Some weeks ago, I attended a discussion with a registered dietician about kids’ nutrition.  The event was hosted by Beatrice’s preschool and the dietician, Mary Pate-Bennett, was on hand to answer all the millions of questions we parents have about our kids’ diets. 

I learned a number of things, including:

1. We all have the same kid.  Every family has at least one of them.  The so-called picky eater.  The kid who loves snacks and salts and preservatives and sweets but will gag over a carrot and take four hours to chew a piece of chicken breast.

Side story: Once, when Beatrice was maybe 2 years old, we had an early dinner one night because we had to all make it to Fred’s school play.  So we threw some chicken nuggets and noodles and green-beans-from-frozen on their plates and told them to wolf it down.  Beatrice has never wolfed down a meal in her whole life – and this night was no exception.  After much pleading and cajoling, we got enough down her that we felt like half-way decent parents.  We told her to have one more bite of green beans and then we’d take a lollipop with us to the school for her to have as her “dessert” while Fred’s play was going on.  So she took one more bite of green beans and I am not exaggerating in the least when I say she was still chewing that one bite forty minutes later.  It was near the end of the play before she swallowed and started on the lollipop. 

2. Because of number (1) above, we are all having the same conversations at dinner-time.  Only they’re not conversations.  They’re a series of pleas, frustrated I-swear-I’m-not-yelling talking-tos and bargains (“take two more bites of potatoes and one more bite of broccoli”).  But we’re all doing it.  Every night.

3. We don’t actually have to be having these so-called conversations.  Despite every instinct we have that says otherwise, we don’t actually have to be forcing nutrition down our kids’ throats.  As hard as it is to believe (though I am slowly starting to believe it), the dietician promised that, in 99% of kids (at least of kids with no special needs like a food allergy or sensory sensitivity), 99% of the time, their bodies will actually naturally crave the foods they need to help them grow.  Their bodies – our bodies – are quite literally built to do that.  So, if we, as their parents, just make sure to offer a variety of foods (within reason, obviously) at mealtimes throughout the day and limit portions of less-healthy things to reasonable ones for our kids’ bodies, their little mind-bodies will do the rest and we just have to trust that. 

And – and this is really big news, I think – kids don’t need all their nutrition each and every day.  So, according to Mary, kids do need to get all their vitamins and nutrients, but they can get them over the course of a week.  So, maybe the reason why your kid is craving buttered pasta tonight is because he was all into his carrots two days ago and his body is now needing a different set of nutrients.  Maybe she got a ton of vitamin C on Monday so her body just wants vitamin E come Thursday.   

And as I thought more and more about this, it occurred to me that, really, we would benefit so much by taking this approach in all aspects of our life.  It’s the long view versus the narrow one.  I often tell seminarians at Thankful this: You don’t have to say all the things in every sermon.  First of all, because it would make for a pretty awful sermon.  And second of all, because our folks don’t need all the nutrients in every spoonful of theology. 

And it’s not just in the Church but everywhere.  If we try to teach our children all the things they need to know about kindness and empathy and ethics every day, we will feel like failures, because it’s impossible.  And it’s also unnecessary.  Their minds and spirits, like our minds and spirits, can take things in bit by bit, over the long haul, and sometimes can only take things in bit by bit and over the long haul. 

And maybe, just maybe, if we don’t get prayer in every day or we don’t get around to doing physical exercise for a month or two or we take a step back from engaging in a certain community, maybe that’s ok.  Maybe our minds and spirits and bodies will call us back to these things after a season and so long as we are listening to those cravings when they come, it’ll be all right.  We’ll get the full spectrum of our nutrition in time, over the long haul.