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37 Pounds Of Love

This mom is not dishing on her kid’s food habits today. Instead, I am hoping to relieve moms of the new social mindset that pregnant women should sport a bump—and only a bump—during the most beautiful nine months of their lives.

In recent years, pregnancy has become fashionable—an accessory to flaunt. With all the attention on celebrity pregnancies, of course, weight gain and weight loss post-delivery have surged into the spotlight. At times, it can seem like a competition between who can gain the least amount of weight and lose it quickly afterward. (I believe it was Bethenny Frankel who lost 30 pounds in less than a month and Rachel Zoe who limited her weight gain to between 12 and 15 pounds.)

As I walk through the streets of Manhattan, I see pregnant women strolling around the city sporting their baby bump—so cute. Women looked beautiful with their bumps even before it was a trend—before it was more fashionable than the label on their mom jeans.

And while pregnancy is supposed to give women that inexplicable glow, now, pregnancy is more about how much weight you didn’t gain.

Because of my profession, but also as a woman living in a trend-driven urban center, I see and hear it all the time: women who worry that they’re gaining too much weight and who don’t understand why they gained 20 pounds when their best girlfriend only gained 15. As a RD, CDE, I have a special understanding that what we feed ourselves affects our unborn child. I understand that an increase in blood sugar puts the baby at risk for high blood sugar too.

For these reasons, when we talk about a healthy weight for pregnancy, I encourage pregnant women to focus on self-care—eating a balanced intake of food and reaching for more if and when you are in fact hungry for more.

Pregnancy should be about you and your baby, not about restricting your intake to flaunt the latest vogue, be it crop tops or jeggings below your bump. Because if we aren’t careful, pregnancy could become one of the many factors that trigger an eating disorder, which would be an absolute waste of one of the most magical aspects of being a woman.

As there are risks to restricting your intake, there are equal risks to over-consuming during pregnancy. Just so you know, I was told I had gained too much weight during a few weigh-ins during both pregnancies. (FYI, they don’t weigh pregnant women in Europe).

In my case, I knew I couldn’t eat less. I was active during both pregnancies and practiced Pilates and yoga until right before I delivered. I ate carbs, proteins and fats, gaining about 37 pounds in the process. During each pregnancy, I carried differently, felt differently and gained the weight at different times.

The result? Today, I’m fortunate to have two healthy boys. They weighed about 6.12 pounds each at birth. I lost the weight slowly over a nine-month period for my first boy, while the second pregnancy took longer—about 12 months to lose the weight and another 6 months to get my tummy toned again. You don’t need to eat without regard, but you definitely need to be mindful of how you nourish, honor and work with whatever changes your body endures during and after pregnancy.

Ironically, I bumped into a colleague last week—a physician. She is pregnant with her second child and this time gained 60 pounds and developed gestational diabetes.  So you see, we are all susceptible to certain health conditions during pregnancy.

When people ask me how much I gained during my pregnancies because they feel guilty about having gained more than their friends or certain celebrities, I tell them that they need to recognize that their body and baby is their ultimate responsibility.  Moms: Don’t feel pressured to be a super skinny during your pregnancy. Enjoy this 9 to 10 month period that you will never get back. Feed yourself moderately and love your body. Pregnancy can be one of the most special periods in your life if you embrace it. And if you really don’t enjoy being pregnant, that’s OK as well. Just make sure you feed yourself appropriately throughout.

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Guest Blog: Using Words, Not Food to Help Kids Communicate

Helping Our Kids to Identify Their Feelings:

Anonymous

One of the things I appreciate most about Laura’s blog is the honesty she demonstrates in discussing the difficulties of applying her professional body of knowledge to real life situations that affect her children. As a psychotherapist, I can very much relate with that struggle.

As parents, I find that it’s important to help our children to put their feelings into words and to understand and identify their feelings during any given situation. The world can be an overwhelming place for children. Honestly, it can be overwhelming for adults too. Yet children, unlike adults, are challenged with a limited frame of reference, making it particularly difficult for them to govern their present experiences by past ones.

Children need adults as teachers to help them narrate life, especially early on, so that they can learn to identify their emotions. By helping them to do this, we can hope to gain a better understanding of what they are feeling.

Earlier this week, for example, my daughter Rachel expressed that she had a great time during a play date with a new friend. As we were leaving, however, she started to act out, putting her shoes on and kicking them off, which she did about three times. Then she relaxed all the muscles in her foot so we couldn’t get her shoe on at all. And then her sock came off. She was laughing the entire time this was happening, while I was most definitely not.

