Chicken Nuggets

...or chicken luggages, as my son likes to call them.

They are ubiquitous in American culture. Some children won't eat anything else. This is not an urban myth. I have known some of these children, who refuse to eat anything but. I have heard from docs I used to gossip with when I covered health that companies hire people to come up with the perfect blend of fat, salt and sugar--which is absolutely irresistable--like crack for young children. And since this is just a blog--not a newspaper article where I must fact-check--I remember one friend saying that when Costco stopped selling their chicken nugget monster pack parents across the nation rioted to bring them back.

Well, they are back. And Dino-nuggets feature prominently in the Canyon School diet. I never buy them or serve them at home. But I suppose it is just part of life in America today. When I try to stage a nutritional insurgency on Mondays at the co-op, serving only whole wheat bread, fruits and veggies for snack, some parents grumble, saying there is nothing their children can eat. I looked at the strawberries, the edamame, the ham sandwich and the carrots. Well, what can your child eat? I ask. Dino-nuggets and Tater-tots, she said. We are trying to introduce some new foods at home. "I licked a strawberry," her child said proudly before he asked for juice.

Yesterday Benji, who loves junk food (but, to his credit, eats a lot of other things, too), came home with ketchup spattered all over his shirt. He had had dino-nuggets for lunch. Just as her child is having to try new foods, my child is being exposed to the highly addictive properties of dino-nuggets.

This was our conversation:

B: Mommy, can we have those fish things again? They tasted like Dino Nuggets. (A single-Mommy confession: I cooked baked Halibut from Trader Joe's, telling myself my boys were eating fish. Omega 3 Fatty Acids, critical for their growing brains. Backed up by research!)

Me: Oh. You liked them? They tasted like chicken?

B: Yes. They are just like Dino nuggets, only a different shape. They taste the same on the inside.
(Do companies share research to find out what kids like? Do they pay for the secret recipe that will addict young children? Is there some giant factory that takes meat waste from all protein sources and grinds it up and fries it and sells it in frozen packages to parents everywhere?)

Me: (defeated) Well, I guess they do taste the same. But they were fish. (Still trying to impart a nutritional lesson that will last) Fish is really good for you.

B: Well. They taste the same. We had Dino Nuggets at school today. I ate a baby pterodactyl. Dino nuggets look like killed baby dinosaurs. Right, Mommy? They (dino nuggets and fish sticks) are the same, because they both taste good with ketchup.

Hmm. I guess they do.