I was a bit off-put to see that Olive Garden doesn’t provide comprehensive nutritional information, however. Beyond that, what they do provide (nutritional details for only items that fall under their healthier “Garden Fare Menu”) is a little disturbing. The entire list of low-fat, low-carb, and no-sugar-added foods includes just one item from the children’s menu. Yes, just one.

The grilled chicken. That’s it. That is the only children’s menu option that is healthy, or worthy of the Garden Fare Menu. They don’t even tell you what the nutritional information is for the other dishes.

That dish (not counting any salad, bread, soda, etc.) has 310 calories and 5 grams of fat. And, of course, you have to hope your child is willing to eat that instead of a more appealing, less healthy option from the children’s menu.

Here is the funny thing. That salad? That comes with the dressing already on it? That you figure is a great thing to feed your children, what with it being salad? In the Olive Garden FAQ, they share the nutritional details of that:

Each two (2) tablespoon serving contains the following: 80 calories; 70 calories from fat; fat 8 grams; saturated fat 1 gram; cholesterol 5 mg; sodium 510 mg; carbohydrates 2 grams; protein 0 gram.

That is also assuming the nutritional information given is correct. The Olive Garden offers a disclaimer for what little nutritional information it does have:

Olive Garden has made an effort to provide complete and current nutrition information, but changes in recipes and the hand-crafted nature of our menu items mean that variations from these values can occur from time to time. Therefore, the values shown here should be considered approximations. In addition, guests who have special food sensitivities or dietary needs should not rely solely on this information as the basis for deciding whether to consume a particular menu item.

This is all good to know before visiting the local Olive Garden, where the salad dressing is nearly all fat and there is but one healthy children’s menu option.

I first noticed it when I went to research Cracker Barrel. The main reason I wanted to research them is because they have so many vegetable side options and I figure many moms, like me, encourage their children to order them because they are vegetables. But I also wondered how healthy they are, since many times they seem like other ingredients have been added. I had also noticed there is only one green vegetable on the menu.

So I fished around their web site, and found nothing. I decided to Google “Cracker Barrel nutritional information.” That led me to this passage on the Cracker Barrel FAQ:

Here at Cracker Barrel, we pride ourselves on using recipes and ingredients that are authentic, genuine, and of the highest quality available. We strive to prepare and present these food items to you in a way that upholds those authentic traditions of days gone by.

Cracker Barrel certainly understands the health-conscious concerns that some of our guests have. While we are unable to give you any exact calorie or fat content information, the following choices may help you in your selection.

That was followed by a bulleted list of alternatives, such as turkey sausage and Egg Beaters, that are available for diners. You can see the full FAQ answer here.

Umm… what? Why exactly can’t Cracker Barrel give exact calorie and fat content? And knowing that Egg Beaters is available isn’t helpful if they cook it in butter, served with a side dish with 20 grams of saturated fat. My kids love to eat there, but if a joint can’t even be open about their nutritional information, that doesn’t bode well for the actual nutritional value.

So as I researched further, I discovered that Cracker Barrel isn’t the only major chain with no nutritional information on its site. In fact, Consumerist developed The Ultimate Chain Restaurant Nutrition Guide: Who Is Hiding Information About the Food, and Who Isn’t.

You might be surprised at some of the other big names who don’t provide nutritional information, or make it really hard to find. The list includes Applebee’s, Bennigan’s, California Pizza Kitchen, International House of Pancakes, Olive Garden, TGIFriday’s, and more.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling about feeding my kids food from a restaurant that won’t even reveal how much fat is in their mashed potatoes.

_{Image of plate with nutritional information, © Jay Lopez}

In this new series, Dining Out Nutrition for Kids, I’m going to examine some of the most popular chain restaurants’ children’s menu items. Now, this is all presuming the advertised nutritional content is correct. But I hope it will be helpful for you as you make restaurant food orders for your children.

I was a bit surprised at a few of my findings on the Chili’s menu. I decided to first go with what I would ideally choose and what I would presume to be the healthiest meal for my kids. So that led me to “order” a grilled chicken sandwich and steamed broccoli with juice. That must be healthy, right? Well, I just gave my kids nine grams of fat, including 2 grams of saturated fat — with 6 of those fat grams coming from the steamed broccoli!