It felt to me like Rachel was intentionally making it impossible for us to leave, so I said to her, “Boy, someone had so much fun they don’t want to leave and go home!” And with that, like Cinderella, I was magically able to slip her sock and shoe on. Rachel grabbed her backpack and said goodbye to her friend without creating a fuss. As I saw it, once she understood what she was feeling, she no longer needed to act it out.

Something else I try to do is to let Rachel know what I’m feeling internally when I’m having a rough day or losing my footing. When she tests my patience or disregards what I am saying, I verbalize my frustration and express my waning tolerance.

I also do my best to explain to her why I say the things I say (I was feeling tired) and apologize if it’s appropriate. As Harry Stack Sullivan wrote, “We are all much more simply human than otherwise,” and I think it’s more than okay to let our kids see that too.

A great resource for helping children identify their feelings is “The Way I feel Books,” by Cornelia Maude Spellman. In it, Cornelia writes about anger, sadness and jealousy in a way that makes it easy for children to understand and relate to.

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The Pursuit of Happiness and Health

This time of year is crazy for me, as I’m sure it is for many parents. There’s the holidays, both boys’ birthdays, volunteer work, Mom dinner nights (where all the classroom moms go to dinner), and of course, the never ending effort to feed our kids healthfully yet moderately through the holiday season.

Herein, a glance at some of the recent accomplishments and challenges on the home front.

Thanksgiving (without turkey)

So I decided not to bring any food for my boys to my sister’s house on Thanksgiving. This year, they would eat a Thanksgiving dinner or nothing at all. As expected, when it came time for the turkey, Bobby asked for mac and cheese. I held strong and said no, I will not make mac and cheese.

After careful consideration, he instead asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Damn, he is clever! I stood my ground though and told him to ask his father. So much for that plan; my husband then asked me.

Not wanting to create a scene on Thanksgiving, my husband eventually caved and made both boys a good old PB n’ J for Thanksgiving dinner. To be clear, while the rest of the family (and country, for that matter) scarfed down turkey and stuffing, my boys ate PB n’ J.

As a dietitian, this is an obvious dilemma. As a mom, though, I know that I have to pick my battles—a tactic that, this time, definitely worked. Bobby showed his effort to participate in the family meal by eating a small piece of cucumber. (Thank goodness for my one lick rule!) And Billy, without being prompted, asked to try a bite of pumpkin pie. See? Miracles do happen. J (By the way, Billy didn’t like the fresh whipped cream and wouldn’t eat the crust, but he did enjoy two forkfuls of pumpkin pie filling.)

Clementines

Clementines are back in season, and I absolutely love them. I added a few segments to the boys’ plates, and this is what happened. Bobby licked his clementine and approved of its taste. Still, he didn’t end up eating it because he hated the texture. Billy, on the other hand, licked his clementine and immediately gave up. For now, he’ll stick to dried mango.

Strawberries

Two years after first tasting (and enjoying) one, Bobby informed me that he likes strawberry smoothies. He specifically recalls liking the one he made in nursery school two years ago!

Naturally, I immediately went out and bought frozen strawberries to make smoothies. Voila! It seems that both boys love eating strawberries—so long as they’re pulverized into a thick, icy drink. Turns out my kids have issues with the textures of certain foods. C’est la vie.

So as you see, while the boys may not have munched on turkey slices this November or fully swallowed a slice of Clementine, they, along with their picky palates, are beginning to expand. For now, flavors of foods are more easily accepted then certain textures (see above: Clementine), but it remains a work in progress.

I wonder what we’ll discover at their big birthday party this weekend! Stay tuned!

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Should You Buy That Organic Turkey?

Organic Food: To Buy or Not To Buy

On the quest to nourish our kids, the word “organic” has become a primary focus for many of us moms. Yet, despite all of the regulatory hype you read about in the papers and online, organic standards are far from universal. In fact, they can be downright confusing unless you aced high school biology or are familiar with foreign regulation policy, ultimately raising the question: When we dish out extra dough to buy organic, are we getting what we paid for? I hope to answer some of these questions for you here.

According to the USDA, there are six countries and 40-plus programs that meet the national standards of certification based on a list of regulated chemicals and ingredients that can be used on crops. And as long as the food in question is given the green light by the National Organics Standards Board, then you should generally feel confident in the integrity of the product despite its place of origin.

Imported products that are pre-certified as organic prior to entering the country, however, are another story. In this case, food exporters have the option of working with the USDA and their homeland government to certify products as organic, and quality control can become a problem.

