x-no-archive:yes Karen G wrote:

The thread on bedtime snacks got me thinking. I have one child who
thinks dessert should be served at every meal and should always be ice
cream (although she might try some pumpkin squares or jello on an odd
night). I have been trying to make dessert not unusual, but not
mandatory in our home. We do not serve dessert every night and I try to
make it vaguely nutritional and with some variety.

While I did not give my kids a bedtime snack, I also did not really
obsess very much about good nutrition. I'm sure that many of you
would think I was very remiss in respect to giving my kids 'proper'
food. Even though I was a SAHM, I did not spend much time on cooking
and often used shortcuts.

Skipping the pre-school years, what we generally had c 1968-1975 was

Breakfast - cereal, juice and milk. DH would have a hard boiled egg,
juice and milk

Packed Lunch (for school) - a sandwich, milk, potato chips or some
extra item and a cupcake or something sweet. DH would pack a salad in
addition to the sandwich and maybe some soup. I never sent the
children with anything like that because I was afraid the containers
wouldn't come back in a timely manner.

Dinner - some kind of meat dish (roast, steak, chops, chicken,
hamburgers, fish or casserole), and at least 2 and sometimes three
vegetables which might include potatoes if there wasn't pasta in the
casserole and also there might be a tossed salad or cole slaw and
milk. I don't really remember whether we had desserts at dinner or
not - probably did sometimes and didn't sometimes. We sometimes ate
at McDs on the way from one activity to another.

So this is sort of what I do about this:
Dessert is always served immediately following the meal. In most cases,
the kids are full of other foods and thus eat a reasonably small portion
of dessert.

If we have a sweet meal (pancakes, waffles), we do not have dessert.

From time to time, I serve pumpkin desserts or breads. We also eat
custards with some frequency. Ice cream is a local favorite and we make
homemade frozen yogurt and sorbets on and off to supplement the standard
white stuff from the store.

What do you all do about dessert--frequency, variety, etc?

We did have ice cream of course, and I would make sherbert from jello
or freeze sour cream with fruit in it. I would make a cake and take
one portion of it and make cupcakes for lunches. I sometimes made
pie, and I bought stuff for dessert.

DD#2's first child just didn't like any sweets at all. He would eat
meat and salty things, but turn up his nose at ice cream. Now that
he's 9, he does eat desserts and ice cream, but isn't that interested
in them.

grandma Rosalie