Eat Your Vegetables!

I really, REALLY like vegetables. A vegetarian, no, as proven by the side of beef and two lambs in our basement freezer. But boy, I do love them vegetables.

On NPR today there was an article (an article on radio? There must be a better noun that escapes me...) telling about a group of farmers who were spending $25 million on an ad campaign aimed at making packaged baby carrots more appealing to teenagers. (Or people in general, I would suppose.) The ad described on radio is a lady in the desert shooting baby carrots at a guy...oh...ok,...it lost me about there. Something about his vehicle blowing up? I dunno. I got lost on the shooting part. (Hey, I am not keen on guns: carrot, potato, or assault rifles.)

The part I DO like about this way-too-expensive-to-be-affordable-for-farming-folks-around-here campaign is that the group put baby carrot vending machines in schools. That is a big Yippee in my books. FINALLY. Something besides sugared, caramel-colored water in cans to be sold to teenagers. (We are shocked and amazed at the percentage of childhood obesity? Come on.)

Our kids ate a lot of vegetables growing up. If there was an absolute refusal, we didn't push it. (The Grad Student noticed her throat itched after eating eggplant; best not to go there, Dearie.) We love all the standards: potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, corn, spinach, green beans, peas, (I am taking a mental tour of my vegetable bin.), spinach, cabbage, and more. We also like fennel, (the seed is a spice, the bulb can be found in your produce department.), pumpkin, sweet potatoes, kale...there is no shortage of vegetables in this world.

Hmmm...if I had $25 million to spend on a vegetable marketing ploy, I think I would go the health and nutrition route. Yeah, I know - not at all glamorous, and certainly a crapshoot, and not a carrot-shoot. What kid is going to be interested in physical and mental health? Good eyesight? A happy GI tract? Healthy anti-oxidants?

As we cooked for our kids, we always explained the benefits of the food we were preparing. Meat: protein. Pasta: carbs. Fruits & vegetables: vitamins, beta-carotene, iron, fiber...the list could go on ad infinitum. But to further it, their nutrition lessons explained WHY our bodies needed protein. Carbs. Fiber. Vitamins (not in pill form, better from nature). Iron. HOW did our bodies process these nutrients? What makes a better animal, vegetable, mineral?

Well, I started out this entry to tout the opinion that baby carrots are not as flavorful (my opinion) as a full-sized carrot. Why? "Baby carrots" are not "baby", as one might go for a young lamb instead of ewe meat, veal instead of beef, or a young chicken instead of the old chook for whom the Coq au Vin recipe was developed. Baby carrots are simply regular carrots, shaved down to appear as young carrots. In my opinion, somewhere in the shaving and sizing, the flavor was shaved as well.

Try it: roast some regular carrots in your next roast whatever, and alongside, some "baby carrots". I guarantee, the regular carrots will be more flavorful.

So, I did digress in this entry. Sorry. Time to pull the chicken/spinach and noodles out of the oven, along with the roasted tomatoes and carrots.

Love them vegetables.