Donuts and More

Finding Too Many 'Holes' in Your Child Care Story

A letter to the editor by Jared V. Harper:

I read with interest the article about Pam Williams of Madison County (Living, "Helping: Area woman honored for her contributionto child care," June 18) who was named Child Care Provider of the Year.

It certainly sounds like she is welcoming to the children in her care, and that her charges have fun playing, dancing and putting on Christmas programs. However, the photo on the front of the Saturday Living pages showing Williams and three little girls eating doughnuts raised some concerns.

The caption states, "Pam Williams smiles as three kids ... eat doughnuts for breakfast Tuesday. Williams was named Child Care Provider of the Year within a 12-county area by the Child Care Resource and Referral Agency of Athens."

Doughnuts do not provide a nutritious breakfast. They are basically composed of white flour, fat and sugar. As a conscientious child care provider, Williams should be feeding these children foods like whole grain cereals, milk, juice, whole wheat toast, cheese grits, etc. that contain the nutrients children's bodies need for proper growth and development. There's the old adage "You are what you eat."

Jared V. Harper

Jared Harper has never cared for children. He doesn’t know very much about feeding a group. What he fails to understand is that menu and diet are a balance. Getting kids to eat is the first agenda, the second agenda is training them to eat, and the third, for the gold medal, is making kids choose good stuff over junk.

Choosing good stuff over junk means letting kids have junk in the first place – enough of it so that it won’t be a big treat. When something as pleasant as eating a treat is only a once in a while thing, children crave it. They need the calories that sweets offer especially if they are active children. Some children will crave treats so much, they will actually steal food and hoard it.

By offering treats as a matter of daily course, the adult is sending a message to children that, yes, it’s a genuine part of life, one you should experience, and one that has value as a treat, but it’s not worth craving because there will be more of it around the time corner.

The best way of dealing with treats is to vary the menu. Donuts once a week won’t collapse a nutrition program, in fact, it may enhance one. Donuts will actually stimulate a picky appetite, energizing a child for more, so by lunch time, kids are famished and will eat nearly anything.

My favorite story is one where children are given carrots, carrots, carrots as a snack, and all the fun, fatty foods are ignored as junk not fit to eat. As the child grows thin, he becomes feint and has no energy, so the pediatrician tells mom and dad, “This child needs more calories. He is suffering from affluent mal nutrition.”

Kids need calories, and there are children who are so thin and so picky, the sheer weight of a donut may actually be good for a child. Fat is cushion food – a cushion that will help in time of illness.

The ordinary problem is too much fat, because it’s easier to eat donuts than other foods. Add the fact that most kids don’t get outside enough to exercise, and a parent has compounded the problem. It’s a balance.

Balance is important. The childcare that makes everything a chore like eating is a dull place to be. Food is supposed to be fun and kids should always enjoy eating.

Here’s a guide to a day’s childcare food. You choose one:

Breakfast: Grits and cheese, prune juice, milk

Lunch: Institutional meat loaf, canned green beans, applesauce, whole wheat bread, milk

Snack: Graham crackers, juice

Or

Breakfast: Donuts, sliced apples, milk

Lunch: Baked chicken, apples, bananas, oranges, quesadillas, milk

Snack: Home made chocolate chip cookies, milk

Difference? Edibility.

Actually, the second menu is much better for the child than the first one.

First- no child will drink the prune juice but nearly every child will eat a dozen apple slices.

Second, grits are a non acceptable food because they are not whole grain. Cheese in the morning counts for nothing on the USDA Childcare Food Program, and will actually constipate a child.

Donuts tell a picky child that the food is safe, fun and easy to eat. It makes him comfortable and sets the eating course for the day.

No child likes meatloaf. It’s one of those “do I have to eat this” foods. They do, however, like skewered meat balls.

Canned green beans have little nutritional value – they amount to water soaked food silt. But apples, bananas, oranges all have food value and are not destroyed by heat, pealing or handling. Applesauce is a substitute food for picky eaters. Unless you make it from scratch, it’s mostly water.

Whole wheat bread is good, but kids won’t eat a lot because it’s heavy, course, and feels a bit like chicken feathers when you get an untrained mouthful. They will pick out the center. Quesadillas, on the other hand, are fun and the extra cheese is not constipating when it’s served with the apples.

Graham crackers and juice are a mistake mender. They will reverse the action of the pluggers served at lunch, and plumb the child. They have a palatable index not unlike cardboard, and they are cheap and a no brainer to serve.

Chocolate chip cookies from scratch take time and effort and actually contain more nutrition –calorie for calorie - than graham crackers.

People are funny about food. There is a snobbery about some things like donuts, but not graham crackers. Donuts are better than most fast foods and better than coke. So many children come to school having had last night’s pizza, chocolate cake or the bottom line chocolate cereal in front of TV, it’s hard to tell a provider that a winner breakfast should be something egregious as grits and cheese.

So what did you have for breakfast? I had my usual – natural peanut butter, 1 slice of rye bread, a teaspoon of dry cinnamon and a handful of walnuts. Rachel had spinach, feta cheese and walnuts, Molly and Stacey had two eggs each, and Edith had chicken salad. Tis a far far better thing we eat than they shall ever serve.

Pass the donuts, please!