Hey there, moms! Are you sitting down? I sure do hope you're sitting down. Because when you hear about the results of this super high-tech, top-secret scientific study on kids and nutrition, heaven only knows what the shock might do to you! Truly, the way you feed your children could change forever.
Are you ready? Wait, wait — let me set the scene for you:
Picture a team of doctors and researchers in white lab coats, Bunsen burners, beakers filled with fizzing, popping liquids of every color. (Every so often one of them starts to smoke menacingly.) There is some SERIOUS medical studying stuff going on up in here, y'all. At last, one of the scientists looks up from his microscope and shouts, "Eureka! I've found it! I've found the secret to making kids eat their vegetables!"
Can you guess?? The secret is …
Sugar!! Yes, it's true! Now we have scientific proof that dousing veggies in sugar makes children more likely to eat them all up.
You're not really all that shocked, I bet. Sorry to set you up like that, I just … DUH! Like, really?? Just a spoonful of freaking sugar makes the vegetables go down?!
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No sh*t.
I'm really NOT oversimplifying here, either. This is exactly how the study was conducted:
Preschoolers who were served lightly sweetened vegetables (sprayed with a mist of sugar) at lunchtime ate more of the healthy foods compared to those who were served unsweetened vegetables.
Although the researchers tested other ways to mask the vegetables' bitterness, including various salts, plain sugar worked the best.
Maybe I'm being unfair. Perhaps there is some sort of take-home message here: If sugar spray makes veggies more tasty to tots, maybe a sweet (but not outrageously unhealthy) sauce would do the same. It might be worth dipping a couple of stalks of broccoli in some maple syrup or applesauce to find out. Or if your kid is like that adorable fibbing boy, maybe sprinkles are the way to go?
Would you spray veggies with sugar to get your kid to eat them?
Image via Cyn74/Flickr
