In the beginning G-d was nice to Adam and Eve. He said, “Welcome to Eden. Since I created you with hearty appetites, I know you’ll be getting hungry soon. Please help yourselves to whatever you like. There’s only one thing I don’t want you to eat. See that tree in the middle of the garden? Stay away from it.” G-d made the consequences of not listening very clear: “If you eat from that tree you will die.”

Did this stop Adam and Eve? Of course not. The forbidden apple was just what the first children had to have.
The stereotype of the over enthusiastic Jewish mother urging just one more bite on her already full child has some truth to it. A 1923 article in the Froyen Zhurnal, a Yiddish magazine for new immigrants, noted that "the Jewish mother betrays an unusual amount of concern about the problem of feeding her children. In general, she should stop worrying so much about how much they eat and what they wear."

Perhaps Jewish parents emphasize food because Judaism is a table-centered religion. With the destruction of the Holy Temple, our dining table can serve to replace the original altar: we share our table with G-d. Demographers report that less than 50 percent of American Jews belong to a synagogue, but over 90 percent attend the Passover Seder. “Kitchen Judaism” is a primary connection for many. Judaism recognizes that food can be a vehicle for holiness and family unity. Spiritual ideals can be transmitted into daily life with the proper attitude toward food.

FROM YOUR PARENTS’ TABLE TO YOURS
When parents ask me about their children's eating problems, I see reflections of the Depression and post WW II era.

Marny’s five-year-old son, Asher, had an eating fetish. He would eat only white foods. I asked Marny about her own family background regarding meals. Marny's parents were more extreme than most, but many of my clients were raised by parents with similar attitudes.

They were terrifying, really. It was the worst thing in my childhood. Mom made us finish everything on our plates and eat the foods in a certain order, vegetables first. She was a smart, capable woman who could have run a business, been a lawyer, done anything. But it was the fifties so she stayed at home and cared for us full-time. She funneled her desire for control into us, studying every bite we ate or didn’t eat.

My dad was worse. If we didn't finish a meal, he told Mom to put it in the fridge. She would then serve it again and again until we ate it. He had this Depression-era mentality about not wasting anything. I hated it.

Some parents are very sensitive about the child's right to refuse food. At the same time, these parents are acutely health-conscious and concerned about their children's weight, height, and strength.

Making the whole process even more frustrating is the fact that the definition of "healthy" keeps shifting. One day 2 percent milk is fine; the next it's got too much fat; the day after, that children should drink whole milk because they need the fat to grow and the fat content helps them absorb more calcium. The four food groups seem like primitive cave drawings compared to the elaborate nutritional tables we're supposed to memorize these days. In comparison, Mom and Grandma had it easy.

THE POWER OF FOOD
In our consumer culture, food is an extremely attractive commodity. Food producers, valuing profits over health, target the most impressionable consumers, our children. Advertisers pursue them relentlessly, using flavors, colors, and slogans that appeal to them. Children, seeking pleasure and satisfaction, are vulnerable to the advertising and beg us to buy what they see on TV. Too much Cocoa Puffs, Lunchables, macaroni and cheese, and they end up eating more calories, sugar, and fat than their bodies need.

Good health, not to mention current social fashion, favors thinness, so parents are frantic. The children lobby tirelessly for unhealthy foods. They don’t get enough exercise. Some grow fat. Parents become very involved in what their children do and don’t eat. Intuitively, children recognize this as the perfect place to seize power.

Eating disorders are in part spiritual disorders, because the sufferer is battling with the source of life. Women in particular often harbor a deep, private love-hate relationship with food. Many distrust a substance they must rely on to stay alive but fear will lead them to lose control, overeat, and gain weight. More of us make a daily ritual of standing on the bathroom scale than of taking time for prayer. This ambivalence about food and eating and the resulting tension over self-control, guilt, and sensual pleasure get passed along to children, even if we don't voice our worries aloud.