In the absence of proper standards, we become susceptible to “organic fraud,” and it can affect shoppers from Wal-Mart to Trader Joes and Whole Foods, all of who carry imported snacks and canned foods. Despite USDA-approved foreign organic inspectors, pesticide testing isn’t required on many of these products—in ’06, less than two percent were examined.

European standards are somewhat similar to those established in the United States, prohibiting the use of many of the same chemicals and antibiotics come harvest. Not all nations are as strict as those in Europe though, including Brazil, Sierra Leone and China. In China, for example, organic products sell for nearly five times the price of non-organic food, increasing manufacturer’s incentives to commit organic-fraud.

So, as a mom, how can you be sure that the can of soup or that box of cereal really is 100 percent organic?

Some specialty food stores, like Trader Joes and Whole Foods, are taking measures to visit their vendors in foreign nations to ensure they meet proper standards. Both markets also voluntarily label the country-of-origin on their packaging so that the consumer can be sure of where their food is coming from. Stores such as Wal-Mart are yet to go to these lengths.

Shopping at smaller, specialty stores, and looking for the US stamp of approval, are good places to start. Scrutinize the organic certifications just as you would any nutrition label, accounting for organic indications as you would calories and sugar. And remember, it’s not the end of the world if something turns out to be non-organic. Because, between our kids, our jobs, and whatever slim social life we have, we can’t always be super-mom. But we can certainly try and hope that buying organic will promote sustainable farming and the message that moms want chemical free food for our kids.

 

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Who are our children's role models?

Many of my clients, friends, and even the media magazines having been featuring certain celebs as scary skinny and or commenting on their recent weight loss. Everyone goes thru times and life changes that may cause one to use counterproductive “coping skills” such as restriction or binging. Most people have been touched by this is some shape or form. However, most celebs are not promoting their dieting. If you are in the media I do believe if you want to discuss nutrition and advocate for that, you should be mindful how people will read and or hear it. And also how they see your visual. This is a very fine line. Here is an honest reaction to a reality tv celeb. As parents, think about who are your role models and who are your children’s role models? What are they advocating?

goodandbrokenn.blogspot.com

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Guest Blog: Guidelines for Feeding Kids

Dear Readers,

I asked foodie, mother and blogger, Alissa Stoltz to share her food wisdom. Alissa has a great understanding of nutrition. She left the NYC corporate world few years ago to raise her two beautiful daughters in a simply wholesome  and nutritious way. In addition to being a fabulous mother, Alissa has also been blogging recipes she uses to feed her family. 

Guest Blog by Alissa Stoltz, The Simply Wholesome Kitchen

Being a food blogger can be a bit of a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it has provided such a great platform for me to share my views and hopefully inspire some others to get in the kitchen and make simple, real food.  But on the other hand, people often ask me for advice, expecting that I know the secret to feeding gourmet, perfectly balanced meals to enthusiastic toddlers every night!  Unfortunately, the reality is that even someone as committed to wholesome cooking as me experiences PLENTY of challenges.  Like the fact that my toddler won’t eat a single vegetable other than spinach (I know, I’m lucky about the spinach, but not even a carrot??).  Or the nights that I get home to an empty kitchen at 5:15 and have 15 minutes to plan and get some dinner on the table.  Fortunately, since my older daughter was born almost 3 years ago, I’ve been absorbing the advice of dieticians, foodies, sociologists, and, of course, my fellow bloggers to come up with a few guiding principles for feeding my kids in a way that I feel mostly good about most of the time.

1. Hungry children will eat when offered food.  This is really important, because I hear all of the time that “my kid won’t eat anything other than [insert processed, high fat, high sugar, high sodium food here].”  But in reality, most normal, healthy kids (without sensory issues, allergies, etc.) will not starve themselves because they do not like what you served for dinner.  If your child will only eat 1 or 2 things, you have to ask yourself how they learned it was an option to only eat those things?  So my approach is to serve a meal, and my toddler has the choice to eat or not eat.  Sounds great, but I cannot tell you how many times she has gotten to the table and burst into tears as if I was trying to force her to eat something out of a horror movie, even when presenting a meal that she previously loved.  This is unbelievably frustrating, but in the end, it’s is also why I don’t make anything that my husband and I won’t eat as well – it’s bad enough to have your child refuse to eat your food, but it’s even worse if you went to special effort just for them and then are rejected.  But before you think I’m totally mean, if I am serving a food that might be new or challenging for my daughter, I always make sure I am serving something that she generally likes as part of the meal (e.g., bread, pasta, or fruit).  This way I know I’m not torturing her by making her feel like she has to choose between starving and eating something she really doesn’t want, but I am also not giving her an “out” and adding to my own frustration by becoming a short-order cook.  I also try to eat with my kids as much as possible – I have found a dramatic improvement in my toddler’s willingness to at least try new foods when I’m at the table eating the same things.  And in the end, if she takes two bites (or no bites!) of a meal and tells me she’s done, I have to respect that and trust that if she was really hungry, she’d find something on her plate to fill up on.  And if she’s really not hungry or willing to eat what’s on the table, there’s always the next meal or snack!

