
Dessert Week: How much is too much?
We’ve tried everything — from every night to once a week. It’s always good but I just don’t want to argue about it, you know? Dessert, people, I’m talking about dessert! Recently Esme said to me that she could live with dessert only once a week if she could be the one to decide which day of the week and if she could move that day around. I think she hopes we’ll get so confused that it ends up being whenever she asks for it. I really don’t want our kids having dessert after every meal but like most food-related tangles, what I really want to avoid is the conversation. Few things depress me more than a meal where the only conversation is us encouraging them to eat, demanding they eat something green if they want ice cream or warning about forks in glasses of milk. So. Boring. We asked some of our friends from the blogosphere how they approach the issue of dessert. They had a lot to say!
photo: Maya Visnyei
Julie Van Rosendaal of Dinner With Julie had this to say:
This is a big question to answer. My parents rarely served dessert, and we didn’t often get sugary sweets, so I grew up obsessing about them a little. When I was old enough I spent my allowance on junk whenever I could get my hands on it. I chose my friends based on what junk they had at home when we went for lunch or to play after school. I’d buy sugary cereals and chocolate that went on sale after holidays and stash it under my bed. On the other hand, my husband was raised on sugary cereals and junk food, and has no issues with them now — he could care less if something is in the house, whereas a chocolate bar will call me from the top of the fridge until I eat it.
I really try not to let dessert or other food treats be a reward, so we never give dessert as a reward for clean plates. (In terms of clean plates, I do enforce finishing of vegetables and other healthy things, but like the boys to stop eating when they’re full, not when everything is finished.) My rule around sweet treats and desserts is that you can’t eat food that has little nutritional value unless you eat enough food that does. I don’t keep it from them completely, because I don’t want them to become obsessed with what they can’t have. I’m casual about it, but teach them what food does for us and why some foods are just treats, with little nutritional value.
I’m also a fan of small suckers like chupa chups and mini Tootsie pops, which contain about 4–10 grams of sugar. They take a long time to eat, so the treat lasts longer. I always get a chuckle from parents who “don’t allow sugar”, yet give their kids unsweetened apple juice boxes (unsweetened doesn’t mean no sugar — in this case there’s enough sugar in juice already!) — which contain 23 grams of sugar, compared to 17 in a full-sized KitKat bar. Ditto sweetened yogurt, which contains 36–42 grams of sugar — as much as pop! I don’t serve either of these, but they’re common foods for most kids. Around here fruit snacks are considered candy, too.
Aviva Goldfarb from the fantastic Six O’Clock Scramble asked her readers how they handle the dessert issue. Here’s what they told her:
“Did I eat enough broccoli to get dessert?” used to be a typical question at our dinner table. Andrew and I got tired of using vegetables as pawns in the game of control over our kids’ diets, so we’ve made desserts the exception, rather than the rule. I was curious about how other parents navigated the dessert landmine, so I asked some parents we know. Like us, most parents I spoke to have set some dessert boundaries, but each family had a slightly different approach.
Some families find that having a nightly dessert helps encourage their kids to eat decent dinners, and even found that the kids stopped negotiating so much once they got used to the rules. Some families offer only healthy desserts, such as diced melon, strawberries and whipped cream, low fat ice cream or popsicles, smoothies or applesauce.
According to the most recent Six O’Clock Scramble poll, most of you do not serve dessert after dinner on a regular basis, but it’s closely divided. Only about 1 in 6 of you serves dessert nightly, while about 1 in 4 of you hardly ever serves dessert. 43% of you have dessert at least a few times a week, and 56% of you have it once a week or less. Looks like we Scrambling families don’t have a consensus on after dinner sweets.
For many of us, dessert carries a certain nostalgia (or sense of deprivation) associated with our own childhood. My dad was one of the original “health nuts,” so at our house dessert was rarely an option. My brother, sister and I eagerly anticipated Friday night dinners at our grandparents’ house, where we got to pick two pieces of candy from a jar normally kept out of reach.
Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed by the abundance of sweets that surrounds our kids, from piñatas at parties, cookies at schools, even lollipops at the grocery store and bank. Some of us are concerned about our children’s weight or physical or dental health and we find it hard to strike a balance between carefully managing the sweets they are exposed to and how much of it they eat versus denying our children something that brings them great pleasure. This conflict can present us with a dilemma on a daily basis, or so it seems. If your kids are old enough, perhaps you can discuss with them a good approach for your family to take regarding sweets and desserts.
The dinner table is an opportunity for us parents to exert some manner of control over our kids’ diets, whether we seize it or not. And, like everything else, the example we set in our own eating habits surely influences how our kids view food, including dessert.
