parenting in the land of dessert

Karen G wrote in :

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

Personally (and I think this is probably a cultural thing) I think that
a meal is not really complete without some kind of dessert. A one
course meal just seems unfinished.

The things we tend to have are yoghurts, cakes, fruit (or other fruit based
pudding), mousse or cookies. We occasionally have rice pudding or fruit
pies.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

In article ,
just me wrote:

We recognize the over eating problem in the world. We have also recognized
in our Dear Son a preference to eat only certain foods, not necessarily what
is served. This has been reflected in requesting dessert directly after
stating he was "too full" to eat the majority of his main meal. My
consistent response is that if he is too full to eat his main meal he is too
full for dessert or even an evening snack. So, he can have a snack or
dessert only if he eats his main meal and coincidentally is still hungry.

We have this issue with one of ours as well. Our general approach is,
where practical, to save his dinner for later in the evening when he is
invariably "starving" again. We serve him what we feel is a minimal
reasonable helping of healthful foods (avoiding what we know he truly
dislikes) and expect that he eats that before moving on to "dessert" or
other snacks later in the evening. We don't typically serve dessert,
but he'll ask for cookies or snack crackers or chips, etc. without
having had what we consider a reasonable meal. In case he claims to
hate the dinner, we will usually allow him to have a healthful
alternative.

--Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)

In article , Penny Gaines wrote:
Personally (and I think this is probably a cultural thing) I think that
a meal is not really complete without some kind of dessert. A one
course meal just seems unfinished.

The things we tend to have are yoghurts, cakes, fruit (or other fruit based
pudding), mousse or cookies. We occasionally have rice pudding or fruit
pies.


We have dessert about twice a week---when my wife feels like cooking one.
Sometimes she'll just take some fruit juice and add gelatin to it to
make "jello"---a dessert that my son and I eat, but she does not,
other times she'll bake something fancy. Most often, dessert is some
sort of fruit thing.

Sometimes our whole meal would seem like a dessert to others---crepes
filled with berries or bread pudding are two examples that come to mind.

Sometimes we'll have several courses but no dessert. (Soup, salad,
pasta, bread, ...)

Our son has been known to refuse dessert because he wasn't hungry, as
well as the more common refusal to eat the main course but
miraculously have room for dessert. He evolved the idea of multiple
stomachs like cows: he claims to have a main-course stomach, a
dessert stomach, and a drink stomach (with occassional extra thrown in
as needed), to explain why he has room for dessert but can't eat
another bite of his main course.



--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

In ,
Penny Gaines wrote:

*Karen G wrote in :
*
* What do you all do about dessert--frequency, variety, etc?
*
*Personally (and I think this is probably a cultural thing) I think that
*a meal is not really complete without some kind of dessert. A one
*course meal just seems unfinished.

One course meal? Who said anything about a one course meal?

-hillary, who will often eat some pre-meal nibbles (dried fruit, cheese,
chips and dip, whatever), salad, some soup, an "entree" of some kind...
and not have dessert (although if there is dessert around, I will
definitely indulge!)

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

Karen G wrote in message . ..

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

Our family has dessert after dinner once a week, on Friday nights. The
dessert is invariably the same, since we're limited to non-dairy
desserts after a meat meal. I make peach-blueberry crumble. It's
everyone's favorite and they will eat the entire pan in one night, so
no leftovers!

Dessert has always been one of those things that is 'special', like in
a fancy restaurant or at a friend's house for dinner. Although both
my children are excruciatingly thin, I'm not, and I'd rather they eat
things other than sweets to pack on the lbs. Not that I have anything
against sweets, I really don't. I love sweets. I really really really
love sweets. But I think it's just a bad habit to *expect* sweets
after every meal. My kids are both big fruit eaters, and will often
eat fruit after a meal. If there is ice cream in the house (unlikely,
but known to happen occasionally) and we've had a dairy meal, ice
cream is OK. But cakes and cookies? Nope, not right after dinner.

We also have never gotten into the 'midnight snack' habit so many
other familys have. My son is often starving after dinner, so he eats
a second dinner, and sometimes even a third dinner. But we just don't
snack at night as a rule. After school is a good time for snacking and
filling up with junky foods. Plenty of time to burn it all off.

Marjorie

Karen G wrote:


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

The most common dessert we have is probably a cookie or two.
That's maybe 1 or 2 times a week. DS doesn't like dessert
things (cakes, pies, etc) although DD will scarf those
things right up.

Scott DD 10 and DS 7

In article ,
Colleen Porter wrote:
Karen G wrote in message
...

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

I am a big believer in dessert. I think it is important to an overall
diet, and can prevent snacking later. But that is all with the caveat
of *if* it is a healtful dessert, with a substantial protein and/or
fiber component.

Thanks for this post, Colleen! It is a very interesting perspective on
dessert and my mind keeps coming back to it. We are not in the habit
of having dessert, but your post has raised some interesting points.

--Robyn

Kevin Karplus wrote in :

Our son has been known to refuse dessert because he wasn't hungry, as
well as the more common refusal to eat the main course but
miraculously have room for dessert. He evolved the idea of multiple
stomachs like cows: he claims to have a main-course stomach, a
dessert stomach, and a drink stomach (with occassional extra thrown in
as needed), to explain why he has room for dessert but can't eat
another bite of his main course.

Actually, I have a lot of sympathy with your son. I often find that
I have had enough of the main course, but can fit in some pudding.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three