“Berries, berries, the magical fruit…”
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We had a great day picking berries today. Here’s an excerpt from a conversation that my four-year-old son had with a fellow berry picker:
Jonah: “I burped!”
Woman: “Oh my! Have you been eating a lot of berries?”
Jonah: “Nope. Just one. At a time.”
That, is my boy.
If there is one thing that brings back images of childhood, it is picking berries. As I mentioned, we had a great day picking berries here in the greater Portland, OR, area, and we are now loaded with 30 lbs. of the best berries in the world. We came home with Marionberries, Blackberries, and Raspberries – next week it’s Blueberries.
Berries are one of those magical fruits that can convince any child that fruit isn’t so bad.
Are there kids who actually dislike fruit?
Yep. How do I know?
Because for a while I was the poster child for Disenchanted Adolescent Avoiders of Fruit Treats (DAAFT) (North America chapter). I have since gone through some de-programming, but I still know the secret handshake.
“I don’t know what this is, but you’re gonna’ like it”
Training kids the values of good eating is part of the job description for parents (and one of the pleasures, especially when it works). However I think sometimes as parents we forget that we are giving our kids two distinct messages on what constitutes good food. On one hand, we judge that food is good when it tastes the same each time we eat or drink it (think Milk here, or Grandma’s brownie recipe). On the other, the one food group you should eat from the most, fruits and vegetables, breaks that rule entirely. Fruits and vegetables can taste totally different from one to the next, be juicy or mealy, or (Call 911!) have a worm inside!!!
(It’s funny, when you get older, tequila with said critter in it is a good thing. Hmph. Looks like another post idea.)
This is all fine, except when the homogenized products start to outweigh the natural products. Then it gets a little hairy.
Now let me just say, there is obviously nothing wrong with a recipe tasting the same each time – that’s how recipes are supposed to work, generally. When I go to my favorite Thai place, I want that pineapple curry to taste exactly as I remember it: flavorfully explosive morsels of shrimp, chicken, and pineapple, all reclining happily and luxuriously in a delicious, spicy-tangy, lovely orange curry melange that hints of the tears of angels having been dripped into it. When I want that curry, I want THAT curry.
The problem starts when we start to rely too heavily on those homogenized flavors as staples in our diet. Because like it or not, fruits and vegetables are very unpredictable in taste, texture, size, color – pretty much every aspect. One orange may look, feel, smell, and taste dramatically different than the next, even when they come from the same tree.
This effect is worsened when fruit is gassed, sprayed, frozen, boxed, and trucked 3,000 miles in a freezer container over a period of weeks. Sounds delicious, eh?
As a child of the Atari 2600 and the Twentieth-century food production revolution, most of what I ate at the time while playing Pitfall(!) was homogenized in some form or other. Packaged food, is, by nature, homogeneous. That characteristic of foodish things – predictability – was at the very top of my list when it came to how I chose what I ate. Open up that bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and you can bet your autographed Shawn Cassidy poster that it will taste exactly like the bag before it. Utterly Delicious (Thank you MSG!!!) (Just joking. I rescend the thank you, – be damned, MSG.).
And honestly it didn’t really even have to taste all that good – I mean c’mon – I used to love a good Pop Tart now and then, but the best thing it’s got going for it is a) you can put it in a toaster, and b) even if it tastes like crap, you know every time you rip open that little foil baggy that you’re going to get two slices of the same stuff you got the last time.
And thus, the more I ate homogenized, processed junk, the less popular those unpredictable fruits and vegetables were with me. And in retrospect I think my attitude and wild mood swings didn’t much help my visible demonstration of that preference.
WOW I had patient parents.
What you eat is what you will crave
Without question, we all desire a degree of predictability – and I think this is generally a good idea. The important thing is, if your diet becomes too heavily dependent on packaged, homogenized foods, you only make it harder to like foods that are not made that way. Get your kids used to Ruffles potato chips, and they are going to expect Ruffles potato chips. If your diet, on the other hand, relies heavily on real, whole foods, you (and your kids) will crave those foods.
