VOA健康报道2022--趣味午餐帮助学生吃健康食品

Fun Lunches Help School Kids Eat Healthy Foods

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

When it comes to making lunch for their kids, moms and dads have usual favorites. For some parents in the United States, those favorites are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches — also known as PB&Js. Fruit like apples and bananas are also popular.

But one mother has an unusual go-to ingredient for her children's lunches. Jenny Mollen uses funny-looking candy eyes.

She has learned that her children will eat any healthy food if it has edible¹ eyeballs attached. The "eyeballs" are really pieces of candy.

Her children laugh while they eat healthy foods like bell peppers, kiwis, or dates. The writer and actor says candy "eyes" make lunch more fun.

She wrote about her creative school lunches in a book, Dictator Lunches: Inspired Meals that Will Compel Even the Toughest of Children.

"Honestly, first of all, just buy yourself some candy googly eyes. They (are) tried-and-true," she said. She admits that "you lose something nutritionally" by giving children candy. But she thinks that getting children to eat healthy food by putting candy on it is worth it.

Mollen's lunch tricks bring together food and craft. She uses tricks because her two sons do not like to eat different kinds of foods. So, she decorates their food to look like animals or even their favorite Pokémon characters.

She makes edible "bugs²" made from dates, pretzel sticks for the legs, and, of course, candy "eyes." She also uses leftover³ Chinese food to make panda bears from rice and seaweed.

Mollen notes that she puts yogurt into fruit like strawberries and raspberries and then tops with some granola, a mixture of oats and nuts.

She says her lunch projects are easy to do. And her sons think they have won a big prize at their midday meal.

The edible art is not hard to make. To create it, she says you only need a few tools — a vegetable peeler, shaped containers and cutters, and some special knives.

She says she does not have to buy special ingredients. She uses leftovers⁴ from dinner the night before and everyday items from her food storage area. She likes using sunflower seed butter to stick her creations together.

This idea of making food fun-looking is not new.

Some Japanese parents are known for creating artful lunches, called bento boxes. They often have cute, animal-shaped rice balls and flowers or other shapes made from vegetables.

Mollen says making fun-looking, artful lunches for her children helps ease her guilt⁵.

She says, "I (am) a working mom and not the mom doing pick up and drop off. I'm not with them at the park after school every day. I (am) usually working."

Her artful lunches are her way of reminding her children that she is thinking of them.

Mollen says she also wants to teach them healthy eating habits. She says that by getting kids to eat vegetables at a young age, they will grow up to eat healthy foods later in life. She also says it is a good way to get children to try foods from other cultures.

If they need to be "tricked" sometimes, that is okay.

Words in This Story

go-to –adj. something that is trusted to do a good job

ingredient –n. one of the things used to make a food or product

edible –adj. able to be eaten

tried-and-true –adj. known to be good or effective

craft –n. a skill used to create something

decorate –v. to make something more appealing by putting designs or similar things on it

peeler –n. a device used to remove the skin from a fruit or vegetable

cute –adj. having a pleasing, youthful appearance

habit –n. a usual behavior or way of behaving

1 edible   

n.食品，食物；adj.可食用的

参考例句：

• Edible wild herbs kept us from dying of starvation.我们靠着野菜才没被饿死。
• This kind of mushroom is edible,but that kind is not.这种蘑菇吃得，那种吃不得。

2 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

4 leftovers   

n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜

参考例句：

• He can do miracles with a few kitchen leftovers.他能用厨房里几样剩饭做出一顿美餐。
• She made supper from leftovers she had thrown together.她用吃剩的食物拼凑成一顿晚饭。

5 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。