The Cleaner Plate Club — Book Layout and Design (sample pages)

Beth Bader & Alison W. Benjamin

Recipes and Advicefor Getting Real Kids

to Love Real Food

Free of boxes,

preservatives, or unnatural additives!

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ake a look at any children’s menu, at virtually any restaurant, and you might get the idea that kids’ stomachs are gastronomi-cally programmed to digest only a small handful of items: pro-

cessed meats, pasta, fried potatoes, and melted cheese. Yet considering the human species was kicking around some 200,000 years before the invention of dehydrated cheese powder, it’s a reasonable assumption that somewhere along the line, children were willing to eat something else. If you’ve picked up this book, chances are good that you’re inter-ested in that something else, and that you’d like to give your family something other than deep-fried potatoes and processed grains. Here’s the good news: it’s possible. It is possible to feed your fam-ily well, to encourage your kids to enjoy kale, or tomatoes, or squash, or beans, and to instill in them lifelong healthy habits. It is possible to teach them that chickens don’t have fingers and that the very best foods don’t come emblazoned with cartoon characters. It is possible to serve food that brings your family together, helps children thrive, and gives your kids the roots they need to someday have healthy families of their own. It’s even possible to do all this without a fight. But if you’re reading this, you probably know something else: eat-ing well in a fast-food world can be a struggle. The struggle follows us everywhere we go. Take the kids to the community center for swimming 2

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lessons or gymnastics classes, and there’s a good chance you’ll pass junk food and soda vending machines on the way in. Lollipops are passed to children through car windows at the gas station and through teller windows at the bank. Candy is offered as a reward for good behavior at school. A simple trip to the grocery store can be like a minefield, with 17,000 new processed foods introduced yearly and positioned right at children’s eye level, with their favorite TV characters on the packaging. Most parents agree that in moderation these treats are fine. Yet these same parents often feel besieged by the very foods they don’t mind in moderation. And therein lies the problem: not with any one food item, but with the accumulation of them, all of those junk food encounters, one on top of another, moment after moment, day after day after day. Add these encounters to the food on children’s menus — 94 percent of which is extremely high in calories and devoid of essential vitamins and minerals — and unhealthy cafeteria lunches, well-meaning relatives, an endless stream of birthday parties, and those evenings when you need to throw dinner on the table fast. Soon, you might find that your child’s diet is more high fructose corn syrup than high nutrition. Somewhere in there, moderation skipped town. At what moment, exactly, does moderation become excess? Where does a harried parent draw the line in the sand? When do “some” treats become too many? What should kids be eating, anyway? When you cut through all the noise — all the marketing messages, the packaging, the whining, the crying, and the cajoling — the answer to the last question is pretty simple. It’s the same advice you’ll hear from any experts worth their salt, the same advice you’ve heard since you were a child. Children need lots of fruits and vegetables. They need whole grains and healthy proteins, and a certain amount of healthy fats. They need vitamins and minerals and micronutrients. The best place to get these things, of course — in fact, the only place to get many of them — is through good food. 3

GeTTING STaRTeD

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Good for Your Family Because . . .IN GeNeRal, the more pungent the flavor of the allium variety, the more phy-tonutrients it contains, particularly the sulfur-containing compounds that research suggests have anti-cancer properties. Yellow onions offer more of these phytonutrients than white onions. Shallots contain the most of these compounds of all the alliums. Alliums also contain chromium, which has been shown to help lower blood glucose levels and along with their phytonutrients may help prevent cardiovascu-lar disease. Garlic, in particular, has been studied with regard to its apparent car-diovascular benefits. Alliums also contain vitamins C and B6, fiber, and minerals such as manganese, molybdenum, folate, potassium, phosphorus and copper.

Quick Caramelized OnionsThese onions are delicious as a side dish, and they’re great on sandwiches and in other dishes (some of our other recipes use them).

1. Combine the oil, sugar, vinegar, and salt in a large skillet with a lid over medium-high heat, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the onion and sauté for a few minutes to start the browning process.

2. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes longer, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with fresh herbs, if using, before serving.

Makes about 1 cup cooked onions

Caramelized Onion SandwichesCaramelized onions are perfect for a healthy twist on grilled cheese. Use whole-grain bread, stone-ground mustard, cheddar, a few thin slices of apple, and a layer of the caramelized onions. Butter the outsides of the bread lightly. Grill the sandwich a few minutes on each side. The sandwich pairs well with soup or side salad.

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoon brown sugar 1 tablespoon balsamic

vinegar ½ teaspoon kosher salt 1 large onion, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon chopped

fresh thyme or rosemary (optional)

ReCIPe

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6

1 bunch kale, 6 to 8 stems or 12 oz.