Of course, realistically your kids are going to crave lots of things that are not in the whole food category. But at the very least by training them to eat whole foods, particularly fruits and vegetables, daily, at least you will be developing habits that they will be familiar with later. And hopefully you’ll be counterbalancing the junk a bit too.
Sad to say, it won’t cure Pop-Tart cravings, but it helps – take my word for it.
Enter, the berry
As part of my fruity rehabilitation (it was a lot less formal than it sounds), freshly picked berries were one of the gateway foods to getting back to a diet that emphasizes real food. Berries bridge the gap because, well, almost all of them are so incredibly delicious. Berries picked fresh and at the peak of ripeness are one of the world’s greatest treats. On occasion you might get a bitter berry (raspberries are notorious for this), but for the most part, the variety is part of the draw – one berry might be a little sour, so you have to follow that one up with one that is particularly sweet. The variety is part of what makes it fun. The high natural sugar content is the other.
And I’ll put up fresh Blackberries against a vat of MSG any day of the week.
In case you haven’t noticed, I believe in the power of the berry. Get your kids absolutely addicted to fresh berries, and I bet you will see a change in what they start eating. They will get used to the idea that good food doesn’t have to come out of a can, or have a plastic wrap punctured before it’s stuck in the microwave.
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I’m loving the new title bar art. Very appropriate.
I love your point about expecting and craving what you eat. I was lucky enough to have a mom who regularly feed me green bell pepper strips and whole tomatoes as a snack. And I gobbled it up because it was fresh and delicious. My mom also introduced me to the farmers’ market at a young age. And now that I’m all grown up, I have my own garden and still snack on fresh veggies all the time. It’s a way of life — very, very normal.
I’m so jealous that you went berry picking. They don’t grow well in these parts…I have to wait until fall for apple picking season.
I just finished a pail (all by myself) of Fruitland Ontario cherries.
Dee-lish.
The sad thing is, I had to drive to the orchard to pick the cherries myself. Grocery stores in Toronto only carry pre-packaged American produce.
Insane
Note – I actually enjoyed the picking of the cherries, the bugs were a little much, but I digress.
Note 2 – There is nothing wrong with American produce (well, maybe the peppers coated in extra salmonella). I just find it weird that our local produce is unavailable in our supermarkets. weird.
I had never thought of that. Fruits and vegetables are not consistant in how they taste. Hmmm…maybe that is why sometimes kids (and adults) are reluctant consumers. My one grandson won’t even taste watermelon. Maybe he was offered one that was not up to snuff and has decided that watermelon is not good.
I had so much fun at the lake picking Saskatoon Berries with my grandson. He is 2. He ate them one by one…rapid fire. We did have to cut him back a bit. Berries contain a lot of fiber. Need I say more? I wanted to pick a bucket full but really did not have time. They make the best pie in the world. Today I had better get out and pick my raspberries and make some jam. They are ready and falling off the bushes.
Tomorrow is farmer market day. I am going to get up early and be there firs thing so I can get in on the good stuff before they sell it all.
I feel like my sisters and I were relatively lucky when it comes to eating fresh vegetables and especially fruit. My mom grew up in a house where they grew a bunch of their own produce and ate a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Fortunately, we now live right next to a large plot of apple orchards, where they grow a variety of other fruits and vegetables. We did exactly like you did except we would pick apples and peaches. Nothing is better than a freshly picked, ripe peach. As a kid though, I know exactly what you mean when you talk about the fruit not being the same every time. It took me a while to get over that, and to eat the fruit all the time like we do now.
@FBG: Hey there! My wife is the same way – she grew up eating fresh vegetables from their garden (they couldn’t afford much else), and now their treats as a family are things like Mom’s swiss chard, or an artichoke shared. I think it really can have a positive impact!
