The answer my friend, is fuckin' in the wind.
Fu*k!
DO NOT FUCK THE CHILDREN
Especially these days, when the diversity of food available to consumers is amazing compared to when I was a kid in the 70s/80s, it is very likely that the newest generation of eaters will have a much broader palate than today's adults. I think the kids will be all right.
On the plus side, it's now a great place to brush up on fact checking and proofreading skills!
The way this world is going, I kind of wish my parents had just raised me on cat food. That would have saved me what's sure to be an unpleasant adjustment period for when I get too old or sick to work.
Yeah, that is true, I think. I'm Korean, and I remember as a kid eating kimchi that was rinsed to make it less spicy, and fairly bland things like rice with egg mixed into it.
I'm not sure what happens, but at a certain point it's like a dial got turned in my head, and I suddenly started loving foods that I hated as a kid, like seafood and liver. Oddly, however, I loved brussels sprouts and lima beans as a kid, but hate them as an adult!
"Kids' menus" do seem kind of self-fulfilling since chicken nuggets and pizza and stuff like that are what's marketed to American kids as kids' food, and it's what we customarily assume kids want.
What do Thai and Ethiopian 4 year olds eat???
It was no more or less obnoxious than I anticipated!
To be fair, that's the kind of stuff that looters might leave behind, so maybe that is an advantage?
I agree — my parents didn't go to any special effort to expand my palate, other than offering me stuff off of dishes they ate when we went out. But they approached food with curiosity and openness. I wasn't especially adventurous about food until I was in my early 20s, but when the switch turned on I became interested…
It's almost like kids are individuals with their own minds and personalities, just like actual people!
I agree, parents probably worry too much about stuff like this. The kids I grew up with, we all ate the same garbage pretty much, Kraft mac & cheese and Shake & Bake, Hamburger Helper. Some of us grew up to be adventurous eaters, some not so much, and one guy still eats nothing put pizza and hot dogs. You can't know…
This is not my beautiful AV Club!
The A.V. Club
The Onion
They could save some bucks at this point and just post headlines.
There are specialized parenting blogs, and food sites like Serious Eats and The Kitchn, that make AVC look like amateur hour when they try to cover this stuff. It's painful to watch this site declining so precipitously.