Would You Eat Sneak Vegetables?
Are you eating enough green things? Photo credit: Aina C. Hole, StockFood
We know that Americans aren’t eating enough vegetables. We should be filling half our plates with greens and other veggies. But the reality is that we’re filling that half plate with fries, mac ‘n’ cheese, biscuits, and anything else that looks good alongside whatever hunk of protein we’ve typically plonked on the other half.
So in a move reminiscent both of the putting-the-dog’s-vitamin-in-a-hot-dog trick, food companies are “trying to help.” The New York Times reports that they are trying to both make veggies cuter, smaller, and more like baby carrots (think: baby bell peppers) and offering ways to sneak yourself veggies, mixing the healthy stuff right in with the unhealthy stuff.
Sometimes this is done to almost comical effect. The company that proposes mixing in a small portion of spinach with the brownie mix has nutritionists worried, reports the Times, that the mere teaspoon of veg per brownie will result in giving the brownie a “health halo”—making them more desirable, rather than less.
What is going to make us finally eat our veggies? It remains to be seen whether “sneaky veggies” gain traction, especially given the pushback that books like Jessica Seinfeld’s “Deceptively Delicious"—spinach-carrot brownies, anyone?—received. In the meantime, we’ll be making the most of spring’s bounty, no matter where it lurks.
How about you?
