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By Mom Unplugged, August 13, 2007 11:00 am

This is old news now (about one week old) but I MUST blog about it. A study by Dr. Thomas Robinson, the director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Packard Children’s Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics and of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine has found that children ages 3 to 5 tend to prefer the taste of food that comes in a McDonald’s wrapper over identical food which does not.

Dr. Robinson’s research team gave 63 children, ages 3 to 5, the following foods: chicken nuggets, a hamburger, french fries (all from McDonald’s) as well as baby carrots and milk (from the grocery store). Each child received two portions of each food. One portion was wrapped in a McDonald’s wrapper or bag, the other was in a plain wrapper. The children overwhelmingly preferred the food in the McDonald’s wrapper over the identical food in the plain wrapper.

Dr. Robinson says:

“Kids don’t just ask for food from McDonald’s, they actually believe that the chicken nugget they think is from McDonald’s tastes better than an identical, unbranded nugget.”

Other interesting (and frightening) findings of the study are the following facts about the children:

- One third of the children ate at McDonald’s more than once a week.

- More than three-quarters had McDonald’s toys at home

- They had an average of 2.4 televisions in their homes

- More than one-half the children had a TV in their rooms! (Wow! These kids are only 3 to 5 years-old!!!)

Discussing his findings, which seem to link TV-viewing with a preference for McDonald’s, Dr. Robinson said:

“We found that kids with more TVs in their homes and those who eat at McDonald’s more frequently were even more likely to prefer the food in the McDonald’s wrapper. This is a company that knows what they’re doing. Nobody else spends as much to advertise their fast-food products to children.”

This frightening placebo effect of food preference in children seems to me to be yet another argument in favor of placing some sort of limit on food marketing to kids. If you want to read a bit more about about recent efforts to put limits on food ads targeted to kids, please read my June 25th post Food Marketing to Kids.

So, in case anyone still had a doubt, kids as young as ages 3 to 5 can be successfully “branded” by large corporations spending billions on TV advertising targeted at young viewers.

OK. On a lighter note, I think I’d better stock up on McDonald’s wrappers for a proper presentation of my A-list brussels sprouts to my children. “Hey kids, did you know McDonald’s now serves brussels sprouts? Yum!!!!!”

The study: Effects of Fast Food Branding on Young Children’s Taste Preferences appearing in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medecine, Vol. 161 No. 8, August 2007

(You can read an article about the study at the Washington Post online: Foods Taste Better With McDonald’s Logo, Kids Say.)

Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer spress for the “Good Food” photo.

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By Mom Unplugged, July 24, 2007 9:02 pm

I got the call…the day before I left on my trip…it was the CSA…I am in!!!! A half share! The fall harvest! First shipment the day I get back! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!

This came as a shock. I had been under the impression that not only was I not A-List Material at the present time, but I was on the W-List (as in the “What-Were-You-Thinking-Not-In-This-Lifetime-List;” or was that the “Wait-For-At-Least-Another-Year-Or-Two-Or-Maybe-When-Hell-Freezes-Over-List”).

No, I have not been conducting a systematic extermination of all those before me on the W-List. Nor have I been passing out bribes for volunteering to leave the list (although I did entertain that idea for a while). Apparently there is a teensy weensy chance that the CSA people might possibly have learned about my pathetic “A-List For Vegetables” post from a certain “Other A-Lister” (you know who you are) and either: 1) Felt very sorry for me, or 2) Become extremely concerned about my mental health, and bumped me up. I vote for the mental health issue. Or, maybe I was just higher on the list than I thought. Whatever the cause of my rapid rise to A-List Stardom, I am eternally grateful and soooo excited!

No more flaccid celery, puckered tomatoes, spongy zucchini, or dubious daikon. Apples will not be so shiny that I can use them to check for the remains of slimy lettuce between my teeth, and perhaps the apples might even have (gasp!!!)…AN IMPERFECTION.

On August 8th, 2007 a box of freshly picked produce will be lovingly delivered to my door and placed in my eager hands by the farmer himself. With bated breath I shall open the box to reveal all of Earth’s pristine bounty laid out before my eyes, the warm Arizona soil still clinging to crevices in the delicate pure and unadulterated flesh. I shall behold flawless treasures begging to be transformed into fresh and healthy gourmet meals for my little ones and me.

