How to Avoid the Children’s Menu Trap
Children’s menu. I can’t say I’m overjoyed with the tasteless mac and cheese choices, simple pizza discs, and dry white meat chicken sticks, but I’ve accepted these options as part of the family dinner – kids need to eat and parents want to sit in from time to time. restaurant and chill out to the chatter of the adults and Daniel Tiger playing on the iPad, which they tucked into their bag “just in case.”
But maybe it’s time to fight the status quo. In a tirade titled “Why ordering from a children’s menu is bad for kids,” Jeffrey M. Barker of the AV Club argues that dull “baby food” is bad not only for children’s health in the short term, but also for business. and food culture in the long run, creating a generation averse to spices, herbs and anything that has aroma.
He’s writing:
… imagine if the children’s menu standards were applied to adult diners. Imagine sitting in your regular café next door and instead of a full menu, you get a smaller menu called “for the raw troglodytes.” And all it has on it is a burger or pizza with cheese. Maybe splurge on a nicer restaurant and they slather their burger with fancy aioli and call the cheese pizza “tortilla.” You will feel like Asian food on another evening, so the chicken nuggets where you go are sweet and sour and the hamburger has teriyaki sauce. If that were the case, you would be offended. So why is this insult acceptable when directed at our children?
I asked several chefs at restaurants that frequent Seattle and, as expected, I heard that chicken sticks and fried cheese sandwiches are what parents want – this is what they would ask for, even if not for there was a kids menu to order from. Bull. Basically, this argument is: a) we don’t care what their children eat because b) parents don’t care what their children eat. I don’t believe this is true. Parents want their children to eat well and the cooks would love it if the children eat the food they cook.
Restaurants are slowly starting to understand this, and now some of them serve children the same food as adults – hand-made noodles or grass-fed beef hot dogs – only in smaller portions and translated for more indecisive diners. Joe Sparatta, head chef at Southbound in Richmond, Virginia, told Bon Appétit , “We don’t want kids to eat like us late at night when we’re damn tired.”
However, most places are still popular when it comes to children’s meals. Ninety-seven percent of kids’ meals at America’s leading chain restaurants do not meet the Science in the Public Interest’s Nutritional Standards . (The report indicates that Applebee fried cheese with fries and chocolate milk is one of the worst – this dish contains 1,210 calories and 2,340 milligrams of sodium.)
Here’s what you can do to avoid the kids menu trap:
Share what you eat with your child
Easy. Also cheaper. I usually like to order spicy food, but when sharing with a child, I ask for hot sauce or peppers. Asian restaurants usually don’t have a children’s menu, so you have to share. We love going to pho restaurants. There I will order the largest bowl, request the smaller bowl, give my four-year-old daughter noodles, soup and meatballs, and leave the rest – the rare steak, tripe, tendon, sprouts, jalapenos, and Sriracha chunks – for me.
If you add the appetizers and side dishes and portion everything, this is a pretty satisfying meal for everyone.
Ask for a half-size snack
For pasta and other dishes that can be easily subdivided (read: not king salmon), it is possible to order a half serving in some restaurants.
Ask to cook some of the vegetables first
Instead of watching your hungry kids munch on buns for the first twenty minutes of a meal, order a slice of vegetables – fried asparagus, fried green beans, steamed broccoli – and have your waiter bring them as a snack. After they fill their stomachs with greens, you will feel better about what they eat next.
As Barker suggests, it is the parents who must lead the revolution against tampering with the children’s menu. (“If we stop ordering chicken sticks, they stop offering chicken sticks,” he writes.)
But please don’t get rid of the crayons.