What's the world come to when even the Cookie Monster stops eating cookies? Alas, my googly-eyed hero now proclaims cookies are only a "sometimes" food. While I'm all for lifelong healthy eating, I'm also of the opinion that kids, especially those watching Sesame Street, are just too young to understand and make such health decisions. Healthy eating means understanding making choices based on long term nutritional consequences, which I don't think kids can handle. The nuances of "all things in moderation" are often beyond them, leaving them with the lesson that such-and-such food is good, while others are bad, a perspective that can mess you up for life. Rather, it's the parents who ought to be responsible for children's eating.
Much better would be to encourage trying new and diverse foods. Like Sesame Street does in their classic (in my house anyway) album "On The Street Where We Live - Block Party!" ... "Everybody like soul foooood, would you like to try sooooome? Everybody likes soul foooood, don't say no 'til you've tried soooome!" So it seems I owe a love of jambalaya and cornbread and beans and rice to Gordon on Sesame Street.
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