@DR: Wow that is interesting – I didn’t realize that. We really enjoy going to the farm, although with gas on the rise I do think about the value. But when we go we really try to make it count – 30 lbs of berries divided by a gallon and a half of gas…
@Christine: Hi Christine! You’re back (as your new post says) – beyond the non-Ram Tough truck it sounds like it was a good trip. On limiting the kids/fiber
, we have the same challenge. Jonah LOVES to eat as many as he picks, so we have to watch him because he often picks the greener berries, and the sourness leads to, what he calls, a “stumuckegg”. 
Good to hear from ya!
@Tom: Hey there Tom – I know exactly what you mean about apples and peaches. Both got a really bad reputation with me as a child because a) the canned peaches always tasted sweet (wow corn syrup packed – go figure), and b) the ones that had been trucked in were often really mealy and dry. Here we have an area called the Fruit Loop up near Mt. Hood that apparently has a lot more fruits like stone fruits, etc. – so we’re planning a trip out there soon too.
Hey Jeremy, I agree with you bro. Berries can serve a bridge to help kids eat more fruit; I’m no kid but I love berries! Well, I’ll always try to remain “a kid at heart.”
Eating berries is smart choice, enjoy them with a small snack of ice cream or yogurt.
My kid is a fruit-hater. He hates fruit (except melons) and anything fruit-flavored.
He would rather eat a bowl of broccoli than a bowl of berries. He likes asparagus. He won’t eat an apple.
So I did something right. But can’t figure out where I went wrong.
This is a wonderful post. The children are perfect and adorable. There is nothing more wonderful in the world then to see a child in a garden! Thank you for the memories (mom of teens!
) and the berry good reminders! 
Your blog is wonderful. I know my readers would think so too. Would you consider adding your blog to the Be Naturally well community so more health conscious bloggers and readers can find you easily? Here’s the link http://www.benaturallywell.com/blog/add-your-blog/
Many blessings, and thanks for the inspiration!
Shelley
@KathyR: Wow now there is a combination of tastes for a child you don’t hear every day. I didn’t like most vegetables until adulthood – not the other way around!
@Shelley: Thanks for your kind words. I did indeed swing over to benaturallywell.com and add Almost Fit. Looks like you have a good thing going on there!
What a great blog! So glad that I found it!
Cute post too! Totally agree with you!
Hmmm, I grew up liking my veggies and my fruits… never a problem there. It was the proteins that were always \”suspicious\”. I especially hated meat fats and chicken skin. And still do. Seafood/fish was my protein of choice.
I remember picking huckleberries with my granddad and eating them with cream. I remember picking figs on my other set of grandparent\’s farms. We ate them on our processed cereal, LOL! We picked pecans from my grandfather\’s pecan orchard… the ones on the ground that the regular pickers didn\’t get. He didn\’t like waste.
Still berry picking today… my neighbor lets me pick what raspberries grow over the fence on my side. I don\’t get many, but I enjoy every bite!
For a while, while I was living in CA… I had a landlady and she had an apple tree, a red plum (red on the inside plum, those are the BEST) and a tangerine tree. I loved that! But then she cut down the apple tree and cut down the plum and pruned the poor tangerine tree back so far it took it several years to recover again. Sigh. Some folks just don\’t appreciate what they got.
Nice site! Your son clearly knows the best way to eat raspberries: off your fingers. I strongly agree about the responsibility of introducing kids to good foods. Berries are great for that, for sure.
Debs
Food Is Love
@Tina: Thanks for the kind words, although I’m not sure if “cute post” is good or bad…
@Cynthia: Hey there Cynthia! One of my early childhood memories is walking down the road with my uncles (they were about 6 and 8 years older than me), picking berries of all kinds, and then eating them when we got back in a bowl of milk. There may have also been a bit of sugar involved.
@Debs: Thanks – Yep, he has a gift I think. Well, many gifts now that I think about it.
I also checked your site out, and it looks excellent. Thanks for stopping in!