Seinfeld - Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food

Foreword
by Dr. Roxana Mehran and Dr. Mehmet Oz

How-To

Cooking Rice, Pasta, Chicken, and Beef

I T IS 7 A.M. and I am almost late for my early morning meeting at the hospital, but I am also concerned about getting my three girls ready for school and making sure their first meal of the daybreakfastis a healthy one. Are they getting enough fiber and vitamins? Is there too much fat or sugar in their food? Later that morning, as I see my first patient, a thirty-five-year-old obese diabetic who is about to undergo a procedure to open blocked arteries, I am reminded of how important it is to protect my young girls from heart disease.

My colleague and friend, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a heart surgeon at Columbia University and a longtime advocate for healthy livingas well as a father of fourhas the same concerns for his family. As physicians who care for heart disease patients, we have witnessed and treated too many young patients with early blockages of the arteries.

Our heart disease patients are heavier, and also younger, than they have ever been. This pattern is disturbing, and our children are at risk of living shorter lives than their parents. We know that this disease is largely preventable through a healthful diet and as doctors, it is our job to educate and teach our patients ways to improve their lives. As parents, we know how important it is to teach our children good habits early on.

Ironically, most people are actually aware of the fundamentals of a healthy diet and the necessity of eating more vegetables and fruits while avoiding too much starch, sugar, and saturated fat. Yet having fruits and vegetables every day and breaking long-standing dietary habits seem to be the greatest challenges people face.

The fact is that the consumption of vegetables is the cornerstone of any diet, be it cardiovascular, diabetic, or weight loss. While its the basis of vegetarian diets, as well as Mediterranean and other region-specific diets, it is not a part of our national way of eating. Thats unfortunate: vegetables and fruits contain many vitamins, minerals, and fibernutrients that strengthen our bodies and help them grow in a healthy way.

Weve all had the experience of arguing with our children over eating their vegetables, and the resulting frustration is enough to make us want to give up altogether. Thats where Deceptively Delicious comes in. These wonderful recipes introduce our childrens taste buds to the good, healthy foods, but kids still get to eat the foods they love. Later, as they grow, they will want healthy vegetables on their own, since, for years, they had their chicken nuggets coated with them already!

Jessica Seinfeld addresses the heart of the problem: its practical implementation. She simplifies the dilemma of how to start by telling us exactly which kitchen supplies we need and showing us tricks for preparing meals simply and efficiently. Daily routines are not disturbed, while the dedicated time for this effort is minimized. It is clear to us that the benefits clearly outweigh the work that goes into feeding your family.

This book is an innovative approach to feeding our children healthful foods at an early age without added stress for either parents or children. It also speaks for the quest of a dedicated mother: the author. She has explored every possible solution in order to do the right thing for her family, and she felt compelled to share her rewarding findings with the world. She has done all the work, and now we can benefit from her efforts. Her simple, practical ideaand its effective implementationimpressed us. We hope many other parents will read this book and take its information to heart when cooking family meals.

I had begun to dread mealtime.

I had tried everything, and yet all my efforts to feed my family were being undermined by a powerful force: vegetables. Mealtimes were reduced to a constant pushing and pulling, with me forever begging my kids to eat their vegetables, and them protesting unhappily. Instead of laughing and having fun with my family, I was irritated and stressed as I labored to coerce them to eat food they found disgusting. I couldnt take it anymore. I just wanted a little peace around the dinner table.

Then, one evening while I was cooking dinner, pureeing butternut squash for the baby and making mac and cheese for the rest of us, I had the crazy idea of stirring a little of the puree into the macaroni. And so I did. The colors matchedyou couldnt really see the squash in thereand the texture was perfect. So I stirred in a little more, tasting to make sure the flavor of the squash didnt overpower the cheese. Feeling only a little guilty that I was tricking my children, I stirred in enough of the squash to feel satisfied that I was giving them a respectable portion of vegetables.

And then I held my breath.

It worked! The kids, entirely innocent of my deceit, plowed happily through their dinners. I was beside myself with joy. I couldnt stop smiling at the knowledge that my kids had eaten vegetables without a word from me. My husband, Jerry, was dying to know what all my smiling was about. It was the first meal in a very long time during which I hadnt said, Eat your vegetables, even once. And that was pure pleasure.

I have not uttered the dreaded phrase since and from that meal on, I have become an expert at hiding vegetable purees and other healthful additionsfoods my kids wouldnt touch otherwisein all of their favorite dishes. The whole family is happier, and we can finally enjoy mealtimes again.

Since becoming a mom, Ive discovered that being a parent is largely about being challenged all the time. Whether you work outside the home or stay at home with your children, parenting is just plain difficult, and mealtimes are often an unpleasant pressure point. All we want is to make simple, fast, nutritious meals that our kids will actually eat. But after just one experience of watching a child throw our best efforts onto the floor, or refuse to eat, we just want to give up. Who has that kind of timeand foodto waste?

The recipes in Deceptively Delicious changed that equation for me.

This book is nothing more than one moms coping skills. We all have shortcuts and wisdom we learn from our own mothers, from friends, and from the best teacher of allfailure. But theres no reason why everyone has to repeat the same mistakes. You should know that for every recipe in this book, Ive tried ten others that no oneand I mean no one liked. Ive endured the catastrophes so you dont have to.

Im not a professional cheffar from itand these recipes require no training or kitchen knowledge whatsoever. Each one has been testedrelentlesslyon my own kids and other families with young children. And when I found the gems that worked for me, I enlisted the help of a wonderful kid-friendly chef, Jennifer Iserloh, to distill my research into practical recipes any family can enjoy.

Ive chosen dishes that Im confident children and parents will feel comfortable with because theyre the familiar ones that kids love alreadymacaroni and cheese, tacos, chicken nuggets, pizza, pancakes, and brownies. The recipes were developed for speed and ease, and most of them are doable in thirty minutes or less, with only five to twenty minutes of actual work. (Total cooking time, as well as prep time, are listed at the top of each recipe.) And they all conform to nutrition expert Joy Bauers rigorous standards of nutrition.