To Melissa G., the Recessionary Grocery Shopper: The Official Kid-Will-Eat-It Guidelines

Oct 1, 2009 by Anna Migeon

Dear Melissa G.,

Congratulations! You have been named “ground zero for the new austerity” by one of our food industry giants, according to an article I just read in Advertising Age.  Industrial edibles manufacturers, scrambling to keep their profits up while consumers like you look for ways to spend less, are taking a hard look at you, the average grocery shopper, and how you think and behave.  Melissa, you represent today’s Every Mom:  the very picture of the grocery-shopping parent. You are the bull’s eye of the target for processed food manufacturers in this economic downturn.

It’s quite an honor, and a responsibility, a sacred destiny even, Every Mom. The wellbeing of the American child is in your hands.

While Campbell Soup was analyzing your habits and attitudes…

Dinner Table Affirmation: How to be more while doing less

Sep 4, 2009 by Anna Migeon

My now-teenage son in the early 90’s–photo by Anna Migeon

“In every relationship with another human being one either affirms or denies. There is no in-between!” states Conrad W. Baars, M.D. Born Only Once: The Miracle of Affirmation.

According to Baars, it is essential to a child’s emotional health to feel affirmed from a young age, to be accepted and appreciated unconditionally.

From the first day of life, eating is a place of either affirmation or denial, of personal acceptance or rejection for a child. Eating is the daily opportunity to nurture the parent-child relationship and to demonstrate affirmation or to fail to do so.

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The Caveman Salad Solution: Fast Food for Little Gourmets

May 21, 2009 by Anna Migeon

REAL CAVEMEN eat salad with fruit, even though it may sound like a bit of a girly lunch.

“I am all about salads with fruit now,” I told my husband last week during our lunch at home while our kids were at school. I had fixed for the two of us Watermelon and Arugula Salad with Walnuts. It was dressed with orange juice, lime juice, raspberry vinegar, a drizzle of olive oil. It also included a little dry ricotta salata cheese.  It was offbeat, but tasty, I thought.

A week or two earlier, I had made Watermelon Gazpacho. Gazpacho is usually basically a raw vegetable salad (no…

Feeding Children Made Easy: Parenting Sun-Style Instead of North Wind-Style

Apr 13, 2009 by Anna Migeon

At the dinner table, are you more like the North Wind or more like the Sun?

One of Aesop’s fables tells of an argument between the North Wind and the Sun about which was the more powerful. When a traveler passes by, the two decide that whichever one can strip him of his cloak will be declared the victor.

The North Wind blasts the man with all his strength, trying to forcibly remove his clothing, but the more the wind blows, the closer the traveler wraps his cloak around him. Finally the North Wind gives up and the Sun takes its turn. The Sun shines on the man…