Keeping Up With Kiddie Food

Last night I received an online slap on the wrist for dumping an email exchange with my big sister to watch the latest installment of MasterChef. I might otherwise have continued the dialogue during the ad breaks, but I was too busy finishing and 'plating up' our own meal.

Yep, that's what the show does to you.

And it turns out there may be a parental justification. These are otherwise known as the moral high ground.

There's been a lot written about how popular the show is. Cripes, it's been in my Top 5 Online Distractions for a record four weeks. Great minds, as they say.

And so it continues. In today's Sydney Morning Herald's, Miranda Devine has written a piece on how kids are hooked on shows like this - and on food - both here and around the world.

At just 15 months, Austin is too young to watch MasterChef, let alone cook, and for reasons that include these and our own self-interest is put to bed at 6.59pm.

The show starts one minute later.

However, if this is part of a bigger, probably global, possibly enduring "kiddie food movement", I'd like to think I'm doing the right thing by prioritising my kitchen skills now to enable me to nurture (or, if TV does that, endure) Austin's in nine or ten years time

Better safe than sorry, don't you think sis?

Read the SMH story here.