2. NOT offering UNHEALTHY foods is as important as offering healthy foods.  Of course we all want our kids to eat lots of fruits and veggies and other healthy foods.  And some of us will be lucky enough to have truly adventurous eaters.  But the rest of us will have to deal with kids who avoid entire food groups, change their minds about what they like on a daily basis, refuse to eat something if it looks slightly different than what they’re used to, or are generally finicky about eating.  Food manufacturers know how to engineer foods that are easy to like, and that makes these foods easy to feed our kids, since they will very rarely complain about chips, pretzels, mac & cheese, chicken nuggets, etc.  But going back to guideline #1, if you fall into the trap of giving your kids these foods on a regular basis, they could quickly become the “only” food they’ll eat without a fuss, and even worse they may learn to hold out and refuse to eat their meals because an easier option is just a few minutes away.  So it’s not enough to just offer good foods at meal times and let kids fill up on junky snacks in between, or to offer a side of broccoli with the mac & cheese that will go untouched.   It’s just as important to make sure processed foods with minimal nutritional benefit are only an occasional option – that way you know that whenever they DO get hungry and decide to eat, they’ll have no choice but to eat something you feel good about!

3. Find a way to feed your kids healthy foods that is sustainable for YOU.  If cooking is not your thing, don’t try to be Martha Stewart!  I think the reason some people avoid cooking is because they think they need to put together elaborate, gourmet feasts every time, and that is way too much pressure.  Everything doesn’t have to be the best meal you’ve ever tasted, or the most beautiful – there’s really a lot of room for error in cooking, and you are doing your family such a huge favor by choosing to try rather than depending on processed, prepared foods.  Start by making a list of easy meals that you can easily stock the ingredients for and require no planning – my favorites are eggs (mix in some frozen chopped spinach or other veggie, or serve with a fruit or veggie on the side and some whole grain toast) or whole wheat pasta (take a bag of frozen broccoli or mixed veggies and add to the pasta water 2-3 minutes before it’s done cooking).   Every once in a while, try a simple new recipe (meals like tacos and baked ziti are generally big hits with kids!), maybe on the weekends when you have some time.  As you get better, build a repertoire of easy meals that you can rotate through – with some practice it becomes much easier to have the right ingredients on hand to throw together a dish your family will enjoy with minimal time and effort.

And don’t forget about the snacks!  Start by keeping your home stocked with healthy snacks like fresh, dried, and frozen fruit (my toddler loves to eat frozen blueberries!), veggies with hummus, ranch dressing or dip, nuts, seeds, whole grain crackers (read ingredient lists here to avoid too much filler and pretend whole grains!), cheese, plain yogurt and some whole grain pretzels.  If you’re interested, you could try some baking – I make mini-muffins, granola and nut bars, and whole grain pancakes and waffles to keep in my freezer.  A batch of muffins can be done in under 30 minutes and makes two dozen toddlers-sized snacks for whenever I need them!

4. Patience, patience, patience!  It takes time to learn how plan meals, it takes a million tries for some kids to even lick a new food, and it takes an infinite amount of patience to feed finicky kids who seem genetically programmed to declare UNHEALTHY new foods delicious, and HEALTHY new foods yucky.  Maybe by the time my kids go to college I’ll have this whole feeding thing figured out, but in the mean time, having some basic guidelines that make me feel like I’m doing a decent job trying to feed them most of the time is going to have to be enough!

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Finding Time for Family Meals

It’s important to have family meals as often as possible. There’s little doubt that children benefit from quality mealtime, home cooked meals, balanced menus, role modeling and exposure to new flavors. But let’s face it: Parents who lead busy urban lives can’t always make this happen.

Have I ever skipped a family meal? Guilty as charged. Despite the fact that it’s my professional duty to discourage others from doing so on a regular basis, many times, family meals just aren’t realistic. Both my husband and I, for example, work late several nights a week (I’ve recently cut back from three to two nights a week in the office), and between social events (whether professional, academic or with friends) and our own date nights, Sunday and Monday are the only days left where we can consistently sit down for family meals.

