The Pea in Peanut Butter

The Pea in Peanut Butter is an excellent book for teaching kids about healthy eating, particularly having lots of “colors” in their diets.

The little girl in this story loves peanut butter and would eat it with everything if her mother would let her. (I can relate.) Her tummy doesn’t want anything but peanut butter, but, one night, when she’s looking for a nighttime snack, the girl gets locked in the pantry. It is here that the foods around her come alive and persuade her to give them a try. The girl tries healthy foods like corn, carrots, pears, kidney beans, and, yes, peas. The girl learns that she shouldn’t judge a food by its color, and that she can like other foods besides peanut butter.

This book, as I said, is great for teaching kids about healthy eating. The foods in this story even mention why they are healthy: corn helps with healthy teeth, carrots can improve eyesight, pears help skin, kidney beans help you run faster, and peas can make you smarter. Well, I don’t know how true all of those statements are, but they could serve to convince a few kids to try some foods that seem yucky to them. (An author’s note verifying food nutrition statements would have been helpful, though.)