The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals

The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals | Missy Chase Lapine | True to its title!

books:

The Sneaky Chef: S...

	The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals Missy Chase Lapine Running Press, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 270 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW WON'T HURT THEM

Because kids rarely like vegetables and healthy foods, this book fills an important need. The main useful emphasis of the book is the idea of sneaking pureed vegetables into kid-friendly dishes. In addition to sneaking in the vegetables, the recipes take some of the unhealthy ingredients out. The book offers traditional recipes with purees or healthier replacements that add fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants to meals. The book is easy to read and presents a practical guide for parents.

Contents:
Introduction by Anastassios Koumbourlis, M.D. MPH
Chapter 1: Keep `em Happy and Healthy
Chapter 2: For Their Own Good
Chapter 3: My Philosophy About Food
Chapter 4: The Lists (Organic foods, Contaminated foods, "In" and "Out", Staples)
Chapter 5: The Sneaky Chef Bag of Tricks
Chapter 6: Make-Ahead Recipes (Purees, Juices, etc)
THE RECIPES
Breakfast Recipes
Lunch Recipes
Snacks
Dinner
Treats
Drinks
Index

I like the idea of sneaking in healthy purees, but after kids decide they like one of the dishes, tell them that what they liked contains healthy fruits or veggies! Then kids learn that healthy foods don't have to taste icky. If you also need to slim down (a child's most important role models are his/her parents), I also recommend THE 3:00 PM SECRET: Live Slim and Strong, Live Your Dreams and The 2007 Second Expert Report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective.. I hope people will buy Sneaky Chef rather than the celebrity copycat.

for more information click here

True to its title!

This book offers many great ideas for sneaking nutrition into meals that would have never crossed my mind. Our picky 2 year old is finally getting some green in his diet!

All the purees are quite easy to make. I've even enlisted the help of my 4 year old, and she thinks it's fun (of course, she doesn't know where these purees are ending up!) I just took a couple of hours one evening and prepared all of them by pouring into ice cube trays, freezing, and then popping out into labeled Ziploc baggies. It's extremely easy to then thaw out individual portions to ramp up to the maximum amounts the author recommends for given recipes.

My only reservation is that she could have done a better job of instructing readers about consistency of purees. The bean recipes really need an extra reminder or kids will detect texture a mile away.

Buy this, you will be happy you did.

for more information click here

Easy to digest

I got really enthusiastic about upping the nutritional content of my meals after reading this book. I liked the simple layout and the easy recipes. THESE I can do!

My husband and I don't cater to the kids much at mealtimes. They eat what's offered or they don't eat. Period. Yet we've learned to skirt potential battles by giving them only very small portions of the things they don't like (such as the straight-up veggies). Maybe I'll get them to eat more fruits, veggies, and grains by surreptitiously adding them to the things they do like while still getting them to eat the little portions of the plain 'ol veggies they eat reluctantly.

I have to say that over all, I preferred this book to "Deceptively Delicious", though that one had a few good recipes as well (I got it from the library). Maybe I just balked at the "another-wealthy-celebrity-tells-you-how-to-do-it-right" angle.

for more information click here

Great way to get veggies into my toddler!

"The Sneaky Chef" was a good purchase. While I would prefer to feed healthy foods to my toddler straight-up, he isn't so keen on that. Rather than constantly fight him and risk driving him further away from veggies, I figure it makes more sense to sneak some great food into him while still offering and encouraging him to eat the "regular" vegetables. I'm hoping that he'll eventually come around and eat them on his own; meanwhile, at least I know he's eating a pretty healthy diet.

I liked Lapine's writing style, although I felt she spent a little too much time on preamble and not enough on recipes. As of yet I haven't tried many of her recipes, and I don't intend to feed my child chocolate anything more than once in a while, however the simple concept of sneaking pureed vegetables into various foods makes a lot of sense to me, and I've worked them into some of my own recipes with success. I found this to be a logical follow-up to "Super Baby Foods".

for more information click here