I try to practice this reasoning as a professional RD and am realistic regarding other New Yorker’s lifestyles as well as my own. Overall, I believe in looking at the whole picture when it comes to how we choose to raise our kids, and in my own household, the time we spend together is about quality, not quantity.

Does this make my husband and I—and other fellow socially and professionally active parents—irresponsible? No. But when I started Mom Dishes It Out, I promised to give you honest accounts of my family’s experiences in the kitchen. So I’m telling it to you straight; whether I applaud this type of behavior or not, this is my reality.

Rise and Shine: Breakfast

My boys, Billy and Bobby, have fallen into the pattern of eating breakfast on the couch while ogling their favorite TV shows. I know: I should probably lie here. Food in the living room? As an RD, I’m like my own worst nightmare.

Hubby is already working when we wake up on school days, so most mornings, I’ll try to sit with the boys during breakfast on the couch. Sometimes we move to the dining room table. Sometimes we don’t.

On weekends, we eat breakfast as a family—a habit we try to maintain. We’ll make organic whole grain pancakes and eat them together at the table—well, most of the time. On Sunday, my husband takes over as chef and cooks up a healthy omelet, or the kids and I stick to cereal and yogurt. Either way, we try to use this time to expose the boys to a balanced menu of delicious and wholesome morning foods like eggs, veggies, lox, cheeses, breads and hot sauce—even if they only lick them.

Midday Meal: Lunch

The boys obviously eat lunch at school. Unlike most cafeterias that are filled with chips, candy and donuts, both Billy and Bobby’s schools do not provide lunch. Thank goodness.

I’m the gatekeeper of their lunches, and I take this opportunity to pack their bags with nutritious meals and snacks based on my own judgments. Better yet, their schools encourage parents to supply healthful foods, so my kids are less likely to be exposed to cookies and chips as snacks. If yours are, it’s not the end of the world.

Nighttime Noshing: Dinner

Dinner with the dietitian can be limited since, as I said, my evening schedule is pretty packed. Twice weekly, I’m in the office until 9:30 meeting clients who can’t see me during the workday. The nights I’m not able to eat at home are somewhat nondescript. Billy and Bobby chomp down their dinner on the couch while watching television or sitting with their caregiver at the dining room table. It’s nothing spectacular, and I’m really just concerned with making sure they eat a semi-nutritious meal.

We try to reserve Sunday and Monday to eat dinner together as a family. During a typical family dinner, the kids eat their preferred foods while my hubby and I stick to ours. (I’ve yet to convince the boys that salmon with wheat berries and grilled asparagus is more enticing than grilled chicken.)

Since Billy and Bobby typically get hungry before us, they usually eat dinner earlier in the evening and then continue to nosh on a light snack (if they’re still hungry) with their dad and I at the dinner table. And trust me, we make the most of our time together.

How often do you sit down with your kids for a family dinner? Are there some meals that are easier than others to eat together? Do your kids eat the same dinner as you do, or do you cook (or serve) separate meals?

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Mom Jeans

When I think of mom jeans, I think of my mom’s jeans. I honestly don’t know any young moms wearing those jeans. You know – the ones that SNL did a skit on. They make our butts look square, are high waisted and not are not found in the department store. My favorite jeans are AG, and JBrand, but my sister did tell me my butt looks like my mothers. Not sure what to think about that.

We all different bodies and different jeans fit us. Like anything else, moms must embrace their bodies especially during pregnancy and after. I found this great blog entry for moms out there wearing what they call :mom jeans.”

http://www.blogher.com/frame.php?url=http://elizabethhallmagill.wordpress.com/2011

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One Lick Rule

So the RD in me knows that you’re not supposed to force a child to eat something that they find icky or are completely uninterested in. But as a mom, there are times when I simply can’t fathom allowing Billy and Bobby to declare that they don’t like a food they’ve never tried. (You’ll have to recognize that since I work with many clients who struggle with eating disorders, I’m particularly determined to ensure that my own kids never feel as though they’re deprived.)

To be fair, I’m not referring to some obscure super-nut from Brazil. I’m not even asking them to try some meaty or fishy flavor like beef or salmon. For the purposes of today’s blog, all I wanted was a little bite of a cucumber. Apparently, even that was too ambitious.