The innocent-sounding side of sweet cob of corn is also shockingly bad, with 230 calories and 7 grams of fat, as is the side of cinnamon apples, with 210 calories and 8 grams of fat.

Still, you presume you can at least depend on what the restaurant states is the nutritional information. Maybe you shouldn’t.

If you regularly eat out with your kids, be sure to see a great investigative report, “What’s On the Menu?” from ABC’s Phoenix station. They tested meals from various restaurants that are described as diet or healthy.
Here is just a sampling of the findings:

• Chili’s Guiltless Grill Salmon, which is supposed to have 14 grams of fat and 480 calories, showed in testing that it had 35 grams of fat and 664 calories.
• Taco Bell’s Fresco Grilled Steak Soft Taco is advertised as having 4.5 grams of fat and 160 calories, but the station’s testing showed it had 19.6 grams of fat and 297 calories.

Considering the childhood obesity epidemic we currently have, it’s important to be as educated as possible about the foods children eat. It is especially disconcerting that a child might order a dish that is described as diet or “guiltless” only to scarf down as many calories and fat grams as they would find in a typical fast food joint meal.

If you have not taken your kid to the nearest farmers market, then get going! Seriously!

Going to a local market is one of my favorite things to do with the kids and, interestingly, it’s one of the few things they do for mom that they also enjoy. There are never tantrums, and they usually end up eating something amazing and delicious. For instance, when we hit the local market a week ago, the toddlers had a morning snack of petite, star-shaped croissants filled with goat cheese and rhubarb (pictured) made by a local baker.

We also bought several great tasting items to use at home, from strawberries to grass-fed pork to fresh asparagus. Even my veggie-hating youngest daughter eagerly noshed away at a just-baked spear of asparagus. To see her gripping it with delight as if it were a lollipop was pretty amazing, especially since she rarely touches the green stuff.

Besides the fun of it all, there are many wonderful examples and lessons it sets for the children about important issues like local food and sustainability. My oldest child is 5, and she is just starting to understand when I explain to her why it’s nice to get our food from our “neighbors.”

Now that spring is under way, check your region for a nearby farmers market. If you’ve struggled for a way to get your children to eat healthier, or to try new foods, or to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, a farmers market is probably the answer. Kids love to eat the foods they’ve discovered at a local market.

This afternoon, my daughter and I created Banana Chocolate Chip Bread. That’s primarily because I don’t really care for nuts and, honestly, I think chocolate chips could replace them as an ingredient anytime.

We slightly modified this easy (and fast) One Egg Easy Banana Bread Recipe by using just a quarter stick of butter (replacing the rest of butter with a half cup of apple sauce). We also added dark chocolate chips, and we put some sparkly multi-colored sugar on top.

She wasn’t thrilled with the hour-long cook time, but it smelled amazing while it was baking. She also griped just briefly when she realized we were celebrating Mother’s Day with something called bread, not cake (clearly inappropriate).

But it was pretty hard for anyone in the house to complain when they tasted it. I’ve always loved the banana/chocolate combination, and this bread was delicious. It was also a fun baking project with my 5-year-old. In fact, she did all of the mixing herself.

It was a perfect tasty treat and a fun baking project for Mother’s Day.

There are two types, a Bears and Bees mix and a Bears and Cheese trail mix. We picked up the Bears and Bees version at the store.

There’s no question. This isn’t the perfect kid snack food. This isn’t as healthy as serving up fresh fruit or veggies. It also is something you could totally make yourself. In fact, I found a teddy bear trail mix recipe here.

It is, however, a nice occasional alternative to typical packaged snack foods and cookies. It’s also nice to have something nonperishable in the pantry that’s just ready to toss at hungry kids.

Both varieties have 130 calories per serving (one-eight of the box), 3.5 grams of fat, 2 grams of protein, 6 grams of sugar and 1 gram of fiber.

The Bears and Bees version has chocolate Teddy Grahams, graham bee cookies, pretzels, and yogurt covered raisins. It was extremely popular with my kids, probably even more so than when they just get Teddy Grahams for snack.