P.S. We keep a kitchen drawer stocked with sugarless bubblegum, and find that a piece in the afternoon often hits the after-school sweet spot for Solomon and Celia.
Emma Waverman, co-author of Whining and Dining; Mealtime Survival for Picky Eaters and the Families Who Love Them and the always riveting read at Embrace The Chaos.
I have a very liberal view of desserts and sugar. I am personally against making any food verboten. That breeds a huge backlash – maybe not now but eventually. Fighting about food gives food a lot of power and emotional weight to that particular food. That said, our dessert policy is that if dessert is on the menu, then it is on the menu for everyone who sat at the table. We don’t create some standards that the kids have to measure up to get dessert, as long as they sat at the table and participated in some way at dinner. That said, dessert is a child-appropriate size and is often a homemade popsicle or cookie and some fruit. We teach the mantra: everyday food, sometime food and treats. And we enjoy our treats and appreciate them for what they are; unhealthy but delicious bits of goodness.
Karen Humphries from the lovely and amazing Notes From the Cookie Jar.
Ahhh…sugar. My answer is going to be long. Got a coffee? (giggle)
Sugar, I think, has a time and place. After dinner, or a treat in a lunch box (my 15 year old son Kevin gets a couple of home made cookies daily). Not for breakfast, not in place of a regular meal, and the kind of sugary item is also important. We don’t buy or drink pop at all, except on the rare occasion Kevin and I may go to the corner store for an artisian soda as a very special treat. Sugary treats in the form of candy/soda are generally reserved for really special days-the last day of the school year, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter, etc. The funny thing is that Kevin often forgets that he has candy after those holidays and it sits in the cupboards for months until I have to tell him to eat it or I’ll throw it away. Last year his Easter bunny lasted until Halloween. I do not buy chocolate bars, chips, cookies, ice cream, pop, or candy and we don’t eat fast food. It’s not because I’m a big health food advocate, but we just don’t like it, nor do we need to have it around and with everyone’s food issues (Diabetes, lactose intolerance, sensitivity to red food dye/msg/corn/soy and my allergies to nuts and various fresh fruits), we can’t eat a lot of it anyway.
When Kevin was little (2–10) we did regulate his treat intake quite strongly-on Halloween we’d have him trade at least half, if not more, of his haul for a toy (and then throw the candy away). He could have one cookie in his lunch, and then we had fruit after dinner. On Sundays we would go for a hike as a family and then out for a small treat, usually some Tim Bits that the family would share. I never did buy things like fruit roll ups or chocolate dipped granola bars for his lunches, mostly because I didn’t like all the additives and preservatives in them. All the treats in our house have always been home made cookies, brownies, etc. Partly because they taste better and are more satisfying, and partly because then I know exactly what is in them and everyone in the house can eat them without worrying about allergies/food intolerances.
As Kevin has gotten older, I’ve backed off on controlling his sugar intake because I want him to listen to his own body. We still don’t buy any of the items I listed above, and Kevin doesn’t buy them for himself, either. He does consume more baked treats now than he did as a little guy, but he regulates himself. It’s funny to listen to him; “I’ve had enough sweets today.” He’s tall and skinny and very active, so I don’t worry about him in that way at all. He never pigs out on sugar, and eats a lot of healthy food so it’s a non issue for us.
I think that if you stay away from the processed sugary junk or fast food with kids when they are young they won’t develop a taste for it, and if instead you let them have high quality, good food, they’ll choose that more often. There is a fine line though-you don’t want to completely forbid it so that they see it as something they need to sneak around to get and hide from you. When Kevin was young, if he was desperately wanting to try something I’d normally never buy (like fruit roll ups), I’d buy it once. I’d make it clear that this was a ONE time thing. He could have it as a special treat and I’d dole it out the same as candy. And then I’d never buy it again. He usually just forgot about it after that-because it had lost it’s mystery, and I suspect he thought they really weren’t that good anyway.
You might also like
Margherita Pizza Dinner Waffles
We’re currently busy working on our second book and being on deadline has inspired us to further simplify dinner. It’s funny how creating a book about easy, healthy family meals
Roasted Cauliflower Salad
For some reason I have more distinct memories of Thanksgiving dinners than I do of any other holiday. Hilarious, huge meals prepared with our American friends Paul and Kira (who
Coconut Loaf
If you follow me on Instagram @sweetpotatochronicless then you know my morning coffee is usually accompanied by a few bites of something sweet. I got this habit from my sweet
0 Comments
No Comments Yet!
You can be first to comment this post!