Don't Tell The Kids!

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I am continually amazed by the efforts to which food manufacturers -- and this country's educational system in general -- go to delude, deceive, disguise, and otherwise pretend that things aren't what they are.

Take nutrition, for example.  The current First Lady, Michelle Obama, is setting a fine example in starting her own vegetable garden at the White House, and tackling childhood obesity.  A wonderful ambition aimed at improving health across the country, and with it, perhaps cut the spiraling costs of medical delivery.  Yet, in today's paper, there is an article on Kraft having joined the ranks of companies such as ConAgra and Chef Boyardee in adding veggies to their packaged products, such as the latest addition of cauliflower to their Mac & Cheese.  But "Don't tell the kids!" was the line after that.

Indeed, efforts abound to hide vegetables from children, the argument being that they will not eat the favored Mac & Cheese if they knew veggies were lurking inside.  What abomination!  How is it possible that we are raising a crop of people who are taught and encouraged to dislike vegetables?  Why are people claiming - in all sincerity -- that French fries are their vegetables?  Why are spinach and okra, corn and tomatoes, despised in their natural form, and are made to take on such weird forms before they are consumed, e.g., spaghetti sauce in a jar, corn as tortillas, spinach as a dip with more cheese than spinach, eaten with corn chips.

I do have one answer: vegetables have gotten a bad rap because for decades, they have been presented as steamed, presumably in an effort to cut fat and thus calories.  But steamed vegetables have no taste, no flavor, and are a big reason for people's distaste for them, like the child on the TV commercial who secretly passes off his broccoli to the dog under the table, or the V8 commercial for people who think vegetables taste "too vegetably."  Hmm.

I have written before about the Mediterranean Diet, a diet rich in all forms of vegetables, olive oil, fish and grains.  This diet is not only exalted as one of the healthiest in the world, but also as one of the tastiest.  Children in the Mediterranean region are taught from early age to love vegetables in all their varieties, but those vegetables are also prepared in creative ways, are tasty grilled, roasted, pureed, and are always well seasoned and palatable.

It might be challenging at first to reeducate one's palate, but it would also be eminently worthwhile to learn how to prepare a gumbo with okra, fresh sweet corn and farm tomatoes, adding some sausage and chicken for additional flavor.  Why not take this on as a challenge?  Vegetables tasting "too vegetably"?  Gimme more!