The Monday Mag – Apr 13, 2015

In This Edition Of Our New Weekly Magazine:

In The 158 Main Monday Magazine, This Week:
– A Few Sweet Facts About Dessert
– 10 Food Facts – Some More Shocking Than Others
– 3 Tricks To Get Kids To Eat Them Veggies

Our Favorite Quote Of The Week – “Though my stomach is only the size of a pea, I could eat two politicians’ brains.” ― Jarod Kintz

A Few Sweet Facts About Dessert – Candy is the ancestor of all desserts. Ancient people truly ate the fruit of the land and there is evidence that readily available, not cultivated, fruits and nuts were rolled or dipped in honey. This was probably as common a “dish” as our potatoes today, with no inclination to favor savory or salty foods as the main course and sweet foods as a conclusion. Indeed, true dessert appear in the Middle Ages, when Europeans began to use sugar. As you might imagine, the first desserts were most commonly found on the tables of the wealthy. But what truly changed our relationship to sweets was the evolution of cooking implements and manufacturing. Even then, many foods we commonly recognize as sweets or dessert today started out quite differently. Cocoa beans, for example, were first used along with cinnamon in a beverage, and cocoa on its own is actually bitter. Likewise, the first pies contained spices and meats, not fruit.

10 Food Facts – Some More Shocking Than Others – 1- The oldest evidence for soup is from 6,000 B.C. and calls for hippopotamus and sparrow meat. 2- Ripe cranberries will bounce like rubber balls. 3- One of the most popular pizza toppings in Brazil is green peas. 4- One of the most hydrating foods to eat is the cucumber, which is 96% water. 5- The red food-coloring used in candies is made from boiled cochineal bugs, a type of beetle. 6- An American will typically eat the equivalent of 28 pigs in his or her lifetime. 7- Fruit-flavored snacks are made with the same wax used on cars. 8- Caramel was first used as a depilatory agent. 9- The antioxidant content of oregano is higher than that of blueberries. 10- The Popsicle was invented by an 11-year-old in 1905.

Three Tricks To Get Kids To Eat Them Veggies – 1- Separate: Adults enjoy vegetable medley. Children’s brains enjoy color and pattern. Separating veggies on a plate can appeal to a child’s natural attraction to color. 2- Don’t separate: Serve pureed vegetables. If it looks like pudding, it must be as good as pudding! And child nutritionists say there is nothing wrong with sneaking pureed vegetables into mashed potatoes or even into pizza sauce. 3- Don’t insist they finish that heap of broccoli: The one bite rule can be just that for a while. The idea with this approach is that forcing them to finish may associate the vegetable with a parent’s displeasure. Conversely, acknowledging that single bite may lead to the natural tendency to take another to receive additional praise. Of course, we’re not psychologists, but these tricks seem promising. What do you think, or do?

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