Sneaky Chef Cookbook Review
Former Eating Well Publisher Tells How to Get Kids to Eat Veggies
May 11, 2007
Whenever a mother claims, "Oh my son just loves to snack on edamame," or "My daughter can't get enough broccoli," you can bet that one of three things is true. One, the child isn't old enough to speak in full sentences yet. Two, the child is an only child. Three, the mother lies.
As any parent of more than one child knows, it isn't easy to get kids to eat vegetables. Oh sure, you can hoodwink your two-year-old into gobbling up broccoli trees, especially if they're covered with ranch dressing. And you may even get your four-year-old to eat zucchini. But the moment they get to school, all bets are off.
Even kids who don't know what Brussels sprouts look like profess to hate them, just by absorbing their friends' attitudes toward vegetables. Maybe that's why subsequent children seem to eat fewer vegetables and new foods than first-borns.
Such was Missy Chase Lapine's experience. Despite having been publisher of Eating Well magazine and understanding intimately what kids should be eating, despite offering her kids a variety of vegetables on a regular basis, despite preparing those vegetables in many different ways, and despite modeling good vegetable-eating behavior, she was faced with a stubborn picky eater when her second child turned two-and-a-half.
Even worse: The two-year-old ended up influencing the older child, who subsequently refused to eat all the wonderful healthy foods she had enjoyed before.
The Sneaky Chef Approach
Chase ended up devising a clever strategy: Making fruit and vegetables purees and hiding them in kid-friendly foods. That's the essence of her new book, The Sneaky Chef.
For example, her Orange Puree (a mix of cooked sweet potato and carrots) effortlessly gets hidden in french toast, macaroni and cheese, pizza bagels, quesadillas, and more.
Her Purple Puree, a mix of baby spinach and fresh blueberries, gets hidden in brownies, chocolate chip pancakes, burgers and cookies.
What's to Like About The Sneaky Chef
The best part about the book is the truly original approach. It's not only creative, but the recipes actually taste good. The mac and cheese, laced with Lapine's Orange Puree, has a subtly sweet flavor that actually enhances the dish, whether you're into hiding vegetables or not.
Plus, giving children nutrient-packed foods like these on a regular basis will no doubt help their vegetable-appreciating palates develop, even if they aren't aware of it.
What The Sneaky Chef Isn't
Still, The Sneaky Chef isn't an end-all, be-all solution for all parents of all kids. Some kids will still stubbornly refuse Lapine's nutrient-packed recipes, even if the vegetables are undetectable to the naked eye.
And The Sneaky Chef isn't a terrific solution for parents of older children whose palates are already used to macaroni and cheese from the yellow box and chicken nuggets from McDonald's. These kids will likely detect the difference in flavor.
Finally, critics may argue that The Sneaky Chef doesn't get kids to appreciate vegetables in their purest form. Those critics obviously don't have children (or if they do, their kids are fully grown).
Yes, in a perfect world, 15 introductions of cauliflower prepared in a variety of ways would get a kid to like it. In the real world, though, that doesn't always happen.
Sure, keep introducing cauliflower and all the other vegetables you want your kids to like. But while they're feeding those vegetables to the dog, you can rest easy knowing that they're still getting a good meal if you feed them the Sneaky recipes. They'll like what they're eating, and you can relax.
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