Of course my angels will love savoring exotic dishes of kohlrabi and endive. They will beg for seconds and thirds of swiss chard and turnips. I can hear it now: “Mama, Mama, PLEASE don’t make us eat that awful frozen pizza that we used to like so much!!! Can’t we have Bok Choi and Beetroot Goulash tonight instead?? Pleeeeeese!!!! Pretty pleeeeese????” Instead of Chicken Fingers and 7-Up, they will demand Okra Twizzles accompanied by Brussel Sprout Smoothies.

Well, maybe not. A bit of encouragement might be necessary. A Kids Cook Night Bok Choi and Beetroot Goulash perhaps? Recipe to follow shortly.

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By Mom Unplugged, June 30, 2007 9:43 am

When I think of the word sweet I first think of my children. But since they are only sweet some of the time, my next thought is of something that is always sweet: Moroccan Mint Tea.

If you have never had it, I can tell you that it is very minty and so sweet as to be almost syrupy. Yum! It is fun to make with kids, especially if they grow the mint themselves (my 5 year-old son grew this), or at least harvest it from the garden themselves.

It is traditionally served in a pretty, colorfully painted glass and is always offered to guests as a symbol of welcome.

Here is my rather more eclectic version made in a Japanese cast iron teapot with mint from my Arizona garden and served in a Swedish Ikea glass. But the tea still tasted very good, and very sweet!

Recipe (I can’t vouch for its authenticity, but it tastes pretty much like I remember it):

2 tsp. green tea leaves
1 bunch spearmint leaves
4 - 6 tsp sugar (I use 6)

Place tea leaves in pot. Warm teapot by quickly rinsing tea with some boiling water then drain off water right away (use strainer to catch tea and return to pot if no strainer in pot). Add mint leaves to the tea in pot. Pour in enough boiling water for two small glasses. Add sugar to taste. It should be very sweet. Pour into glass, return to pot and repeat a couple of times. Drink hot.

The mint in the garden:

The ingredients:

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By Mom Unplugged, June 25, 2007 10:46 am

Another good reason to unplug your kids is to reduce the amount of marketing that they are exposed to. One more interesting story on NPR this morning (in addition to the children’s book recommendations that I posted about here) is entitled: Child Obesity Concerns Prompt Shift in Food Ads.

The story quoted some frightening statistics: 2 to 7 year-olds see an average of 12 food ads per day (approximately 4,400 ads per year) and 8 to 12 year-olds see an average of 21 food ads per day (approximately 7,600 per year). Of course most of these ads promote candy, junky snacks, fast food, soda, and sugary cereals. (Kaiser Family Foundation study: Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States).

Much research has been done that establishes a link between childhood obesity and TV watching. The current thinking on this, is that it is not just the passive, sedentary nature of TV watching that contributes to obesity, but also the fact that the TV encourages children to want to consume the types of food that they see in the ads.

I am sure that this logic is debateable, however I would think that there would be very few parents who would object to a reduction in the marketing of unhealthy foods to their children, regardless of the reasoning behind that.

There is currently no legislation governing the marketing of food to children. The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a consumer advocacy group that is trying to convince food companies to stop marketing junk food to first graders. Apparently the FTC is also pressuring the major food manufacturers to limit their marketing of unhealthy food to kids.

Last fall, eleven food companies (including Kraft, Kellogg’s, Coke, and General Mills) agreed to voluntarily limit the marketing money they spend on unhealthy ads and use more of that money to promote healthier foods. I do not know if there is any proposed timetable for the change, and having no TV I can’t say if there is a noticeable change in the types of food ads kids see (cynical me suspects not).

The food companies are worried that if they don’t set some voluntary guidelines for themselves, there will certainly be legislative, or even court action. Such non-voluntary restrictions might be stricter than limits the companies could set voluntarily now.

Stay tuned. I imagine that we shall be hearing more about this in the coming months. In the meantime, consider ad-avoidance another HUGE benefit of unplugging your kids!

To hear this interesting story in full, click here.

Photo courtesy of morguefile.com and photographer ppdigital.

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By Mom Unplugged, May 19, 2007 8:00 am

Kids cook idea: dinosaur pancakes. These fun molds (and other shapes too) are widely available from cooking stores and catalogs. They make cooking fun for kids. And of course a dinosaur pancake tastes MUCH better than an ordinary round one.