For a while, I was using what I like to call the “one bite” rule. You’re probably familiar with it, when you set the precedent that your child must take a small bite of food—just enough to get a taste. The problem is when they have to swallow or even put the new food in their mouths (my boys).

So instead, I tried tweaking the one bite rule to allow Billy and Bobby to spit out foods they didn’t like. This works well for many of my clients. However with my boys it was still a relentless effort as they spit everything out or again will not even put the food in their mouths.

Now, I’ve moved on to the one lick rule—a tactical technique I’m quickly falling in love with. Whereas a bite of food can seem overwhelming and forceful to a child, apparently, my kids are much more willing to lick things. Who knew?

This past weekend, we were away in Hamptons. After a nice nature walk, the boys and I had worked up quite an appetite, and since I didn’t pack lunch or snacks (I normally do since, ideally, a hike would present the perfect opportunity to introduce foods like trail mix or a new fruit), we somehow ended up, to the boys’ contentment, at a pizzeria.

Of course, Bobby didn’t just want a slice of pizza; he also pointed to a brownie in the showcase and decided that he wanted that too. (Remember: Everything in moderation.) I told the boys they could share the brownie after they’d eaten (not finished) their pizza.

My husband and I, on the other hand, ordered a salad and pizza topped with veggies. The salad was by no means nutritious or fancy (it was made with iceberg lettuce, olives, locally grown tomatoes, cucumbers and homemade dressing), but it was nevertheless amazingly delicious for a simple pizzeria salad.

Naturally, my husband and I offered the boys some veggies from our plate, to which they matter-of-factly replied, “No.” Of course they said no. When it comes to vegetables, they always say no.

Implementing my new theory, I replied: “Well, how about just licking a cucumber slice.” They did.

The results? Billy scrunched his nose, while Bobby didn’t protest. And when they didn’t erupt in tears, the mommy in me—not the RD—decided to ask the boys to eat a very small piece of cucumber.

I proceeded to cut half of one piece into quarters and told Billy and Bobby that they needed to eat a tiny sliver if they wanted their brownie. I know this sounds wrong. But as mom, I have to think that if I don’t push—at least sometimes—my kids may never get past licking new foods to a place where they’re comfortable eating them. Also, they need to eat foods with higher nutrition most of the time and less nutrition less of the time.

Bobby obliged and ate the cucumber without a fuss. (By the way, he also happily licked a shard of lettuce too.) He made a face, but he ate it; and while he didn’t seem to enjoy the quarter-of-a-half-of-a-cucumber-slice, he didn’t seem to hate it either. Small success? I think so.

As planned, after finishing most of his pizza, I gave Bobby his portion of the brownie. He ate about a quarter of it before losing interest. (I wrapped up the rest of the brownie for Bobby and snuck it into his snack bag Monday morning. He told me he didn’t want it—so I ate it!)

Unlike Bobby, Billy made faces and squirmed in a terribly dramatic fashion. Sometimes I think he likes to make a fuss for attention and control. He tossed the licked cucumber back into the salad, slobber and all, and cleverly dropped pieces on the floor. I think, in total, he ate one of the cucumber quarters. All we could do was minimize how much attention we gave him.

Billy went on to eat the entire pizza slice plus a few more bites of another, as well as half of his brownie. He gave the remaining half back to me and hasn’t asked for it since. (Good thing, since I also ate his leftovers last night.)

So, for better or for worse, I made the boys lick and then eat a tiny piece of cucumber.  As any good RD would, I attempted to maintain as neutral an environment as possible during the entire fiasco, ignoring their actions and instead continuing in our conversation.

This week, I plan to pick up more cucumbers at the market.  While I won’t make the boys eat (or lick) a piece, I will put them on the table so that they continue to gain exposure to the foods they don’t typically nosh on.

Have you ever tried the “one bite” or “one lick” rule? Which seemingly normal and neutral foods do your children refuse to eat, and how have you overcome their behavior? 

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Yummy for the Tummy and Allergy Free

Living with food allergies can be challenging but it doesn’t have to be boring. The boys and I took a walk to the lower east side to test taste the Famous Baby Cakes’ sweet somethings! Baby Cakes NYC is certified Kosher, parave and vegan. They are happy to overnight you their yummies. They have bakeries in NYC, LA and at the Walt Disney World Resort. Bobby, Billy and I loved the chocolate chop cookies and banana bread. Second place was the donut and third place was the cupcake. Baby Cakes also has a cookbook available if you want to try the recipes at home!! If not you can always check out the magazine Living Without for other delicious allergen free recipes.

Baby Cakes donut