2 tablespoons olive oil 2 teaspoons balsamic

vinegar (optional) kosher salt

Salt and Vinegar Kale ChipsThese chips were inspired by a tip from ali’s friend Shannon Toye. We’ve made them on many occasions, and they are a surprising hit with kids and even adults who say they do not like greens. In both our homes, the kids have been known to run off with the whole bowl — so get a good first helping! With this recipe, you want the chips to be both crispy and bright green. If they start to brown, they can taste burned. If you find that the chips are browning before the kale is crispy, reduce the oven temperature.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Wash the kale, dry thoroughly in a salad spinner, and tear into bite-size pieces. Toss in a large bowl with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Rub the leaves to make sure each gets a coating of oil so they crisp up well. Oil a baking sheet.

3. Place the kale in single layer on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with kosher salt to taste. Bake for about 6 minutes, then stir and turn the kale and bake for 6 to 9 minutes longer. Remove crisp pieces as they get done to prevent burning and to allow the remaining kale chips to get even heat.

Serves 4

Kale Chips Appeal to Kids

A University of Wisconsin extension project involved 201 elementary school students in making and tasting this recipe themselves. According to the study, 99 percent of the kids had never heard of kale before. After they made the kale chips, all but one of the kids tasted them. And 99 of them (just under half) liked the taste on the first try. Okay, not all of them liked them right off the bat. But half? On the first try? We’re talking about kale here, folks. Those odds make it seem worth a try.

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Everyone Agrees — We Have to Feed Our Kids Better

“Having a child who’s a picky eater is not and never will be your problem. If it’s a problem at all, it’s the child’s to deal with, when he or she decides she’s ready. Your job is putting the food down on the table. The child’s job is eating it.”— Ann Hodgman, One Bite Won’t Kill You: More Than 200 Recipes to Tempt Even the Pickiest Kids on Earth and the Rest of the Family Too, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1999

“To date, researchers have discovered more than ten thousand phytochemicals. No supplement can contain a sufficient amount. Thankfully, you can get all these nutrients today by eating a wide variety of plant-based foods.” — Joel Furman, MD, Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Little Brown and Company, 2005.

“All those vegetables we’re supposed to eat turn out to be really delicious.” — Barbara Kafka, Vegetable Love, Artisan Books, 2005.

“It’s time for a national revolution. America needs to stand up for better food.” — Jamie Oliver, author and host of Jamie Oliver’s Food

Revolution Cookbook

“The basic principles of good diets are so simple that I can summarize them in just ten words: eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. For additional clarification, a five-word modifier helps: go easy on junk foods.” — Marion Nestle, What to Eat, North Point Press, 2007

“Every action we take can be a celebration of the world we want.” — Frances Moore Lappé, Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, co-authored with Anna Lappé, Tarcher, 2002

Kids who eat fresh produce do better in school. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada evaluated the life-style and performance of 5,000 children. Students who ate more fruits, vegetables, protein, and fiber did better on tests than those who ate foods high in salt and saturated fat. This was true even after they adjusted for other factors, like family income, parents’ education and marital status, gender, school, and the child’s weight. — P. Veugelers, Journal of School Health 78 (April 2008), 213–219

“Do we really want to be telling our children ‘Just eat your nice chicken nuggets?’ It would make so much more sense to say ‘Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.’” — Ruth Reichl, “Teach Your Children Well,” Gourmet, March 2007

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Publicity Contact: Amy Greeman (413) 346-2113 or [email protected]

• Advance blurb mailing• Authors’ blogs• Online cooking sites & Mom blogs• Farmer’s Markets• CSAs

The Cleaner Plate ClubFull-color; photographs throughout

272 pages; 7‹/• x 9⁄/¢

Paper: $16.95 US / $21.50 CAN

ISBN: 978-1-60342-585-8

No. 62585

Storey books are distributed in the gift and book trade by Workman Publishing. To order, please see your sales representative or call (800) 722-7202. Storey books are distributed in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son, LTD, (800) 387-4333.

AvailableDecember 2010!

Beth Bader is a mom determined to make the

world a better place for her child, one meal at a

time. She writes about her family’s food adven-

tures on her popular blog, Expatriate’s Kitchen,

and also contributes to EatLocalChallenge.com,

EatDrinkBetter.com, and Ethicurean.com. She

lives in Kansas.

Alison W. Benjamin has worked for big compa-

nies, grassroots nonprofits, and The Peace Corps.

Still, one of her greatest achievements so far is

seeing her children dive into a bowl of kale. She

writes the blog Cleaner Plate Club and lives in

western Massachusetts.

The Authors

Bader & Benjam

in

ßStorey

Kid-TestedWisdom

Illustrations by Dan W

illiams

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