Sneaky veggies: a good strategy?

Sneaking vegetables into desserts so kids will eat healthier foods seems like such a bad idea that I can’t believe anyone would do a book on it let alone two people with virtually identical recipes. Never mind plagiarism. Mimi Sheraton, the delightfully outspoken former restaurant critic of the New York Times writes on Slate.com: “A plague on both their houses.” She cites reasons: it’s the wrong nutrition message, it’s lying too your kids, there are better ways to get kids to eat foods they think they don’t like, and the amounts of vegetables sneaked into those brownies are too small to matter much. On this last point, she quotes me. Isn’t teaching kids to be adventurous eaters worth doing? Or am I missing some point here?