{ KIDS’ FARE }
NUTRITION ON THE SLY You’re smarter than your kids, right? So use your adult wiles to get them to try healthy food they’ll actually enjoy.
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It seems axiomatic in child-rearing, as certain as gravity making things fall: Kids crave sugary cookies and gooey candies and fat-filled fries, and balk at stuff with a “healthy” rep, and there’s little a parent can do except make rules and be the stern, eat-your-vegetables enforcer. Right? Wrong! Stacey Antine begs to differ. She’s the registered dietitian who opened HealthBarn USA in 2005, and one of her key motivations back then was to show that even young taste buds can appreciate things that are nutritious—if they’re tasty too. She wanted children to understand there’s an alternative to nutritionless goodies— that “good” food and food that’s good for you could sometimes be one and the same. At HealthBarn’s Ridgewood location, Antine offers cooking and food appreciation classes to children of all ages—and their parents. In 2019, she received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for her extraordinary work feeding the county’s food-insecure. You can read about her activities—and her nutrition insights—in “A Healthy Response to Hunger” on page 60. Kids can develop the healthy habit of eating nutritious food and liking it, Antine insists. And she’s not above using slightly sneaky tactics to get them hooked. Take, for instance, her original recipe for lasagna rolls, a favorite at HealthBarn. This dish is stealthily nutritious, serving up calcium, iron and other essential nutrients in an irresistible package. “Kids really have fun helping to create it,” reports Antine. No doubt you can get creative and find your own sneaky ways to present healthy ingredients that can turn the finicky younger set into a cheering section. But why not get started with Antine’s own surefire recipe, at right?
NOVEMBER 2021
10/25/21 8:54 AM
