have to keep eating apricots for her fruit. I’m hoping she’ll soon forget that she hates peaches so everyone can eat from the same can at lunch.
My kids usually do pretty well eating fruit, much better than every other food group in the pyramid except for that tantalizing “fats, oils, and sweets” group. They eat raisins for breakfast, some canned fruit for lunch, and a little fresh fruit for supper. I have to keep the fruits varied, though. Abbie ate canned peaches for lunch every day for months. It was my fault for not offering her more variety, but it’s hard to change fruits right after I open that 6-pound can of peaches I bought at the club store. One day she decided she didn’t like peaches, and ever since I’ve been unloading peaches on her brothers. Now she demands apricots every day while I try to switch fruits on the boys occasionally to keep their palates diverse. For example, I just opened a 6-pound can of pears.
Sometimes I switch fruits and forget about the old ones. The boys used to love bananas. I kept bunches in the house at all times to cut on top of their breakfast cereal or serve beside their lunch yogurt. Sometimes I’d do both in the same day depending on the peels’ numbers of brown spots. Possibly taking a cue from Boots, they ate their bananas greedily for months, and I was satisfied that they were eating a healthy and cheap side dish.
One day a few months ago, the boys stopped eating bananas. This probably happened right after I bought a multi-pound bag of bananas that bragged “$.10 off when you purchase this bag!” I probably kept serving them bananas everyday, hoping they’d accept them again before the peels changed from having brown spots to being giant brown spots. I probably wound up throwing away several bananas when they softened too much to serve. Mushy bananas would be perfect for banana bread, but as a full-time father of three children 3 & under, I rarely have time to cook anything that doesn’t come directly from a box.
A couple weeks ago, mommy brought home bananas from the grocery store. She bought them for herself, probably after she developed a hankering for bananas since they were absent from our home for months. I figured the boys would turn their noses up at the bananas like before, but at some time in the past few months the boys forgot that they hate bananas.
As soon as mommy peeled a banana, the boys swarmed her. I told her they probably wouldn’t eat it if she offered it to them since they didn’t want any a few months ago. She held out a banana chunk anyway, and almost lost a finger in the frenzy.
Starting the next day, I gave them bananas for meals. It was a wonderful couple of weeks as they wolfed down bananas, but in the past few days they started picking at the banana pieces, and finally leaving most of the banana. I knew what I had to do at that point: Make sure I had enough free time to bake banana bread with our rapidly browning bananas.
We now have a loaf of banana bread in the refrigerator. The boys like bread, so they can take in some fruit in bread form. Abbie still hates bananas, and never liked bread, so she’ll have to keep eating apricots for her fruit. I’m hoping she’ll soon forget that she hates peaches so everyone can eat from the same can at lunch.
posted by Matt at
10:58 PM
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