Food - a child's best weapon

Cranberries - a real super food

I have dealt with the kids food preferences previously on this blog (or the lack thereof) and the struggle is ongoing, slow, but progressing. Ziv is no longer examining every piece of tomato, sweet pepper or carrot minutely before he takes a bite, and today he takes normal-sized bites from the sticks I cut for them, from initially spending 20 minutes getting a carrot stick down in millimetre bites. He has also taken our talks about the importance of nutrition when you are a growing boy to his heart, and many are the family meals spent discussing what is healthy and what is less healthy to eat. However, tomato/pepper/carrot is as far as it goes so far, and to get him to try other new things is equivalent to achieving world peace.

While Ziv actually eats the things he likes without too much encouragement, Gal is still often not even eating the things he do like, however, it is easier to get Gal to try new things. Several days we learned that Gal did not eat his lunch at the kindergarten, or he only ate the couscous, and not the chicken and the soup or whatever was served. If he was mine, I would never tolerate that from a kindergarten that is supposed to care for my kid, but honestly, if he was mine, I don't think they would have that problem anyway. Some days he did not eat the pita we sent with him for the morning meal either, later claiming that he does not like full-grain pita. That is complete crap and merely a power trip, since he has no problem eating full-grain pita during our evening meals together. The parents have surrendered once more and started sending him away with the terrible white buns that contains less nutrients that the paper they are wrapped in. And I count to 10...

However, the other day we enjoyed a small victory when we got him to taste the dried cranberries, claiming it is candy. He liked them a lot, and he also really likes walnuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds, so from now on, he gets a small bag of nuts, seeds and cranberries with him for the morning meal in the kindergarten, and he actually eats it. I guess his small body is in total shock from the overflow of nutrients and antioxidants...