Eating Green on St. Patrick’s Day
Guest authors for this post are nationally recognized experts on children’s health, Laura A. Jana, MD, FAAP and Jennifer Shu, MD, FAAP. Both are pediatricians, parents, and award-winning authors whose most recent book is Food Fights: Winning the Nutritional Challenges of Parenthood Armed with Insight, Humor and a Bottle of Ketchup (American Academy of Pediatrics, Oct. 2007). Menu recipes are from Eat. Drink. Better. author Beth Bader.
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, many families celebrate by having green food. While it may be tempting to artificially color your way to a green St. Paddy’s day dinner, health-conscious parents can achieve a better result by choosing locally grown green herbs and produce and throwing them into the mix.
My kids don’t like green foods, you say? Let’s take a step back and see why this might be. Just about all naturally green foods are vegetables. And a large number of vegetables happen to be green. That said, it can’t just be a vegetable’s green color that leaves so many kids sticking to their story that they just don’t like vegetables? Given the opportunity, very few kids will turn down green SweeTarts or Skittles, so we’re clearly not just dealing with shades of green. It must then boil down to the fact that vegetables - and green ones in particular - unintentionally (or intentionally) be given bad press by children’s most influential role models—their parents! Add to that the fact that green foods don’t get much love in television commercials or in casual conversation amongst friends and classmates—two other important influencers in children’s lives – and we seem to have identified the root of the problem. (Picky eater tips and St. Patrick’s Day menu after the jump).
