When my oldest child first started eating table food, I thought children’s menus were the greatest thing, a leap forward in the human condition. We didn’t have them when I was a child, at least not at restaurants where adults would be happy to dine. I was thrilled that someone had come up with this innovation that civilization had advanced to the point where children at good restaurants were now fed children’s food, so we adults could plunge worry-free into our adult business of drinking alcohol and eating things with tentacles.

As for me, my outlook on children’s menus started to change at some point — probably when my oldest son was diagnosed with autism, and I started researching food for him and quickly discover that the kids menu was not healthy for him or any child. Even if the chicken fingers were good ones, made from real breast meat rather than pulverized and remolded chik-a-bits, I was disturbed by their ubiquity and their hold on my kids, who are now 11 and 7 years old. I also, perceived that my children’s chicken-finger meals outside the home were forming their eating habits inside the home, where they were getting more finicky. I heard from other parents that they were experiencing the same thing.

In short, I came to the realization that America is in the grips of a chicken-finger pandemic, in which a blandly tasty foodstuff has somehow become the official nibble for our children.

I’m obligated to express over the health implications of this pandemic — chicken fingers are often fried, and are often accompanied by fries — I’m much more bothered by its palate-deadening potential. Far from being an advance, I’ve concluded, the standard children’s menu is regressive, encouraging children (and their misguided parents) to believe that there is a “kids’ cuisine” that exists entirely apart from adult cuisine.

I grew up eating what my parents ate, at home and at restaurants. We ate fish, wild game, salads and many other wonderful foods. And then there were those yucky meals that I just didn’t care for, steam mixed vegetables or liver, but that I endured because my parents offered no other choice. That was the way it done and it made me — like millions of other Americans of my generation who were raised the same way — a fairly adventurous eater with a built-in sense of dietary balance. My children are served homemade meals most every night and they know a balance meal.

It pains me that many children now grow up eating little besides golden-brown logs of kid food, especially in a time when the quality, variety and availability of good ingredients is better than ever. Parents, most parents that is, are kind of lazy on the palate front. I feel that my children would be missing out if they were not discovering new foods and flavors. I feel it is one of the most delightful experiences that childhood can offer. Personally, as a foodie, I far preferred it to reading and exercising. 

Then we bring in fast food, so kid friendly…NOT for my children. We can’t underestimate the influence of the McDonald’s Corporation’s introductions, in 1979 and 1983, of the Happy Meal and ChickenMcNuggets. The instant popularity of these products signaled that there was a ton of money to be made in marketing foods explicitly to kids. If you don’t believe that this is wide spread, you should take a look at my children’s lunch menu, which they do not partake in, and you will see things I would never consider feeding my child at home.  There is nothing as unappetizing as a coagulating mass of fluorescent orange noodles, a cup of fruit or sliced vegetables (not normally eaten) and milk. Most children in the school are eating it daily. Folks, this is scary!

But if we’re stuck with the children’s menu, there’s no reason it can’t be improved upon and made less of a sop to little fried-food addicts. And it’s encouraging that some important players in the hospitality industry, like the Walt Disney Company and the McDonald’s Corporation’s, are taking action on this front.

Both companies were motivated primarily by the new national concern over poor nutrition and childhood obesity, but each has produced a response that also addresses the dead-palate issue. Disney stopped serving French fries automatically with kids’ entrees at its theme parks, and is providing equal choice of fries, baby carrots, or grapes. I noticed this when my family and I were at Disneyland in Anaheim, California recently.  

At first, most restaurant patrons were only too happy to indulge their children with a nonstop fingers-and-fries diet. But in the last few years, parents are starting to see the lack in the children’s menu. My girl friend and I were talking about this recently. She and her husband are starting to make a point to avoid restaurants that have kid’s menus. A restaurant where it is normal for the children to eat brussel sprouts, salad, grilled meats, pasta’s with sea food, are where my family and I frequent dine . I am so glad to see a back lash against the beige-yellow in color entrees, most of them coming from the breaded-chicken-nubbin family. On a side note, Cheesecake Factory does not have a children’s menu and they are not apologetic about it. 

My sons skip the children’s menu and order “albacore sushi, tempura shrimp, miso soup, rolls and water to drink.” But it’s harder as your children get older and more exposed to the wider world; that’s when the pandemic claims them. In my family, it’s been a matter of getting back to that simple idea — the kids eat what the parents eat — and cutting off the beige-yellow foods.