Hungry Monkey – A Food-Loving Father’s Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater (Matthew Amster-Burton)

I smiled a number of times or even chuckled. This is not your typical “What to expect in the first year” kind of child care book. But just what one father experienced being a cooking stay-at-home dad, who refuses to feed his daughter bland baby food. Some of his stories go far beyond what I would feed my baby, but that’s not the point. What I really enjoyed is the frankness and readiness to laugh about himself. And I understood some practical things that will come in handy as soon as my baby gets there: There is a point in their life when most young kids start refusing specific food groups. The author suspects that has something to do with being able to think in categories and loving to sort things. So a typical two-to-three year old might say “I don’t eat vegetables” or “I don’t eat meat” and – apart from being a picky eater – learn sorting foods into the vegetable – non-vegetable categories. The other thought I found interesting: What you eat as a kid does not predetermine what you eat as an adult. Which takes a lot of pressure off parents. A good example for this is Sushi. Where I grew up, that didn’t even exist. So most of my friends who love it today cannot have grown up with it. Well, read for yourself, maybe even cook some of the recipes – if you have a lot of time at hand…

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