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Deceptively Delicious

There’s Got to Be a Better Way: I Say No Hip Hip Hooray for Hooray Puree’

by Janet on September 20, 2009

6a00d8341c58f853ef01157036110e970c-250wiI was shopping at my local Costco in Chicago today when I stumbled upon one of the many sampling stations set up throughout the store.  I had skipped the others, but this display caught my attention. All of these moms were gathered around a tall guy in a hair net talking about children’s nutrition.  He was demonstrating a new product called Hooray Puree?, tubes of frozen pureed vegetables to sneak into macaroni and cheese, brownies and other “kid foods.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Here was the concept of Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious come to life in the aisles of Costco!  I guess it was only a matter of time before a company jumped on this idea. Is it really an indication of the power of this trend?

If you read my earlier posts [Debating the Merits of Stealth Veggies and An Update on the Seinfeld Food Fight] then you know I’m not a fan of this stealth vegetable tactic.  I’d rather parents work on new ways to get kids to love vegetables, rather than focus on hiding them.6a00d8341bfc7553ef00e54f2ddeb28833-640wi

Even so, I know sometimes that means getting creative at mealtime.  It’s not always easy, but I think there are better ways to teach kids to enjoy eating vegetables. I appreciate the company’s interest in children’s diets, but the recipes they promote to use with the purees are not really going to help.  Each 4-ounce packet (including spinach, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and butternut squash) is equal to 1 vegetable serving.  But then most of the recipes only use 1 packet and they serve 4 or more.  That translates to less than 1 ounce of vegetables per serving!

For example, the beef stew recipe featured on the company’s web site is 1 can of Dinty Moore Stew and 1 packet of carrot puree.  So for one serving of this delicious stew, your child would get about a tablespoon of carrots!  Come on.

Similarly, the macaroni and cheese recipe is 1 box of mac n’ cheese plus 1 packet of butternut squash puree. Once again, that’s only 1 ounce of vegetables per serving.  I wouldn’t want parents to think they’re off the hook, they gave their kids vegetables with just a dollop of mushed vegetables mixed in. The meat loaf recipe features 2 packets of purees, but the recipe serves 6-8…so that’s still just about 1 ounce of vegetables per serving.  You’d be better off adding grated carrots and small bits of red pepper to your meat loaf mixture. There’s got to be a better way!

Hooray Puree is made by a Chicago-area company called ReeRee Foods in Elk Grove Village.  Since it’s a local creation, I feel a little bad being negative.  But I wish this desire to get kids to eat better would result in a different type of product.  I think this will only distract parents.  And even though the intent is admirable, the actual product — and stealth technique —  is not.

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An Update on Seinfeld Food Fight: No Veggie Plagiarism

by Janet on September 11, 2009

Photo credit: Joyce Dopkeen New York Times/Heidi Gutman NBC

Photo credit: Joyce Dopkeen New York Times/Heidi Gutman NBC

Looks like the fight between the deceptive and sneaky cookbooks is over.  Remember my previous article Debating the Merits of “Stealth” Veggies” about Jessica Seinfeld and Missy Chase Lapine?  It appears there was no culinary copyright infringement — the lawsuit was dismissed.  You can read more at CNN.

U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed all claims brought against Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook, “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.”  In the lawsuit, filed in 2007, author Missy Chase Lapine accused Jessica Seinfeld of taking ideas from Lapine’s cookbook “The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals.” Lapine’s cookbook was published in April 2007, six months before Seinfeld’s book.

“The court categorically rejected the claim that ‘Deceptively Delicious’ infringed the copyright and trademark of the plaintiff’s book,” said Orin Snyder, Seinfeld’s lawyer. “The federal judge ruled that ‘no reasonable fact finder could conclude’ that copying occurred here given that the works are ‘very different’ and that Jessica’s book ‘has a completely different feel.’ “

There’s an excellent review of the issue on the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog. Federal judge Laura Taylor Swain wrote:

Plaintiffs’ description of the allegedly protected expression –“giving instructions for making vegetable purees in advance, storing them for future use, and then using them in specially created recipes which include the pre-made purees as ingredients,” – is so abstract as clearly to fall into the category of unprotectible process or idea. It remains nothing more than the very idea that Plaintiffs recognized as unprotectible: hiding vegetables in foods children enjoy. Plaintiffs’ inclusion of process details, primarily focused on time-saving techniques, is insufficient to transform an unprotectible idea into a copyrightable expression of that idea.

