Yahoo Lifestyle Get Your Children To Eat Vegetables
When the 7th edition of Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care came out, some people were upset by the nutrition advice. Dr. Spock, who was born at the very beginning of the 20th century had, by the last years of his life, become a vegetarian. He believed that the typical American diet, high in cholesterol and saturated fat, was bad for children. This was years before the obesity epidemic became a household worry. Dr. Spock was not afraid to urge parents to raise their children on little or no meat, even though he took some heat for saying so. And he was right.
These days, I see lots of obese children in my clinic. Many of them are addicted to TV and video games, to chips and pop and sugary breakfast cereals. And most of them eat two or three meals a day which have meat as the main dish. Lunch is hot dogs or bologna.* Dinner is a slab of beef or half a chicken. It's rare for the portions to be as small as a deck of playing cards - the serving size recommended by most experts. My young patients eat two or three times that much at a sitting. And many of their parents approve.
Parents often think children need more protein than they really do. A child who's walking only needs about one half gram of protein per pound of body weight. So a 30 pound 3-year-old only needs about 15 grams of protein a day. A single hard-boiled egg has about 6 grams. Two tablespoons of smooth peanut butter supply another 8 grams. It doesn't take very much protein-rich food to meet a child's protein needs.
Of course, meat has protein, too. A broiled hamburger made with ¼ lb of lean beef (80% lean) supplies 29 grams of protein. Notice that this is nearly twice as much protein as a normal 3-year-old needs for a whole day. And with its protein, the burger packs about 20 grams of fat, including 7 grams of saturated fat, and a big dose (103 mg) of cholesterol.
A little meat isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the point is, it isn't necessary either. Children can get all the protein they need from beans, nuts, eggs, and whole grains, without any of the artery-clogging fats. Egg yolks do have cholesterol, but it turns out this is safer than the cholesterol in meat. And, a diet with less meat also costs less. I can buy a one-pound bag of dried kidney beans for about 90 cents. Soaked overnight and boiled for 30 minutes, it makes about 3 pounds of beans, good for about 124 grams of protein. The same amount of protein from good hamburger will set you back $2, if not more.
There are lots of ways to get your children to eat more vegetables and less meat. You don't have to nag, plead, reward, punish or bribe. All you have to do is cook with less meat, and learn to enjoy what you cook. And you don't have to change all at once, either. You can start a bit at a time, putting a little less meat on the plate, and a little more vegetables, beans, and whole grains. After a while your kids will stop complaining and you'll all be healthier, and richer, too.
*My nutritionist friend tells me that bologna has so much fat that it isn't even counted as meat, it's counted as fat!
