French Kids Eat Everything (23 page)

Back home, I had usually eaten one snack in the midmorning and a second snack at some point in the afternoon. I had gradually stopped doing that after we moved. This wasn't deliberate; it was just that I no longer felt hungry in between meals. Part of the reason, I realized after a few months, was that the food was so good that I really needed less. Like the little handmade chocolates that we bought at the local
chocolatier
, which came in amazing flavors (like Earl Grey tea, or rose flower, or lavender) and were so densely delicious that just one was often enough to leave me feeling satisfied.

Only later did I find out that this feeling—of satisfaction, of being replenished—has a scientific basis. The traditional French diet, as it turns out, has a higher proportion of “high satiety” foods than the conventional American diet. These foods are basically ones that make you feel full with fewer calories. A lot of research has been done on satiety, but the basic message is that some foods make us feel more full than others: whole grains, beans, lentils, oats, lean meats, fish, leafy greens, and high water/fiber content vegetables and fruits. As this list suggests, these foods are usually protein- and fiber-rich. They fill you up for longer, delaying the time at which you next feel hungry, particularly when eaten with an appropriate (read: small) amount of high-fat foods (which stimulate the production of hormonal “satiety signals” and therefore make us feel satisfied longer). This, of course, is exactly the mix of foods that French children are fed in the school
cantine:
protein, vegetables, and just a little bit of fat in their cheese or dessert. As a result of eating this way, they feel satisfied for longer.

Contrast this with North America. When American children feel hungry, parental desperation tends to set in immediately. Children are given something—anything—to stave off hunger. If asked, many American parents would prefer to give something unhealthy to their kids rather than make them wait. If French children are hungry, on the other hand, they are simply promised that they'll be able to eat well at the next meal. And this training starts, in some cases, from birth. I saw this firsthand with my husband's friend Margot. We phoned her in the hospital to congratulate her when baby Thomas was two days old. We could hear his bellowing through the phone as clearly as if he were sitting next to us.

“Poor thing,” I said, “it sounds as if he's crying a lot.”

“Yes,” said Margot, resigned, “he
is
crying a lot. And we are still two hours away from his next feeding.” I was shocked into silence. At the same age, Sophie and Claire were breast-fed on demand. That meant feeding, in some cases, every hour or two, particularly when they “cluster fed” in the evenings. If I'd had a parenting motto, it would have been: a hungry baby is an unhappy baby. And the easiest way to make the baby happy was, of course, to feed her. But that is clearly not how Margot approached things. Not knowing what to say, I feebly congratulated her and quickly hung up the phone, feeling shocked at her treatment of her baby, which seemed unbelievably cruel to me. But our French family and friends didn't see it that way. From their perspective, training the baby in a healthy food schedule starts at birth. And the earlier kids learn that parents, not children, decide when it is time to eat, the easier it is for everyone. So a routine is imposed right from the start. I saw this up close when my sister-in-law and I had our second children only three months apart. We were both breast-feeding for the first few months. But whereas Anouk was fed at strict three-hour intervals (not a minute too early!), Claire ate on demand—which meant pretty much all the time. As mothers, we regarded each other with mutual incomprehension. I'm sure she was thinking (as I was):
How can she do that?

But Véronique's children were now happy and healthy (as was Thomas). In fact, most of the kids around us were happy and healthy. This, more than anything, was what made me willing to try snacking the French way.
If they can do it
, I thought,
why can't we?
Plus, it was getting to the point where I was embarrassed to let my in-laws sit in our crumb-filled car. So, by late March, Philippe and I decided to initiate the next phase of The Plan. To maintain my enthusiasm (just in case I was tempted to backslide), I decided to remind myself of the benefits of scheduling meals and limiting snacks. With Philippe's help, I drew up a list:

This was, after I'd finished writing it up, a pretty impressive list. I realized, though, that these benefits would take a while to sink in. We would go through a transition period until the kids settled into their new routine. Their stomachs would adjust: they'd start eating more at mealtimes and not feeling hungry at other times. But it would take a while—and I didn't know how long.

To ease the transition, I decided, I'd have to get the kids involved. I pulled out the cookbooks that Virginie had lent us. Each of them had special sections dedicated to snacks. Letting the kids plan the menu for the
goûter
for the week might soften the blow of no longer snacking on demand. And three weeks was probably about the right length of time to “transition” into our new routine.

I waited for a rainy day when Marie was over for a play date, as I knew she was a more adventurous eater than either Sophie or Claire.

“We're going to decide on some fun snack menus,” I gaily announced, hoping I sounded convincing.

“Each of you gets to plan the snack menu for a whole week. Won't that be fun?” I continued, hoping that the social-marketing skills I'd learned would come through.

“Marie, why don't you go first? Extra points for really
unusual
snacks!” I encouraged them.

Taping three pieces of paper to the kitchen table, I divided each into seven rows, labeled with days of the week. The older girls happily paged through the books, and “wrote out” their menus (which were more or less decipherable), decorating the pages with elaborate five-year-old flourishes. Claire happily scribbled alongside them. We had only three rules: you can't eat the same thing for
goûter
more than once per week; vegetables and fruits have to alternate with “sweet treats”; and chocolate can feature on the menu only once per week. Eventually, I hoped to move to the point where only fruit and vegetables were eaten for snacks. But I knew we couldn't get there right away.

