They'll thank you eventually

More veggies? Your kids will thank you ... eventually.

Though your child may scowl at the broccoli you pile onto his plate, keep it coming. According to a new Finnish study, kids really do follow their parents' advice on healthy eating, even when you aren't there to nag them.

Local Food Month Summary

Well, it is August now and we officially wound up our local food month a couple of weeks ago. I learned a lot during this month and it was fun, but also a lot of work. We hope to continue eating locally as much as possible and integrating many of our practices into our everyday lives. Some of these things are:

• Buying all produce (with a few minor exceptions like lemons for bread) from local farmer markets during the summer
• Buying all meat from local producers (we have been doing this for over a year already)
• Making as much of our food as possible (including breads, some cheese, broths/stocks)
  
• When have to buy from a grocery store, buying as much single ingredient things as possible (meaning buying ingredients and making it ourselves, this give more money back to original farmers than processed food)
• When buying from grocery stores, buying what is possible from alternative grocery (such as Home Economist, Earth Fare, etc.) so that I can buy smaller name brands or from companies that I think are trying to do things sustainably
• Continuing to plan for future seasons by planning my own garden and also preserving things I really like to have year round (such as blueberries and pesto)
• Continuing to search for ways to encourage sustainable agriculture in NC, including reading, being an active member in local groups, spreading the word about local food

Some of the things that I found to be very difficult were:

• Eating at home 24/7. While we enjoy eating at home, I will definitely be going out to lunch some. That was the hardest part. Cooking and cleaning for 3 meals plus snacks every single day wore me out. I felt like I lived in the kitchen.
• Not eating anything that wasn't seasonal. The hardest part of this we actually didn't really have to deal with during our July/August local food month. But I know this will come once winter arrives. While I hope to continue to cook based on seasonality (meaning citrus based dishes for our fruit in the winter), it would be almost impossible in our climate to get fresh fruit in the winter, which I really want for my children.
  

Overall, it was a great month and hopefully as the months go by, we will get better at eating locally and seasonally.

Judging Food By Its Cover

Does this scare the hell out of anyone else?

MONDAY, Aug. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Most 3- and 5-year-olds who taste-tested a variety of foods said they preferred the ones in the McDonald's wrapper -- even though the foods were exactly the same, a new study finds.

The study suggests that, like adults, young children are highly influenced by branding, experts say.

"This study demonstrates simply and elegantly that advertising literally brainwashes young children into a baseless preference for certain food products," said Dr. David Katz, the director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.

"Children, it seems, literally do judge a food by its cover. And they prefer the cover they know," said Katz, who was not involved in the research.