I came across a mommy scandal recently in People magazine, one of my favorite escapes. Apparently, Jessica Seinfeld, Jerry’s wife, who recently published “Deceptively Delicious” (which made it to the best seller list last year!) is being accused of plagiarizing another author’s ideas for sneaking healthy ingredients into your kid’s foods. Jessica defended her case on The View (gotta love People’s headline on this video: “Jessica Seinfeld Denies Rival’s Veggie-Tales.” The accuser, Missy Chase Lapine, The Sneaky Chef, thinks she owns some of these ideas like “adding avocado to chocolate pudding, spinach to brownies, and cauliflower to mac ‘n cheese,” according to People. Huh? I’m not sure if pushing moms to be “deceptive” or “sneaky” are the best pieces of advice to start with, but I digress. Healthy eating is a challenge, for kids and adults, and we moms can use all of the ideas we can get about how to maximize nutrition while accommodating picky palates. Another parent once told me that “Parents decide WHEN and WHAT kids eat. Kids decide IF.” At first, that sounded abusive to me, but in reality, moms shouldn’t be running restaurants on top of all of our other responsibilities. I started offering only one alternative (cold cereal) to the dinner meal on the table, and for a while, it seemed to work. Do you have any creative ideas on getting your kids to eat healthy meals?

Jessica Seinfeld