6a00d8341bfc7553ef00e54f2ddeb28833-640wiSo maybe the fight is over.  I’m still not convinced the sneaky approach is the best way to get kids to eat their vegetables.

The end of the lawsuit will likely bring a whole new round of publicity for the book, however, I’m hopeful that this won’t be a validation of the stealth tactics. Read my earlier post.  The recipes weren’t even that nutritious!

The Meal Makeover Moms tested many of the recipes in the book, and they didn’t even taste good.  That’s so ironic since they were attempting to hide the supposedly bad taste of vegetables.

Now the case is closed.  Let’s go back to celebrating vegetables and finding new ways to have kids grow up loving broccoli, carrots and spinach — not hiding them in brownies.

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Debating the Merits of “Stealth” Veggies

by Janet on February 10, 2009

I must admit I’m fascinated by the food fight between the “deceptive” and “sneaky” cookbook authors.  And I’m eagerly awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit Missy Chase Lapine filed against Jessica Seinfeld, author of Deceptively Delicious. Lapine alleges that Seinfeld stole ideas from her book The Sneaky Chef, which was published six months earlier. 

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This controversy stirs up so many intriguing issues — originality of recipes, ethics of publishers and agents and the power of celebrity. While the authors argue over potential “vegetable plagiarism,” I’m more concerned about the actual content of these best-selling books. Is the advice being dispensed really good for kids? 

Now, it appears the “hide and seek” approach is catching on with the food industry.  The trend tracker Mintel says the hidden nutrition strategy is gaining ground with manufacturers and predicts multiple new products for children with vegetables and fruits hidden inside.

Yes, children’s diets do need improving.  And eating more fruits and vegetables is a good place to start.  But, to me, the sneaky approach sends several wrong messages.

Tricks are for kids? 

As a registered dietitian and mother of veggie-loving twins, the concept of camouflaging vegetables just hit me wrong. Does deception really belong at the dinner table?

For starters, disguising vegetables reinforces the notion that these foods are so bad they must be hidden. Early childhood is a critical time of palate development and children need to be exposed to vegetables or they’ll never learn to eat them. Relying on these deceptive recipes may encourage you to throw in the kitchen towel and stop offering “real” vegetables to kids.

Most troubling, though, is the actual nutritional quality of the recipes. Janice Bissex and Liz Weiss, the Meal Makeover Moms, tested some of the recipes in Deceptively Delicious to see if they worked and, more importantly, to see how nutritious they really were. Once they got cooking they found that several of the recipes provided a measly amount of vegetables – some only about 1 tablespoon per serving. They thought the recipes were so focused on sneaking in small amounts of vegetables that they often missed the boat on overall good nutrition.

For example, a chocolate pudding recipe included pureed avocado but surprisingly no milk, so it contained no bone-building calcium. It was also high in sugar (10 teaspoons per 1/2-cup serving) and contained, oddly, uncooked cornstarch that they said gave it a gritty texture. Many recipes in the two books are overly time-consuming and embrace the narrow concept of “kid food,” such as chicken nuggets doused in a broccoli puree before being breaded and fried. The two dietitians thought many of the dishes didn’t even taste good – which is quite ironic since the recipes are attempting to mask the taste of vegetables, yet the final product wasn’t appealing. 

I totally agree with the concept of boosting the nutrient density of the foods kids eat (such as adding grated carrots to meat balls or finely diced bell peppers to pasta sauce), but I struggle with this deceptive approach.

Jessica Seinfeld has readily admitted in media interviews that she resorted to these stealth tactics with her children because she grew tired of “bribing them, begging them, whining at them” to eat their vegetables. But studies show that pressure like this doesn’t work. When you bribe or force children to eat certain foods, they like those foods less. 

So what can we learn from this cookbook controversy? For me, I’m even more convinced that there are better ways to get kids to eat their veggies.

We should focus on making vegetables taste good, not apologizing for them. If we do, children will learn to eat vegetables the same way they learn to eat other foods.  Kids need time and multiple opportunities to eat vegetables.  Plus, they need to see parents enjoy them too! Getting kids involved in selecting and preparing vegetables can make them more appealing. Trips to farmers markets and even growing your own vegetables also can help.

We need to remember that we’re helping to establish food preferences that can last a lifetime so it’s worth the effort. There are no quick fixes.

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