An exclusive interview with
Missy Chase Lapine, author of groundbreaking new book,
"The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding
Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals
by Anita S. Lane  

Missy Chase Lapine is the former publisher of Eating Well magazine and the founder of a natural baby bath line BabySpa®.

Lapine is unstoppable in her commitment to share her passion for health and fitness. Her life has been dedicated to discovering the foods that will keep her loved ones strong and vital and exposing the foods that bring risk. She now operates The Sneaky Chef workshops, cooking classes, coaching programs, and demonstrations that teach families how to eat healthier.

Through her workshops and personal coaching, she offers parents practical and simple solutions that are easy to fit into busy lives.

Missy is on the Culinary Arts faculty of The New School, in New York City lives with her husband and two daughters in Westchester, New York.

Click "Play" to listen to the Audio version of this interview...

KFF:  Welcome to Keeping Family First online Magazine. Our guest today is Missy Chase Lapine, author of “The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals.”  Missy, thank you for joining us today!

MCL: Thank you so much, Anita.  It’s a pleasure to be here.

KFF:  Missy, how did the concept for this book come about?

MCL:  Well, aside from being a mom in the trenches with two very picky eaters—I was also a professional in the world of health and nutrition.  I was publisher of Eating Well magazine, and when I had my children I started to realize that there was a universal problem of getting kids to eat the healthy foods we wanted them to eat—without the fight, of course.

KFF: Right.

MCL:  So I devised a simple, yet good strategy—really to hide the world’s healthiest superfoods, into the foods that we already know that kids will eat without a fight.  Which are the famous five—pizza, mac and cheese, hamburgers—all the famous kid-favorite foods, and revamp those foods in the most healthy way possible.

KFF: That’s fantastic.  How long did it take you to develop the content of the book and write it?

MCL:  Loosely about five years.  But when I started putting pen to paper, it was about two years of writing the book and getting it published.
 
KFF: If you will, share with us the basic strategies for hiding vegetables and fruit in the foods kids like to eat.

MCL:  Well the magic is really in the Sneaky Chef purees.  And making a puree is very simple.  It’s simply steaming vegetables and putting them in a little food processor and just enough water until you have a creamy, smooth consistency—almost like a baby food. 

Once you’ve converted—let’s say cauliflower and brocolli and raw baby spinach—all those vegetables into a pureed form, then you can match them up in color and taste and texture—which I’ve done all of this in the book— so that they hide in every way possible.  You can’t taste them.  You can’t see them, and you’re getting these purees into sauces and all kind of kids foods.  It just invisibly goes in there and boosts the nutrition of every meal.

KFF:  That is so smart.  And it’s so sneaky!  It really does work and you can’t see it. Now, one question I do have—and I know many in our audience may have as well—is whether or not cooking the vegetables or pureeing them ever diminishes their nutritional value?

MCL: Actually, some vegetables are more nutritious when they are slightly cooked.  For example, tomatoes.  The lycopene in tomatoes is more accessible and absorpable by the body when they are cooked.  And as far as pureeing, it’s not like juicing.  When you puree something, you actually make it twice as concentrated.  If you think about it, take two cups of brocolli, steam it and puree it, it’s going to puree down into less than half that amount.  So two cups of raw brocolli steams and purees into less than one cup of puree. 

When you think about little kids, there’s a huge benefit to that.  The benefit is that children don’t have to eat as much to get the full nutritional benefit.  And with kids, even if they like something—their bellies are small and they don’t eat that much at any one sitting.   They might get bored or distracted—so it’s great to get a lot of bang for your tablespoon.

KFF:  That’s great to know.  Now, some parents may think hiding fruits and vegetables in meals is “copping out” because the kids don’t know they’re eating it.  What’s the rationale behind sneaking the vegetables into the children’s foods?

MCL:  Well “sneaking” is definitely not a substitute for teaching good nutrition.   So the Sneaky Chef definitely recommends still teaching good habits and leading by example.    That’s one of the most effective ways that parents can get kids eating better—is just to eat better themselves.  But “sneaking” will just take away the pressure.

