French Kids Eat Everything (And Yours Can Too)

Moving her young family to her husband’s hometown in northern France, Canadian Karen Le Billon is prepared for some cultural adjustment, but she doesn’t expect a family food revolution. The fancy foods and snack-free culture she finds there are hard for her picky-eater daughters to handle. And equally hard for their mother, who is lectured - for slipping her fussing toddler a snack - a recipe for obesity! - and forbidden from sending a brown-bag lunch in lieu of the elaborate four-course school lunches intended to teach children to love their veggies. The family initially rebels, but Le Billon begins to see the wisdom in -a simple set of unwritten food rules that govern how the French foster healthy eating habits and good manners in babies and children. She observes that French kids willingly eat everything - from fruit salad to foie gras, potato chips to snails, spinach to stinky blue cheese - and that this practice is considered normal by everyone, including the kids! Moreover, since diets are almost unheard of for French children, Le Billon discovers yet another version of the famous French paradox: while French kids love to eat, they are rarely overweight. And, intriguingly, although French parents spend just a few more minutes per day cooking than we do, their homemade meals are healthy and tasty, appealing to both adults and kids. Combining personal anecdotes with practical tips and delicious, easy recipes (like Five-Minute Fish en Papillote, Baby’s Vichyssoise, Crêpes, Zesty Orange Salad, and Mousse Au Chocolat, French Kids Eat Everything is a humorous, provocative look at the way we feed our kids.