*To Believer subscribers and other post-postmodernists: Snark alert!*

Hey, did you know that if you start early and serve a wide variety of delicious, healthy food, you can prevent your child from becoming a picky eater?

Did you know that 54 percent of American families have dinner together every night?

Did you know that natural sugar is magically better for you than added sugar?

Did you know that every night, I turn into a monkey and fly around distributing free bananas?

No less than three of these claims appear in the new “food issue” of Child magazine.

First up, we have “How to raise an adventurous eater.” Anybody who remembers their own childhood or has a child over age one knows the answer to this: you can’t. Duh. My parents are adventurous eaters (I routinely take my dad along on restaurant reviews and he always tells me he’ll eat whatever I ask him to), and they served a variety of food, and for most of my childhood I was pickier than a koala. Koalas only eat eucalyptus leaves. For me, it was pizza.

Okay, the article isn’t that bad. The best point is made by Mario Batali, who says:

> The way I have always introduced new or adventurous food is by not making a big deal about it: Put it on the table with no fanfare and enjoy it. Don’t make a big deal if they don’t seem interested–and then do it again.

Great advice, but I am living proof that you can do this and still end up with a eucalyptus-eater.

Next, there is a survey of “How America’s Families Eat.” The methodology of this survey is not explained. I assume a bunch of readers sent in cards. Other facts about America’s families:

* Only 16 percent report that their kids misbehave at the table.
* 56 percent report that “working parents share cooking responsibilities”.
* 69 percent report that Mom does all the cooking.
* The average family has homemade dinners 6 nights a week, fast-food dinners 2 nights a week, restaurant dinners 2 nights a week, and take-out dinners 2 nights a week. Is it any wonder American waistlines are expanding, I ask you?

I’m going to gloss over the sugar article except to say that if you follow its recommendation to limit your eight-year-old to no more than five teaspoons of added sugar per day, which is less than what’s in one decent-sized chocolate chip cookie, you will turn your child into a person who stays up nights plotting how to get more sugar.

Finally, there’s an article about England’s bestselling kid-food author Annabel Karmel. We have one of Karmel’s books, First Meals, and I admire her eclecticism, but we didn’t end up using the book much, except as something for Iris to read (it has cute pictures of kids eating). The problem with Karmel’s approach is that she makes a distinction between adult food and kid food, and often for no apparent reason. She does cute recipes such as Sleeping Cannelloni, with olive feet and grated cheese for hair. If you think of it as party food, it’s fine. But I don’t know what to make of this recipe for Perfect Pasta–it’s a reasonably tasty-sounding (albeit too low in fat) dish of noodles with broccoli, scallions, and chicken, sauced with soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and (far too much) honey. It makes four servings. At 365 calories per serving, it certainly doesn’t serve four adults, and if it serves four kids, (a) what are the adults supposed to eat, and (b) what size of kid?

Oh, incidentally, the pasta recipe contains three of those five teaspoons of added sugar (assuming your kid only eats 365 calories worth of pasta), so skip dessert.

This was an especially bad issue, but all of the glossy parenting magazines (Parents, Parenting, Child, Working Mother) live in a world where food exists only to be a problem or to solve a problem. How do I fix a picky eater? How do I get my kid off cookies? No wonder readers lied on the survey. Who wants to admit to being part of the problem? Even an article with recipes for a Father’s Day barbecue features a main course (shrimp and chicken skewers) with 1g of fat and a dip made with low-fat mayo and sour cream. Mommy, why doesn’t Daddy live here anymore?

Oh, one more thing. In the same issue, there’s a story entitled “Wooing My Pregnant Wife.” Don’t you think they’d sell more magazines with a story about wooing someone else’s pregnant wife?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s almost sundown, and I have a big sack of bananas. I hope you’ve been a good little boy or girl this year.