For example:  When your children are sitting there enjoying a big plate of spaghetti and meatballs loaded with eight different vegetables and three whole grains, then you know that the pressure is off.  So you can put out a bowl of steamed brocolli straight up, in a much more casual manner.  You can explain to them the virtues of brocolli or green vegetables.  “Why are vegetables green?”  Tell them things that are really interesting about vegetables—why they are healthy—but the pressure is not as much to get them to eat them at that very minute.

KFF:  That’s a good idea.  I used to serve vegetables with the chunky garden medley in my spaghetti and my boys just stopped liking it.  So then I had to start using the traditional kind and I thought, “well, there goes all the vegetables…”  So this is a fantastic way to introduce those vegetables back into the spaghetti in a way that they can’t see it.

KFF: The method you recommend in your book helps parents get more fiber, whole grains, vitamins and antioxidants into their child’s diet.  Are these the four things we seem to be getting less of than we need to?

MCL:  Yes.  The Sneaky Chef is not just about sneaking green vegetables--the orange vegetables, white vegetables and green. I use a lot of blueberries.  And then of course I used white beans as one of the best foods for fiber.    It also has almost no flavor. 

I use whole grains—wheat germ, oats and whole grain flower— whenever possible.  So these are the things I’m sneaking in.  I think once you get in a range of those vegetables, fruit and whole grains, you’ve won ninety percent of the battle of healthy eating.

KFF:  That’s so awesome.  Describe your favorite Sneaky recipe…

MCL:  I would say the brownies.  The “Brainy Brownies.”  This is a recipe that took me about five years to develop because baking is sort of a science.  It’s much more exact than making a tomato sauce—which is much more forgiving. 

I wasn’t traditionally a baker, so I employed some bakers along the way to help me.  Everytime I wanted to add more of this purple puree—which is the Sneaky Chef puree of blueberries and spinach—they would look at me like I was crazy, because here I was trying to get all this wet stuff into a brownie.  And make it taste great and fudgy and delicious.  Then I told them I wanted to cut out half the fat and half the sugar as well and add ground wheat germ and oatmeal—

KFF:  That sounds delicious, right?

MCL:  And in the end, still have a great food that’s healthy.    The idea of the whole Sneaky Chef method is to make food not taste healthy.  Because we could all go into the health food store and get flax cookies, but nobody wants those.  And nobody feels good about eating those because they just feel like they’re on a diet or on some kind of crazy health plan.  And kids certainly don’t go for that.

KFF:  And kids don’t like cardboard cookies.

MCL:  Yeah, they definitely don’t like cardboard.  They like the plastic ones they play with in the pretend kitchen—but definitely not to eat.  But the brownies definitely came out great.  They’re sort of the signature of the whole Sneaky Chef book now.  They are the ones I went on the Today Show with.  They really were one of the best reasons the book hit the best-seller list early on.

KFF:  I can’t wait to make them.  I’m looking forward to it because brownies are one of our favorite things to eat and we haven’t eaten them in a while because well, they’re on the bad list.

MCL:  Well, I’m trying to give America back some latitude—take away the guilt—and let people have their brownies back.    Brownies have been around a long time.  In the end, chocolate is pretty good for you anyway, and it makes us feel good.  I’m not going to take brownies away.

KFF:  You’re not going to take our brownies away…

MCL: Now way, not me.  I’m going to give it back to America.

KFF:  Why do you thinik we’re so challenged when it comes getting fruits and vegetables into our children’s diets?  It seems as though our parents and grandparents didn’t seem to have as difficult a time…

MCL:  Right.  I read a quote recently that said that “When I was a kid, I had two choices at the dinner table:  take it or leave it.”  Things have changed a bit.  We’ve become much more child centered.  So it’s a combination of the fact that we’re trying to make our kids happy, and we’re up against the packaged food companies that have really brainwashed our kids to sort of want the very intense, artificial flavors, or the bright colors, or everything made into a cute shape. 

