Mother's column – Eating healthy

E Numbers and other additives are usually found in ready-made meals and the like; you do not need a cookbook to prepare this kind of food. Moreover, we have jumped to the next food hype already anyways.

Neline is married and the mother of five: Martha (8), Abel (6), Jolijn (5), Reinout (3) and Sifra (0).

All those healthy claims sound a little too firm and a bit too conspirational to me. I would rather stick to the old truths that no one can disprove. “Everything in moderation”, for example. And: “Eat with variation.” That is an undisputed truth, even if it would be only because you cannot eat endlessly of things that prove to be “purely poisonous.” Oh, and eating many vegetables is always good too, of course.

Pancakes in moderation?

But the reality is very different. “Everything in moderation”, for example, collides with my great love for liquorice. And my children do not always eat their daily portions of vegetables as a matter of course.

I have a golden tip for readers for whom that sounds very familiar: add some defrosted frozen spinach to your pancake batter. In no time, you can serve pancakes with a healthy twist. You barely taste the spinach. Another tip: make bright pink princess pancakes with 500 grams of cooked beets, which you can mash and add to your batter — guaranteed success.

At least, it is successful for my family. Especially Martha is a big fan. She will eat at least ten pancakes. Of course, she wants pancakes at her birthday party too. Proudly I put an enormous green and pink pile on the table — eight times ten or so. “I only like yellow pancakes”, one of the friends says without tasting one bite. “Me too”, the girl next to her parrots. And just like they all had to go to the bathroom one by one, they now unitedly voice their explicit preference for standard, yellow pancakes.

We eat three days from the pile

In the meantime, Martha is eating her third princess pancake already. Fortunately, I still have a pancake mix in the pantry. I only need to add some water. In no time, the pile has become even higher and more varied.

But even though they all argued that they love yellow pancakes, most guests are already full after one pancake (or half a pancake).

Our children are delighted: we can probably eat at least three days from the green-pink-yellow pile of pancakes. Super delicious!