Healthy Eating? Oprah’s Got Nothing on Us

Remember my plan to cook more creative, healthy meals this year? And what a flop the tofu nuggets were? Well, I didn’t let that faze me, people. I’m forging ahead. OK, so I’ve slacked off a little. What mere mortal mom could keep that up 7 days a week? (Or even 5.) But we’ve had some culinary hits in our house.

The zucchini bread, for instance: huge hit. As was the coconut banana bread. Even when I sneaked in wheat germ and flaxseed. But baked goods aren’t much of a challenge, are they? A far more satisfactory success was getting my 4yo to eat tilapia. I’m not kidding; he loved it. Scarfed it down. Asked for more. And last night my veggie-phobic toddler devoured some vegetable lasagna. I was so proud.

But this -- THIS made my heart swell: Miles’ friend C. came over one afternoon and asked if he could stay for dinner. Now, this kid’s poor mom has been known to make 3 separate entrees for her 3 children. So I said, “Sure! We’re having chickpea coconut curry over rice. If you’ll eat that, you can stay for dinner.”

C. looked skeptical. “What does it look like?” he asked warily.

I dished up a tiny serving and showed it to him. “That looks pretty good,” he said.

“Oh, it IS,” I assured him, hoping I wasn’t overselling it.

So I sat the kids down at the table and C. took a bite. “Mmm, I like this,” he said, sounding as surprised as I felt. “Will you tell my mom I tried something new?”

“I sure will. What a good eater you are, C!”

Not to be outdone, Miles chimed in, “I think it looks good, too, Mom.” Now, I can assure you that if it was just us, he would have a MUCH different reaction to his dinner. For once, peer pressure was working in my favor.

Meanwhile in his highchair, Riley was shouting, “CHICK-pea! CHICK-pea!” and popping them into his mouth one by one. I didn’t even care that he was picking around the tomatoes and scattering the rice all over the floor.

So what if dinner lasted only 7 minutes? So what if half an hour later the kids were begging for snacks? So what if they reject this exact same meal next week? At least it’s a start, right?

LINK O’ THE WEEK: Oprah did a show about her staff’s one-week vegan challenge. Did you see it? It was eye-opening in so many ways. There was a fast-food-addicted woman who said before this, she only pooped once a WEEK!!

Of course, the employee cafeteria was cooking up all sorts of delicious vegan meals for the staff, so that’s not much of a challenge. Come over and cook for me and I’ll eat as healthy as you want!

My favorite part was when the vegan expert took a lady shopping at Whole Foods and loaded her up with all this fancy health food -– never once mentioning that the contents of her shopping cart cost a FORTUNE! People call it “Whole Paycheck” for a reason, you know.