The results of our snack-menu planning, proudly taped on the kitchen walls, were presented to Philippe later that evening. The kids each took turns explaining their choices. My strategy appeared to have worked.

Some fairly quirky choices by Marie, like
nectar de pomme aux épices
(spicy apple nectar), reappeared on Sophie's menu. For sweet treats, the girls chose baked apples and crêpes (one of the first French dishes I'd mastered—but only because I could buy the crêpes ready-made at the local market). For the vegetable dishes, the girls made some great choices, like cucumbers and yogurt dip. And I was pleasantly surprised by their “favorite” choices: carrots, cherry tomatoes, even avocados with vinaigrette. Sophie had a newfound love for my homemade vinaigrette dressing, a mix of olive oil, vinegar, and mustard to which I had judiciously started adding a bit of maple syrup from the precious bottle I'd brought with me from home.

At the same time the children were planning snacks, I was planning our dinners. I knew I'd have to make sure that they were eating well at mealtimes so they wouldn't feel too hungry on our new schedule. So I picked a favorite, tried-and-true dish to serve as the entrée for every meal. With a bit of help, the girls drew up lovely cartoon menus, which they proudly stuck on the fridge. And I pulled out some of the books I'd gotten months before, with just the right messages, for bedtime reading.

But there was one thing I was still worried about: banning the bedtime snack. This had been one of
my
family rituals when I was growing up. I still had a bedtime snack myself almost every night (usually toast with lots of butter, maybe with a banana). Philippe had even adopted the habit, much to the distress of his parents. Snacking in the kitchen at 9:30 or 10:00
P.M
., with the kids in bed and the house quiet, had become one of our favorite moments of the day. It was often our most relaxed moment together as a couple. So I could sympathize with how the kids would feel.

Finally, I decided that the best plan was to change our whole evening routine. We'd eat a big snack at 4:30, after school. Then the kids could probably last until 7:00 or 7:30
P.M
., when we'd eat dinner. Right after that, we'd start our bedtime routine. Philippe's parents had always advised me to give the children a bath before dinner: after eating, the kids (already in pajamas) would immediately start getting ready for bed. Up until now, as we had been sticking to our North American routine of “early dinner–bath-bed,” the kids had eaten earlier, so this hadn't worked for us. But the French “bath–later dinner-bed” approach, I thought, would enable us to avoid the bedtime snack
and
get them to bed earlier. Enticed by the prospect of more “couple time” in the evenings, I decided this was the way to go.

Philippe couldn't resist a smirk when I told him about this twist to The Plan that evening.

“Sounds like a great idea! How did you ever come up with that?” he gently teased. (I did mention that he's pretty good about not saying “I told you so.” But he's not perfect.)

“Remember,” he said, getting serious for a minute, “if we're not firm, it won't work. So I'll only help you with this if you promise to stick to it.”

“Only if you promise to cook at least half of the meals,” I responded. It seemed like a good moment to leverage for all it was worth.

Our bargain struck, we started The Plan on a Monday morning. Amazingly, it went off without a hitch. After our food fights throughout the fall and our struggles with getting the kids to eat a greater variety of foods, I was expecting months of battles. But, this time, the kids felt more in charge, and truly excited and happy about the menus they had planned. They filled up at mealtime, adored their
goûter
, and seemed to understand our explanations that they should eat well because they wouldn't be eating again until the next scheduled time. It helped that crêpes (Claire's choice) and avocado with vinaigrette (Sophie's choice) were on the
goûter
menu: the girls felt satisfied, and easily waited until dinner at 7:00
P.M
. We had some of their favorite new dishes: spinach puree as a soup to start;
quiche à la ratatouille;
and baked apples. Starting our bedtime routine right after dinner worked like a charm. Happily thinking of the “couple time” we were going to get, Philippe and I were both in unusually good moods, which helped everything go a little faster. The kids were tucked into bed just before 8:00
P.M
.—an unusual luxury for us.

The rest of the week unfolded the same way. I could barely believe it. Sophie could hold off snacking in the car, it turned out, if a really great snack was waiting at home. And Claire followed her sister's lead although she did complain a bit about not snacking in the stroller. However, our friend Céline had primed me to distract her with stickers and sticker books, which are a preschool favorite of French parents: good for manual dexterity, and no mess to clean up.

The stickers were just one of the new activities I started to think about now that I could no longer use food as a distraction. I started deliberately spending more time outside with the kids (when it wasn't raining, which it still did far too often for my liking). Forced to think of new things to keep us busy rather than eating, I thought of some great activities, like treasure hunts in the house, and word games like hangman (for Sophie, who was just starting to learn to read). The kids spent more time building forts and playing hide-and-seek.

And—even though I am almost completely devoid of any artistic or decorating abilities—I actually started doing arts and crafts with them. I had always viewed crafts as messy and irritating, and usually ended up offering a snack rather than going through all the extra work of setting up for an “art project,” as Sophie called it. But now, when Sophie asked, I made the extra effort. Actually, Philippe made most of the extra effort, as he turned out to be much more skilled than I was at this sort of thing. So
he
ended up doing lots of arts and crafts with them, which had the added benefit of allowing them to spend more time with him. (And I was diplomatically silent on some of the activities that were, in my opinion, of limited educational value, like the several-hundred-piece Big City Hospital Lego set that Philippe bought “for the girls” and that they politely watched him assemble.)