french fries, please!
We were eating lunch at Applebees today and Lucas made a funny connection. But I’ll get to that in a minute.
The backstory here is that Lucas really loves eating at restaurants. Pretty much any restaurant will do—Japanese, Mexican, Korean, seafood, etc. And he’s a good eater—one who likes a variety of foods, including vegetables and even fish. But at the ripe old age of three, he’s sophisticated enough to have realized that certain “family” restaurants offer kids’ menus that feature foods that mom and dad don’t fix at home: corn dogs, pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheeseburgers, macaroni and cheese. (Well, occasionally we fix hot dogs, or macaroni and cheese.) To Lucas, however, these entrees are not the most enticing part of kids’ menus. The best part is that they always come with french fries!
By now, Lucas has also been exposed, little by little, to fast food. Ian and I have taken him once or twice to Carl’s Jr., Jim Boys, and Taco Bell. These are the fast food joints that somehow seem the least objectionable to me, in terms of their food (not their politics). I’m probably fooling myself about that, but still. Those are my feelings.
A grandma has taken it upon herself to educate Lucas further by taking him to McDonalds and Burger King (where you get Star Wars toys), and to create in Lucas’s mind the happy association that McDonald’s restaurants really are called “Old MacDonald’s”—you know, the guy with the farm and the song about the vociferous farm animals? It’s a pretty natural cognitive leap on the part of a preschooler, but not an association that I am happy he has made. Grandma has encouraged this and calls it “Old MacDonald’s” now too. She’s also explained to him that even if mommy thinks it’s junk food, it’s OK to have junk food once in a while.
And there’s where I grin through gritted teeth.
Lucas now recognizes many of the fast food joints by sight now. As we drive through town, he points these chain food stores out and begs to be taken to them for lunch or dinner or “second dinner.” McDonalds, Burger King, “Taco Bells,” Applebees, “Jim Boy Oh Boy,” Carl’s Jr., Baskin Robins. So in case you were wondering if marketing really works on kids, let me tell you: It does. “happy meals” and “play places” and toys that come with kids’ meals are exactly what appeals to very small humans.
Now we have daily conversations about the faults and merits of fast food/junk food. I explain that junk food isn’t healthy for growing bodies, or really any bodies. Lucas says, “But it tastes good, mom.” He’s decided that the real culprit at fast food restaurants, the real reason mommy doesn’t like them is the french fries. Now any restaurant that serves french fries is a junk food restaurant.
So, back to lunch today at Applebees. Here the kids’ menu offers a choice of french fries or vegetables or applesauce. Before the waiter could run say the whole list of side options including “french fries,” I hastily shouted, “vegetables!”
Phew, dodged that bullet.
Alas, french fries came with daddy’s food.
“Mom, are these junk fries or good fries?”
“… Um … How do they taste?” I ask, buying time to think.
“Good.”
“Well, this restaurant serves mostly good food,” I say (even though I’m looking at the naked corn dog stick in his apple-shaped wire food basket), “so I guess it’s OK to have french fries here, once in a while, as long as you don’t eat them often or eat too many.”
Pause
“So this is slow food.”