You can find out more, and see full nutritional information, at Nabisco’s Teddy Graham Trail Mix site.

That is why I decided to start my own personal Sustainable Kitchen Project. Obviously, one of the first steps to having a self-supporting kitchen is to grow your own vegetables. So despite my dreadful black thumb, my daughter, husband and I are starting our own (and our first) organic vegetable garden.

My daughter helped me with planting all the seeds, and they grew nicely into seedlings (like the bibb lettuce seedlings you see growing here). We also have seedlings for cantaloupe, two types of tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, and broccoli. We built a raised bed, and planted some of the seedlings already.

But here is the really interesting thing. We have nothing more than seedlings and a couple half-inch beginnings of tomatoes on older plants I bought at Lowe’s. But I am already seeing the influence. My daughter, an avid and persistent broccoli hater for as long as I can remember, just voluntarily ate broccoli this weekend. Seriously. I am not kidding. I didn’t even prod, and I wasn’t even going to put any on her plate.

But she asked me to give her some of the broccoli. She said she likes it now, and she plans to gobble up all the broccoli we grow in our garden.

Score!

Recently, my 5-year-old got her first go at making lasagna, and she was really excited about making it from scratch.

We did a very basic lasagna, but I’m sure we will play with it in the future. It will also be fun to make this summer with some fresh-made tomato sauce and some local cheese.

Basic Kid-Made Lasagna Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 box of lasagna noodles
• 1 container of ricotta cheese
• 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 eggs
• Handful of fresh basil
• 29 ounces of tomato sauce (canned or fresh)
• Half pound of ground beef or Italian sausage (optional)
• Olive oil cooking spray

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.
• If you will use meat, the adult should brown it in a skillet.
• Mix together ricotta and eggs in mixing bowl, and set aside.
• Chop fresh basil, and stir into tomato sauce. Add browned meat to sauce.
• Spray lasagna dish with cooking spray.
• Place about a third of the tomato sauce mix in the bottom of your lasagna dish.
• Place lasagna noodles on top.
• Spread ricotta mix on top, spread a third of sauce, and sprinkle half shredded cheese.
• Place lasagna noodles on top.
• Spread ricotta mix on top, and spread a third of sauce.
• Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 50 minutes. Remove foil, sprinkle with remaining cheese, and bake for 10 more minutes uncovered.

The other great thing about lasagna is that you can let your kid help you come up with a creative twist, such as interesting veggies as ingredients, different sauces to try, different cheeses to add, or even coming up with color themes such as white lasagna with chicken and white sauce.

An even bigger bonus? Have a lasagna-making day in which you and the kids make several to freeze, and one to cook that night. That way, you’ll always have that lasagna to pop into the oven on a night you don’t feel like cooking.

The first one the kids sampled was the Mac N’ Cheese meal. My oldest child, 5, thought she was smart. She declined the meal and opted for something else to eat. I split the meal between my twins, who just turned 2. When I saw the broccoli, I just knew it would bomb with my twin girl. She has a philosophical opposition to injecting anything green. Just for kicks, I mixed the broccoli right into her mac.

I also sampled a small bite of each item myself, and I was pretty astounded at how good the mac and cheese tasted. The broccoli also didn’t have that nasty frozen meal rubbery texture. The little apple bits were extremely tasty. The only thing that seemed frozen-then-nuked was the small focaccia bread (which, interestingly, my picky girl loved the most). The twins gobbled everything down so enthusiastically, my daughter asked if she could have the same thing.

On another occasion, I served the remaining two meals (Amy’s has three new kids meals). One is a Baked Ziti with broccoli, focaccia and apple crisp. The meal wasn’t spectacular, but it was pretty tasty. That’s especially true considering it’s gluten free, dairy free, cholesterol free, lactose free, vegan, and kosher. The quesadilla kids meal features Spanish rice, refried beans, broccoli, and a devoured chocolate cake sweetened with maple syrup.

For frozen kids meals, this new line of Amy’s Kitchen organic meals manages to balance healthy ingredients with taste and kid-appeal. These aren’t the most delicious meals you’ll feed your kids, but this is a great alternative for those busy nights when made-from-scratch just isn’t happening.