Golden Glow

I haven't been part of one of these blog blasts, before, but I was reading motherbumper's entry, and it made me think of something. Something I wanted to share, because it makes me laugh at myself. (Plus, you know, there is a Willams-Sonoma gift card on the line here, and Misterpie would totally give me some sugar if I gave him some kitchen tools!) So picky eaters? I was not a picky eater. And I was really hoping that Pumpkinpie wouldn't turn out to be one, either, because like my own parents, I couldn't see having a lot of patience with that.

When Pumpkinpie was tiny, and about to start branching out in solids from her limited diet of rice gruel, her doctor recommended that I give her vegetables before fruits so she got used to them before tasting the sweeter delights of squished apples, peaches, and raspberries. And she suggested that I try the orange vegetables first, telling me that they were often received better, and made a good gateway veg. This helped them avoid the perils of never being happy with the taste of vegetables, the theory went. And indeed, the wee Pumpkinpie enjoyed her mashed and magled squash, yams, beans, peas, and so on just fine, thanks.

When she graduated to firmer foods, I still used baby food - not as the main course any more, but as sauces and boosters to wedge in the veg without making her eat more and different foods. I made mini-casseroles for baby Pumpkinpie's meals, and packed them with all the food groups I could. Pasta with a sauce of squash and peas, with some finely diced chicken or a tablespoon or pureed beef for protein and soome frozen corn. Rice with yams and green beans, and a fistful of lentils for protein and iron, maybe some peas. She shoveled in the concoctions. Then, as she started eating the food we ate, I continued to boost it with some puree. She actually continued to eat some baby food in her sauces until she was close to two. Mac and cheese with yams? Yum. It was a lot like what Jessica Seinfeld is suggesting. Who knew I was so ahead of my time?

I was pretty pleased with myself for this bit of nutritious parenting. I kept it up for quite a while, and Pumpkinpie was the picture of health. She even seemed to have a sort of... glow about her. People commented on it all the time. How lovely her golden skin tone was. We weren't sure where it came from, given that we are both, as my friend puts it, fish-belly white, with a tendency towards pink. Yup, I was doing just fiiiiine at this feeding the child thing. Parent of the Year, that was me, alright.

A couple of years down the road, though, I've been noticing that we just don't really eat a lot of orange veggies anymore. Carrots, on occasion. But I hate squash and yams and I had gotten past the point of continuing to use veggies as sauce, because Pumpkinpie is happy to eat veggies off her plate, thank goodness. (I did, it seems, manage to mostly dodge the picky eater bullet, or at least, so far so good.) And somehow, she had lost that golden glow, reverted to our type of milky pink-and-white-ness... Strange. You wouldn't think skin tone would just change, would you? Unless - oooohhhhhh. Oh. Wait. She never was that golden. She was orange. From the veggies. From the beta carotene in all that yummy orange veg. OMG. I had been dying my child orange like some mini pageant child. Holy crap. I wasn't the Parent of the Year, I was a Bad Parent!

Not that it did her any harm, but it does make me laugh when something like this blog blast reminds me of it.