Everything tastes very processed, but that’s a taste that we’ve become accostumed to. So how really can a carrot stick hold up to a Cheeto?  That’s a real tough call there.  So what I’m trying to do is empower moms, in a very simple way, to make healthy food irresistable to children.

KFF:  Yeah, my kids give me flack about fruit roll-ups.  “But mommy it’s fruit!”  And I tell them, “No, we’re going to eat a real fruit snack.”

MCL:  I think they really do think that fruit roll-ups grow on trees.

KFF:  Where’s the best place to start?  Which recipe might you recommned first?

MCL:  I think that the pasta sauce is the simplist way to get the Sneaky Chef kind of method rolling.   And not just the homemade pasta sauce—forget that—just take your favorite jar of tomato sauce.  Whatever you’re going to make with tomato sauce that night—whether it’s spaghetti and meatballs or simply a marinara sauce for pasta—you can then puree up the orange puree, which is carrots and sweet potatoes, or the cauliflower and zucchini puree. 

You steam them first and puree them until they’re smooth.  Or simply substitute a good baby food.  You can take baby food carrots and baby food sweet potatoes and put them right into your jar of tomato sauce. 

So if you just want to use jars and you don’t have time to cook, you can add a couple of jars to the tomato sauce and you’ve now increased the nutritional profile of that tomato sauce by three-fold, as well as cut the acidity of the tomatoes with the carrots and the sweet potatoes.

KFF: Baby food has been around for a long time, but we haven’t thought of this, uh?

MCL:  It’s amazing, actually.  I can’t believe they weren’t marketing it this way.  There’s no age limit when you think of adding baby food to anything.   I put it in my husband’s chili.  I tell them there’s no better way to baby your man.  It doesn’t sound good—that you’re going to put baby food in your husband’s food.   It makes it sound like he’s geriatric—but it works. 

Get a good one.  I’ve kind of studied the market.  I like Beech Nut.   It’s a good quality puree. It’s simply, vegetables.  You put that in and nobody knows anything.

KFF:  You also offer workshops, cooking classes and coaching. Can you tell us about that?

MCL:   I teach culinary arts at The New School in New York.  Once or twice a semester—if you go online to The New School of Culinary Arts—you can find one of my classes called “Mission Possible:  Getting Your Kids to Eat Better.”  That’s a great class.  It’s so much fun.  And it’s in a beautiful little inn in New York City.  And then I privately tutor and coach parents—whether it’s in their homes.  I’ll take them on shopping trips to whole foods. 

I’ll do a pantry raid or a lunch box makeover and teach parents to pack better lunches—as well as buy better, smarter ingredients.  I teach cooking classes for a group of friends.  I do parties pretty often.  People get together and want me to do a cooking party.  Mother’s groups often hire me to come in.  It’s entertaining as well as informative.

KFF:  Speaking of lunch boxes, it’s September.  It’s the beginning of the school year and now we’re packing lunches.  What little bit of advice can you offer us in terms of offering healthier lunches for our kids.

MCL:  To me this is the most challenging area.  I really love summer because I get a break from the whole lunch box thing.  And I gotta tell you, even as the Sneaky Chef—even as the author of this healthy cook book, I’m sometimes forced to pack white bread in my children’s lunch boxes.   Otherwise they won’t eat anything.  They don’t want to feel weird with whole grain bread.  And they won’t even take the turkey out and eat it.

So let’s say, kind of go with the flow.  I buy organic snacks and my kids trade them for the bad stuff.  So here I am paying all this money extra and I think I’m doing good, and they are trading it away for the bad stuff.  So it’s a really tough area.

Maybe use creative uses of a thermos.  Give them a soup or quick fixes to mac and cheese.  Even spaghettios—if you find a more natural, organic speghettio and you can put the Sneaky Chef puree right in there and feel like at least your kids are going to get a couple of vegetables and tomato sauce—and they’re going to not be hungry during the day.  The key is that you don’t want them to go hungry because you’ve given them something that they hate.

