Janet Michelson

Spoiler Alert!!!

To all parents, teachers and health care professionals this book is absolutely the best tool for teaching children about eating healthy and making it right. It's a darn shame that this type of thing don't exist here.

A set of grandparents are taking their grandchildren out to eat. When asked what they'd like to eat, the boy responded with chicken nuggets and the girl wants fries. The two grandparents decide they are going to ride their bikes to go out to eat. They arrive at a place called "Chew-Chew the Food Chain Train Restaurant".

As soon as they sit down, a small train comes chugging into the room where they are seated. On the train, they can choose from several types of foods. The train comes around to the tables. The train even carries the plates and utensils. From fruits, veggies and nuts, this train carries it all.

The granddaughter then decided to have a salad with many different types of veggies and the boy decided to have a fruit salad for their meal.

This is just a way to sum it up...maybe a few spoilers, but not all of them.
I highly recommend this for those that have children that don't want to try out new foods or will NOT eat healthy no matter what you've tired. If you have to, set up a play train and put some foods on it while you all sit around the table and the train circles the middle of the table with the food on each little car. NOTE: Try getting the type of train that has the bowl type cars and big enough to hold a bit of each thing you're serving that night. Make their dinner night a bit of fun.… (mehr)

Take a ride on Chew Chew the Food Chain Train. Made entirely of fruits and vegetables, she loves to teach children to love good food while improving their health. Come along and see her special restaurant where the buffet comes to the tables. All aboard!
This book would be suitable for Kindle Free Time users, home schools, and classrooms. It is appropriate for ages 3-10.It is not designed to teach about food groups or a balanced diet. The focus is teaching clean eating of whole foods as an approach to better health and the prevention of chronic disease. The goal is to introduce the concept of food as medicine. It is designed to be read by an adult to a child, to be used as a teaching tool to facilitate discussions of the correlation between food and health. Future books will address other aspects of the food we eat such as considerations when planting a garden. Chew Chew will discuss creating organic compost, the use of pesticides, herbicides, preservatives, chemical fertilizers, and the use of GMOs. Chew Chew wants children to learn how to choose healthy foods, and to have a general understanding of what happens to food from its beginning to the time it reaches their plates. Resources on past approaches to children's nutrition are not referenced because this is not a book about nutrition. It is a book about the nature of the food we eat. The best explanations of this approach can be found in two books: "The Ultra Mind Solution" by Mark Hyman and “The Wellness Prevention Paradigm.” by James Chestnut. This is a NEW approach to food as it relates to health, and persons looking for the old paradigm of food groups will not find it here.… (mehr)

This review was written for LibraryThing Member Giveaway

Chew, Chew, the food chain train, is a children’s picture book written by Janet Michelson, a therapist who is interested in the prevention of chronic disease. The book discusses the healthy choices that can be made; instead of fries and chicken nuggets, healthier foods. The children in the story go to a restaurant with their grandparents where the waiter is a train made of fruits and vegetables. The two children choose foods from the train that are nutritious and delicious.

The book is a typical picture book with color illustrations that should appeal to the pre-K through 1st grade group with a short sentence under each picture. However the reading level necessary to read the book would be about 3rd or 4th grade. So this would have to be a book read by an adult or older sibling to a young child, which defeats the purpose of the book. I had my two harshest critics, one 9 and one 12, read the book. They felt the concept of the train was too childish for their age group. The author needs to decide what age group she is targeting and have the illustrations match the text for that group.

The boys also caught on that the book only covered fruits and vegetables (though peas which is commonly considered a grain or bread was listed as a vegetable) and asked where the milk, grains (complex carbohydrates) and protein were. To be fair, there were nuts on the train (which is considered to be a protein). Did the children use dressing? The book doesn’t say but in the old food pyramid used by the USDA, fats are listed and they are extremely important for health in very small amounts. Eliminating all fats leads to some unpleasant health problems. And why did they not have a glass of skim milk?

There is a short bibliography at the back of the book for parents. It includes information that will be presented in forthcoming books. However she misses one of the most important: the USDA’s MyPlate website. The list is dominated by films and videos which might not be easy to obtain instead of basic reference sources like The Yale guide to children's nutrition, The Columbia encyclopedia of nutrition and The encyclopedia of nutrition and good health along with many other books that are available in public libraries.

There is a great need for books that teach children the basics of nutrition. Michelson has a good idea and needs to refine it, both for children and parents.… (mehr)