New York Times: Is Candy Evil or Just Misunderstood?

I want candy.

Good article in the Dining section of The New York Times today on the bad rep candy gets, just in time for Halloween. Nutrition experts and a Brooklyn-based, sweets-obsessed academic with a blog called Candy Professor weigh in and, the good news is, candy just has an image problem. It’s not pure evil.

(Relief! Excuse me while I grab another Fun-Size Snickers….)

OK, so anyway.

Samira Kawash, the blogger behind Candy Professor, studies the relationship Americans have with candy and why we view it as so bad and different from other sweet foods. (Amusing anecdote about a Brooklyn parent who equates it to giving a kid crack cocaine included.) But she says candy is what it is — “a processed food, eaten for pleasure, with no particular nutritional benefit.” And she and others in the piece point out that we eat and feed our kids all sorts of other, sugar-packed foods — like granola bars and fruit juice. They may be perceived as healthier, but many contain comparable amounts of sugar.

A nutrition professor at the University of Vermont notes that “Nutritionally there is littler difference between a gummy bear and a bite of fruit leather.” (I’ll remember that the next time I reach for one to give the kids.)

So, yes, candy is processed, and no, it’s not “good for you” — and then there is the whole corn syrup thing…. But maybe a *little* candy at Halloween isn’t the absolute end of the world.

And of course we can teach our kids about which foods are nutritious. And that not all candies have to be mass-produced or made with crappy ingredients. Witness Jennifer King of Brooklyn’s Liddabit Sweets, a small local candy maker. She uses premium ingredients that are often local, too.

The honey in her honeycomb candy is gathered from hives in New York City. I have eaten it, and I can tell you it is delicious. I can also tell you that they sell it at Bklyn Larder. So maybe make a special trip there this weekend and let your kids taste the difference between goodies that come from a giant plastic bag on sale at the drugstore and those that were made sweet by local bees.

That said, look for us out there this weekend, sporting costumes and on the dole for all of the Twizzlers, Mike & Ike’s, and mini bags of M&Ms we can find. We won’t eat them all, but half the fun is in the hunt.

 

 

Would You Home-School Your Kids?

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

For me, this one falls into the category of: Why in the world would I want to do that? Right up there with home birth (though, on both counts, if that’s what a mama chooses, of course I support her.) And I appreciate that intelligent, informed women have their reasons for making those choices. They just aren’t ones that feel right for me (and probably wouldn’t in a zillion years.)

There was an interesting post about home schooling, though, in Lisa Belkin‘s New York Times Motherlode blog recently. It was an essay by writer Chandra Hoffman on why she’s decided to home school her 8-year-old son starting this fall. (Belkin notes in her intro to the post that she’s considered home schooling, too.)

I found Hoffman hard to relate to. The first line of the post is: “I can tell you without a hint of self-consciousness that I am an amazing mom to little kids.” Wow. I’m more of an “I’m trying my best” kind of mom. But even if I did feel that kind of confidence and satisfaction with my ability to deal with kid chaos and the (sometimes monotonous) routines, I wouldn’t want to home school.

Hoffman feels, now that her son is older and his interests lie with people and activities other than her, that most of their interactions have boiled down to her “cracking my verbal whip.” Hurry, hurry! Eat your breakfast! Brush your teeth! Get your homework done! She wants more quality with him, and thinks she’ll get it by home schooling: “I want to be a part of learning with him. I want the temporal freedom to follow his amazing, mischievous, imaginative, whip-smart little mind around and see where the heck it takes us.”

Again, with the confidence, this time in her kid’s intellect. I think my kids are bright, and it is fun to watch them make connections and funny observations as they learn — but I wouldn’t commit to “whip-smart” in print, in The New York Times. Just me, and another reason I found her hard to relate to.

She says she has no rosy illusions, but knows home schooling will make their lives much better than they are now: “I don’t want to go another day in which I realize, after his eyes have closed in sleep, all day long I haven’t actually looked, really looked, into my son’s eyes.”

I get wanting more quality time, time to really focus on each other and connect in a way that has nothing to do with policing behavior. But I know I also need time to myself. And I think the kids benefit from time away from me, in a classroom setting, where they must learn to get along with others, share, and follow the rules set by other authority figures.

Also, I’m not a professional educator, and I can’t help but think that they have a few tricks up their sleeves — not to mention an understanding of how children develop mentally and emotionally — that I do not.

Home schooling? I don’t think so, not for my family. Still — another parent might be able to make a convincing case for me on why it’s right for them. But not Hoffman. Her choice seems more about herself to me — more about what she wants — than about her son, the quality of his education, or how she plans to be a good teacher to him. (See what other Times readers had to say in the “comments” section of the post.)

What about you? Have you considered home schooling? Would you? Why or why not?

Related post:

Holding Kids Back in School: Right or Wrong?

Mark Bittman: A Busy Parent’s Summer Kitchen Hero

Some of the best, most useful, food articles ever created — in our opinion! — are the summer “101″ lists from Mark Bittman, written for his “Minimalist” column in The New York Times. Why? The recipes are quick-cooking, with few ingredients and fewer steps, and the one hundred-plus variations Bittman offers in each article give you plenty of ideas (mix and match with whatever you have on hand) to chose from. A boon to weary parents at the end of the day looking for something delicious, but not time-consuming, to cook for dinner (or take to a picnic, or bring to a party).