Tricky Treats

Let them eat cake.

And cookies. And cheeseburgers. And doughnuts. And chicken nuggets, for that matter.

That’s the message from two best-selling new cookbooks aimed at helping parents make their children’s diets more nutritious.

That’s right, nutritious.

The recipes offered in “Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food,” by Jessica Seinfeld, and “The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals,” by Missy Chase Lapine, offer ways to add vegetables, fruits, lean proteins and whole grains to foods children like to eat.

The trick is to hide the good-for-you ingredients by, most often, pureeing them and pairing them with similarly colored foods or covering them up with breading, chocolate or other kid-friendly ingredients. Orange-colored butternut squash, for example, gets stirred into macaroni and cheese. White chickpeas go undetected in cookie dough and hamburger patties. And to make chicken nuggets, coat raw chicken in pureed broccoli, spinach, sweet potato or beets then roll it in whole-wheat breadcrumbs and fry it.

While frustrated parents have hailed the concept as ingenious – through comments on the authors’ Web sites and via book sales – there’s some concern that sneaking vegetables into kids’ meals doesn’t teach the right lesson.

“It’s not a bad idea, but my concern with that line of thinking is you’re using subterfuge,” says Nancy James, a registered dietitian who specializes in pediatrics at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, in Spokane. “I’m a proponent of eating vegetables as a family. I’m not a real advocate of tricking my children.”

Seinfeld and Lapine say in their books that the concept dawned on them after years of frustration trying to feed their picky young eaters. Mealtime had become battles between the adults, who wanted their children to be healthy, and the kids, who freaked out whenever their white food – which they liked – touched their green food – which they didn’t.

The authors are in a food fight of their own now. Lapine filed a lawsuit against Jessica Seinfeld and her husband, comedian Jerry Seinfeld, on Jan. 7. She accuses Jessica of plagiarizing her ideas and Jerry of defaming her on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” where he made jokes about Lapine’s criticism of his wife’s book and questioned her mental stability, although he didn’t mention her by name.

“Deceptively Delicious” came out about six months after Lapine’s book debuted and was published by HarperCollins Publishers, which had twice rejected Lapine’s manuscript.

The books are very similar, right down to caricatures on the covers that show the authors winking at readers while hiding carrots behind their backs. Several of the recipes sneak the same healthy ingredients into otherwise kid-friendly foods: spinach in brownies, avocado in pudding and carrots in French toast, for example.

Both authors suggest parents spend an afternoon each week steaming vegetables to create and freeze small portions of the purees that get hidden into the next several days’ worth of meals.

The major difference between the books is that Lapine’s “make-ahead” recipes combine several different vegetables while Seinfeld purees and freezes them one at a time. In other words, Seinfeld’s approach arguably is easier to follow while Lapine’s packs slightly more nutritional variety into each dish.

On television appearances, Seinfeld has denied Lapine’s accusations.

Regardless of who had the idea first – and whether more than one person is allowed to express an idea anyway – both authors say they’re just trying to help families eat better.

Some of the recipes in the books are healthy to begin with, including oatmeal, chicken noodle soup and applesauce. More often, though, the recipes improve upon foods most health-conscious parents would consider occasional treats – not staples – such as cupcakes and mozzarella sticks.

That concerns Debbie Judd, a registered nurse, nutritionist and co-owner of The Metabolic Institute, in Spokane.

“I would rather take a fairly healthy food and make it even healthier,” she says.

Judd isn’t opposed to mixing in good ingredients, and even suggests that parents who want their children to eat wholesome cereal mix it with a handful of Frosted Flakes to make it more attractive. But when you frequently serve unhealthy foods, you’re not teaching your children to make smart choices, she says.

And Judd questioned whether the “bad” ingredients in many of the recipes would override the “good” ingredients parents sneak in.

James, of Sacred Heart, supports substituting unhealthy ingredients in recipes with more nutritious ones, such as replacing some fat in a baking recipe with applesauce. It’s the trickery that bothers her.

“Kids are smart. I think they deserve more honesty than that,” she says.

So what should a parent do with a child who refuses to eat anything green or grainy?

First of all, parents should examine their own diets, both Judd and James say. Read up on nutrition, visit a dietitian or take a class on the subject and make any necessary changes to the family’s regular meals.

James finds that children often like vegetables more when they’re raw, semi-crunchy or if there’s something to dip them in. (“The Sneaky Chef” and “Deceptively Delicious” contain recipes for healthier versions of ranch dressing, guacamole, and other dips.)

Judd suggests teaching children about nutrition in a fun and loving way.

“We made it a trivia game with my grandson,” Judd says. ” ‘OK, Carson. What color is a carrot? What vitamins does it have? What is vitamin A good for?’ ‘My eyes, he says.’ “

Both Judd and James warn against preparing a different meal for every family member depending on their likes and dislikes.

“Most moms find it’s hard enough to get one meal on the table, let alone be a short-order cook,” James says.

They also suggest sitting down at least once a day as a family, so your children can see you making healthy choices. And if a child refuses a particular meal, don’t force him to eat it.

“Don’t be afraid to let the kid go to bed without dinner,” Judd says. “If the only thing on the table the next morning is a nice, healthy breakfast, he’ll eat it.”