Our kids eat pretty healthy. I nursed the twins for the first 10 months of their life, made all their baby food from real veggies and even to this day their favorite "comfort food" is sweet potato and baked sole (it's a white fish... I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even know it existed until I started feeding it to my little ones). Don't get me wrong, Jeremy and Nathan do enjoy the occasional Happy Meal and during the week there usually is one night that they have chicken nuggets and fries or pizza because we are at a loss of what to make for supper... but generally speaking they eat pretty healthy. We don't push all our recipes on them... like spinach salad... though we do offer for them to try it (which Nathan usually does... he loves green leafy stuff).

Yesterday... we were roasting a rosemary-ginger chicken in the oven for supper and I got this nostalgic feeling from the smell and I decided to go to the grocery store and buy some white potatoes to make mashed potatoes for supper. For most people this won't seem like a big deal (in Canada we were raised on mashed potatoes and it's a staple)... but in our house white rice, white pasta or white potatoes haven't been served for probably over a year now (actually Gord and I discussed last night that we couldn't remember the last time we cooked white potatoes). There is no doubt, they are delicious (or maybe it's the butter that makes them that way), but all the nutritionists I've met with over the years have all said the same thing... that compared to other vegetable choices white potatoes don't offer much in terms of nutrients and they are high in carbs (so when trying to lose weight they should be avoided)... we've replaced white potatoe with sweet potato... and peas with asparagus... etc.

Anyway, last night the twins sat down to eat... Nathan looks at his plate and asks, "Mommy what is this white stuff?", I reply "honey... that's chicken" and Nate then says "No... what's the other white stuff?" Gord and I look at each other in disbelief, is it possible our child has no idea what mashed potatoes are? He then continued to ask if it was like sweet potato, the entire meal he referred to the "white stuff" on his plate as "white sweet potato".

One of Jeremy's favorite games when we put the groceries away is to guess if something is junk food or good food (99% of the time he's right). Just this morning he asked me to read the book The Berenstain Bears And Too Much Junk Food before school. Jeremy sometimes voluntarily turns down junk food snacks at the daycare like "cookies" because he said when he eats sugar he ends up getting time-outs. If we are on the road and the dudes are hungry, we'll pull into a Tim Hortons, but the boys share a bagel instead of getting a donut (and they love it). I'm amazed at how aware our kids are of food choices at only 4 ½ years old!

Until yesterday, I didn't really give much thought to how our meal decisions are having positive influence on our boys' food preferences. The twins know we expect them to eat the healthy food we make for them and they've heard more than once... "this isn't a restaurant... we aren't making two meals" and "Mommy and Daddy only make healthy food for you... so you need to eat it to grow strong like Daddy and Devin." (the boys adore Devin... they often flex their muscles when his name is brought up). We could probably count on one hand the number of times they've been served white bread, but they aren't suffering, they love multi-grain bread (they don't know anything different). Jeremy loves tuna sandwiches and Nathan loves veggies, they consider nutrigrain bars a treat and they don't like pop (it's too fizzy, spicy and burns their throat). We are very fortunate our boys are "good eaters" and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that their preference for healthy food continues as they grow up!

I must say, as good as the boys are at eating healthy meals during the week with us, they enjoy Saturday's treats as much as Mommy and Daddy! Jeremy (like Mommy) has a weakness for cheesies (though Nathan won't touch them), and Nathan loves anything chocolate (also like Mommy)! The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!