Quote

The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying.

Getting kids into the kitchen preparing the food they and their families will eat results in them viewing food in an entirely new way. If given the right ingredients, that act alone can raise the standards of the quality of the food both they and their family eat.

Kids see cooking as a creative outlet now, like soccer and ballet. It gives me hope that things like fast food, childhood obesity and the horrible state of school lunches can be addressed by kids and their parents.

As a chef and as a father, I am very upset by what's on the menu at most schools: chicken nuggets and tater tots and ketchup and pizza.

It distresses me when I take my seven-year-old nephew out. I cook healthy food, and he wants to go to McDonald's. He doesn't even like the food; he just wants the toys, the Happy Meals. I can't stand to see people walking down the street eating fast food.

Everyone prefers some foods over others, but some adults take this tendency to an extreme. These people tend to prefer the kinds of bland food they may have enjoyed as children - such as plain or buttered pasta, macaroni and cheese, cheese pizza, French fries and grilled cheese sandwiches - and to restrict their eating to just a few dishes.

The fact that most kids aren't eating at home with their families any more really means they are eating elsewhere. They are eating out there in fast food nation.

We incorporated new tastes and flavors into our kids' diets from a very early age, which helped to develop their palates and prevented them from becoming picky eaters. We don't buy junk food and give them options of fresh fruit, yogurt, raw almonds, or dried whole grain cereals for snack time.

Kids will eat anything, won't they?

When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple, the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets. Things replace parental standards.