Juvenile eating habits

Successes and failures

By Culinate staff

January 17, 2012

So you think that the children of chefs are just naturally gastronomes? Or does it take work to get kids to eat a varied and healthy diet? As a recent post on the New York Times Motherlode blog discovered, most chefs struggle just like other parents to get their kids to eat well.

As blogger K.J. Dell’Antonia noted, a new book titled What Chefs Feed Their Kids reveals that chefs simply provide variety and encouragement, no strings attached. Well, maybe one: home cooking, which is generally cheaper, healthier, and more satisfying (especially when hungry kids can smell a meal being prepared) than takeout.

That said, efforts to do the same with high-school students in Los Angeles have apparently failed. As the Los Angeles Times reported back in December, the LA Unified school district’s attempts to offer a variety of healthy foods to teenagers has been a bust, with students rejecting black-bean burgers in favor of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. At issue: not just lack of familiarity with quinoa and tempeh, but complaints from students about poorly prepared and even spoiled food. The net result? Massive amounts of wasted food, not to mention kids going hungry.