ENJOY YOUR FOOD
G-d purposely made us different from the angels. As noncorporeal beings, angels have no physical needs or free will. They never have to read a menu and make choices. Despite appearances, this is not an advantage. Unlike humans, angels don't have the ability to turn an instinct into a sacred act, because they are already there. Every act is sacred, so it's no big deal.

If humans try to emulate the angels through asceticism and strict self-denial, we’re cheating. G-d wants us to get into the fray, to struggle with desire and self-restraint, with what Yitzhak Buxbaum in Jewish Spiritual Practices, calls "food lust." Judaism teaches us that in order to be fully ourselves we need to play up our human part, not deny it.

We are not to deny ourselves the joy of eating or to make an idol of food. We must also avoid consuming food without any thought at all, like beasts. Animals eat alone and on the run; they eat to survive, not to savor. They don't cook, or arrange the food on the plate, or set a nice table. Animals have no ability to stop and count their blessings; they eat without conscious gratitude.

No asceticism, no gluttony, no tearing at a juicy carcass alone on the veldt. What’s left? The Talmud instructs us to find a balance between eating to live and living to eat. We elevate the act of eating by being conscious about when, what, where, and why we eat. In other words, we must make our table an altar.

MODERATION, CELEBRATION, SANCTIFICATION
Food is where our human concerns are brought into sharp relief: self-image, health, “goodness,” self-control. Moderation, celebration and sanctification offer safe harbor from contemporary pressures and unrealistic expectations.

If we diet excessively or forbid our children any white sugar or a single artificially colored Popsicle, we are emulating the angels. If we give up entirely and heave a bag of burgers into the backseat of the minivan and let the children dive at it, we place ourselves at the level of the zookeeper.

One way to encourage your family to eat moderately and with maximum pleasure is to sanctify mealtime. Sitting with other people around a table, as Jewish tradition encourages, assures that we'll spend at least part of our meal conversing instead of consuming. The blessings we say before we eat also help. These prayers of thanks force us to slow down and reflect on the meal set before us.

Eating in moderation and sanctifying mealtime are two concepts most of us can feel comfortable with. We’re used to chiding ourselves for overindulging, so moderation sounds attractive. The idea of sanctifying a meal is appealing, too—we all wish we could slow down and appreciate things a bit more.

Most people have trouble cultivating a guilt-free celebration of food. It’s not that we don’t love to eat, it’s just that so many of us believe that if food is not nutritious it is inherently bad. Any pleasure we derive from “bad” food must be guilty pleasure; there’s no room here for a carefree celebration of chocolate eclairs. If we spend our mealtimes counting nutrients and assessing our food on the good-bad scale, our food theology is in conflict with the Jewish principle of celebration.

Childhood memories of scents and tastes stand out vividly. Yes, cake is bad for their teeth, packed with calories, and isn’t “growing food” like the virtuous carrot or celery stick. But the pure pleasure derived from a slice of coconut cake occupies holy ground all its own. Judaism has place for both nutrition and delight.

Judaism celebrates food in the cycle of holidays: honey symbolizes the sweetness of a New Year; jelly doughnuts, symbolizing the Hanukkah miracle of oil; chopped apples, nuts, and wine symbolize the mortar we used as slaves in Egypt at the seder. Then there is Shabbat with its wine, braided challah and bountiful dinner.

A CHILD'S-EYE VIEW OF FOOD
Before making your table an altar, it’s useful to know what food looks like from your child’s perspective. Children tend to pursue the delightful and immediately satisfying. It’s easier to get a Popsicle out of the freezer than to peel a carrot. If the Popsicle is shaped like a rocket ship and has rainbow stripes, they have no doubt about the superior choice. This is normal and appropriate.

It’s your job as parent to provide these foods—in moderation—as the ornament, the treat that makes an occasion special. As you introduce your children to moderation, sanctification, and celebration, keep in mind that these are principles they will absorb unconsciously at first. They’ll still want the ring pops and chips. However, you might be surprised at how well your children take to new rituals and more structured mealtimes.

