Bunch Family

What we’re reading on the blogs today:

Can’t get your kids to eat brussels sprouts? Vered Guttman at Slate was convinced she could find a recipe to make her boys, who aside from sprouts eat everything, love the world’s most hated vegetable. The brussels sprout and split pea soup sounds pretty good.

Shari Roan at the L.A. Times says that kids are watching too much TV. No more than two hours of screen time a day, pediatricians say.

Need something to tide you over before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2?  Check out this great art inspired by Part 1 on Flavorwire.

And have you found that your parents’ parenting style made you run in the other direction? Felisa Rogers at Salon says her hippie mom turned her into a consumer. Whereas her mom was “obsessed with composting,” Rogers says, “As far as my parents are concerned, I might as well be Alex P. Keaton.” Totally reminds us of You Know You’re an Adult Child of Hippies When…  Read more...

What we’re reading on the blogs today:

Over at GeekMom we saw a book review for the Mommy MD Guide to Pregnancy and Birth. Judy Berna writes, “There’s something very comforting about knowing the person giving the advice has actually been in the trenches themselves. review of the Mommy MD Guide to Pregnancy

Just so you know, today is National Coffee Break Day. Grab a mug, folks. (Although we kinda figured National Coffee Break Day would be the day Starbucks fills your travel mug for free or Tim Hortons Camp Day or something.) What sort of coffee will you be drinking today?

Did anyone in Montreal participate in the Nurse-In? Bunchland reader Rina tipped us off to this great comic about a similiar situation in Montreal back in 1994. *Sigh*  Read more...

What we’re reading on the blogs today:

As you might have noticed, we’re big vegetable fans here. So much so, we get rather peeved when someone tries to hide them away. That’s why we were delighted to see George Ball of the Wall Street Journal declare 2011 to be the Year of the Vegetable! Ball takes his cue from Michelle Obama and her Let’s Move! initiative. In order to fight childhood obesity, Ball says we need to teach by example — adults also need to eat more vegetables and the tomato slice on a burger doesn’t count. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) he says that kids get pretty excited about the vegetables they grown themselves. His answer: more community gardens! Now where is Margaret Atwood?  Read more...

What we’re reading on the blogs today:

Straight out of Edward Scissorhands, ohdeedoh has featured grass flocked coin banks. Adorable. And much cuter than a Chia Pet.

Yesterday, if you’ll recall, we were less than thrilled with a Babble post that showed you various ways to sneak vegetables into your kids’ food. Bits of broccoli = healthy sprinkles? No. Just… no. Today, Babble has a post from a mom who refuses to lie to her children about vegetables. Now, we know that Babble is a responsible news source that presents all the sides to every issue, but we’d like to think it was our Twitter-baiting yesterday that brought about this honest pro-vegetable post. Pass the victory crudités platter, please.  Read more...

Let’s all stop lying to our kids about the awesomeness of vegetables, shall we?

I can no longer stand idly by while an innocent group is mercilessly ridiculed and stripped of its very nature in living rooms across North America. I’m talking of course about vegetables and how they are portrayed on television.

Broccoli holds a special place in my heart. With broccoli’s ability to make me feel like a giant eating entire trees and its excellent compatibility with cheese, I’ve always loved the stuff. Imagine then my surprise some years later, as I watched a typically hilarious episode of Seinfeld and saw one of my favourite vegetables slandered thusly:

Okay, so Newman isn’t exactly a healthy eating role model, and regardless, not everyone is going to love every food. A super-sensible friend of mine who considers beets a great treat won’t touch a stalk of celery. And as much as my mouth waters at the thought of grilled zucchini now, it used to be that I would only eat it when baked into bread.  Read more...