We moms are battling everyday, every meal, trying to make healthy food go down those little mouths. Speaking of which, I ran into this very interesting article on the two “deceptive” books released last year, on healthy food for kids. In those books they encourage moms to hide healthy foods in cookies and other sugar laden foods. It’s teaching them to be good in the disguise of a mean person. I couldn’t agree more with Tanya Wenman Steel, the author of this article. She writes, “we are lying to our kids and signaling, either implicitly or explicitly, that vegetables, in particular, are so yucky, they have to be hidden.” Yes, as the mom of an opinionated two year old, I feel, no matter how difficult, we cannot give up the fruits and veggies crusade so easily. Yes we have to please their palates, but that can be done without being quite so sneaky. If only we are persistent.  I feel that a mid-way may not actually be that bad for the soul. My little one is not really into fruits. So I try to make different kind of smoothies, rather than hiding them in cookies or brownies. The other day I made Palak Paneer, but I blended five kinds of veggies into the palak. So the veggies weren’t really “hidden” inside a not-so-healthy food or fast food, like burger. He is still getting his five veggies, but through Palak (spinach) which is also a healthy food. If he was older, I would have told him that the spinach tasted that good because there were five other veggies in it. But now he is too little to reason with. When we were little, my mom always put the yummy chicken curry right in front of our noses. But the steamed veggies on our plates. On a hungry stomach we lapped up the veggies in a jiffy, because a) we were hungry and b) we wanted to get to the yummy stuff quickly. It worked like magic! Ms. Steel feels the same way. “At dinner, serve your kids fresh or cooked veggies first, as an appetizer, as that’s when they are hungriest and will be most inclined to eat them, and then fresh fruit before dessert.” Yes, these are some timeless tips that never go out of fashion. I personally, am waiting to read her new book Real Food for real Healthy Kids.  How about you? Any interesting tips, suggestions, stories on kids and mealtimes?