KFF:  Fortunately, somehow my kids love wheat bread.  They don’t like white bread. So we do the double grain with four grams of fiber.
MCL:  That’s great.

KFF:  But I’m wondering if like roll-ups or pita pockets—I’m just now getting into it.  One is going into the first grade and I need to figure this out for myself.  But are these a nice way to do a lunch?

MCL:  I do.  If you think about it.  And I don’t mean to pick on any particular brand, but look at luncheables.   I’ve actually opened them—and frankly I’ve eaten them.  Not very often.  But in my research, I have discected a luncheable.   The one my kids like is this homemade pizza kit. Frankly, it’s all about putting it together themselves.   So I tried to make a Sneaky Chef luncheable and recreate this experience for them.  If only I could package it the same way.

I took what you said, which is a whole grain wrap, and I cut out little circles that looked like little pizza pies and I gave them some cheese—and I did this ahead of time so that in the morning when they’re rushing for school I’m not crazy.  But I do it on a Sunday and I make some cheese slices and I put a little tupperware of tomato sauce. 

KFF:  With a puree…

MCL:  Yeah, with a puree in it of course—it already has four hidden vegetables.  And they make their own little pizza at school and they feel like they’re having a luncheable. And they have a great time.  A lot of it has to do with the activity of it.  They like that.

So if you don’t have time or don’t feel like going to that extent, I would do a wrap.  I think the wraps are really great. You can hide things in a wrap.  Use different condiments.  Whenever you use mayonnaise, if you’re kids like mayonnaise, make sure you put a freezer pack in there. You can mix the light mayo with my white bean puree—which is so simple to make.  Take a can of white beans, rinse them and puree them up smooth.  And you can cut at least half of the mayonnaise out using this white bean puree and now you have a layer of fiber and nutrients.  Whatever you’re going to serve them, put the white bean puree into.

KFF:  We use Miracle Whip and it has half the fat of Mayonnaise.  Is that a better choice than Mayonnaise?

MCL:  I grew upon Miracle Whip too and it always had a distinct flavor.  I don’t really know the difference.  I would say if it has less fat, great.  I kind of go for the better oils.  I always look for a mayonnaise made with a safflower or canola oil and I buy them at the health foods store.  I would definitely go with the lower fat mayo. And again, the white bean puree is just great with every mayonnaise.  I do that with my husband’s tuna fish salad and he doesn’t ever know—he loves it.

KFF:  How can our audience learn more about your book and other services you offer?

MCL:  www.SneakyChef.com is a great place to start.  We have a blog where I answer every single blog and email, personally.   It’s pretty much what I do all day long—is speak with people and coach them online and answer questions.  It’s really fun to read the blog because people are very clever and use the Sneaky Chef method in ways that I never imagined.  So they should definitely check out The Sneaky Chef.com.  Pretty much everything is there.  All the information about the classes, interesting tips and more recipes.

KFF:  Do you think you’ll have a Sneaky Chef II?

MCL:  In fact I know I will because it’s due in two weeks.  It’s The Sneaky Chef for Your Man.

KFF:  Oh, I really need that one too.

MCL: I heard so much from my readers that as a by-product of doing this for their children, their guys were eating better and they weren’t fighting with them anymore and the wives didn’t have to nag them anymore to eat veggies and whole grains.   It worked so well that my publisher asked me to do The Sneaky Chef with more “manly” foods—and spicy and fun. I’ve had just the best summer putting that book together.  I think it’s going to be really good. It comes out in April of next year.

KFF:  Oh, that’s fantastic.  That’s great.  Well thank you so much Missy, for joining us today. 

MCL:  Thank yor for having me.

KFF:  You’re welcome and I wish you the best in all of your endeavors.

MCL:  Thanks--you too, Anita.

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