SET A GOOD EXAMPLE BEFORE YOU SET THE TABLE
Parents tend to get so focused on their children's psychological well-being that they ignore their own role in the drama. So when people in my parenting classes raise problems about feeding their children, I first ask them about their own eating habits:

• Do you eat leftovers from your children's plates?
• Do you eat standing up in front of the pantry where the crackers and cookies are kept?
• Do you frequently eat in the car?
• Do you carefully monitor your children’s food intake throughout the day and then unwind by overeating ice cream and cookies, drinking wine, or snacking on peanut butter and crackers once the children are asleep?

More often than not, the answer is yes. I then tell the parents about my own neurotic eating problem: nutrient osmosis.

We and our children are separate entities, and if we forget it, they do not. In the kitchen as elsewhere, our children closely scrutinize our actions and are quick to point out hypocrisy. If you eat in the car, in front of the TV or standing at the counter, they'll do it too. If you eat food off their plates, they'll grab it off yours. So when you decide to make changes and elevate eating from survival mode to a vehicle for civility and consciousness, start with yourself. Changing your own behavior will make your children much more receptive to the rituals and blessings you teach them.

Jewish eating rituals train us be more disciplined and to sublimate our appetites and desires. The rituals elevate the physical act of eating to a spiritual discipline. This sounds wonderful in theory, but how can such ambitious goals be transmitted to boisterous six-year-olds or sulky teenagers?

If they behave like polite, appreciative children, eventually they will start to feel like polite, appreciative children. The same holds true for eating. As your children watch you change your attitude toward food, as they say the blessings and follow the rituals, it can begin to sink in. You can rewire the family's whole approach toward eating, but it's not going to happen overnight.

Sit Down and Take Your Time
Is your dinner table a sanctuary or bedlam? Do you eat on the run? Bobby Calder, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, writes, “Everybody wants to save time by multi-tasking. So you don’t just sit down and eat. You eat while you work, while you're watching TV, while you drive.”

The rabbis placed great value on the manner in which we eat our meals. They ruled that a person who eats in public is disqualified from testifying in court since he is considered to lack the fear of public ridicule that is a natural barrier against giving false testimony. The Talmud says that a person who eats in the street resembles a dog. The focus here is on dignity and self-respect. Can we have a fully human meal if the television set is on, if we are trying to take care of family business at the table?

For the sake of good digestion, to heighten the possibility of gratitude, and to enjoy time with your family enhanced by the pleasure of eating, see how often you or your children eat standing up, or straight out of the package. Start sitting down for as many meals as possible. See what a table as altar brings.

Before Shabbat dinner at my house we put money in the tzedaka (charity) box. Consider connecting eating with giving. Which charities appeal to your children most?

Blessing as a Consciousness-Raising Tool
The rabbis designed a system to counterbalance the natural tendency to gluttony and to remind us to be grateful: The blessing for food creates a little window of consciousness about what you are eating.

First you have to stop and figure out which blessing to say. It is a traditional practice to bless the specific food about to be eaten (bread, wine, a full meal) and to use the proper hierarchy of blessings (bread, the staff of life, supersedes other blessings). As you size up what you are eating, you open the window of consciousness a crack further. Remembering these blessings brings dignity to the individual food, to its cosmic soul. You are calling the food by name and giving each food its proper recognition. If you then eat with guilt, in an angry mood, or in a hurried manner, you are misspending the blessing.

Food is a sacred gift. We eat to keep ourselves healthy and to enhance the pleasure of life's happy events. Moderation, celebration, and sanctification are invaluable touchstones in this process. By celebrating the variety of the foods G-d provides, you can let go of unreasonable guilt and teach your children both self-regulation and delight. Finally, sanctifying food by sitting together and saying a blessing puts mealtime back in its proper place, a means by which to appreciate your good fortune and G-d’s bounty.