"How can we get kids to eat better?" is a question we ask so often these days that it's in danger of becoming a mindless mantra. Schools all over the country are banning soda machines and overhauling their lunch menus; pre-sliced, pre-packaged apples and oranges are being marketed as the greatest thing since sliced bread, because the neat, easy-to-eat slices make fruits a more viable snack food for kids.

And The Learning Channel's Honey, We're Killing The Kids "reality" show is scaring the pants off parents who feed their kids a high fructose corn syrup-laced diet; a stern nutritionist (who vaguely resembles Tony Soprano's shrink, Dr. Melfi, minus the empathy) terrifies families into eating tofu by showing them computer generated images of how their kids will look at age 40 if they don't shape up.

Apparently, a fast food diet and lack of exercise will not only make your child fat, he'll look like a convicted felon, and may sport strange 70's-style sideburns, too.

But why wait till your kids are hooked, à la Calvin, on nutritionally bankrupt breakfast cereals like Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, the mythic cereal that Calvin's astute stuffed sidekick Hobbes likened to "eating a bowl of milk duds"?

You can shape your child's taste buds before your baby's even born, according to a new report from ABC news. I knew about the studies showing that how we feed our kids in their first few years shapes their food preferences for life, but this new report goes a step further, suggesting that a child's sensitivity to flavors starts to form in the womb.

"Researchers say a seven-month old fetus can experience a variety of tastes and smells in the amniotic fluid from foods eaten by the expecting mother," according to ABC. "In Philadelphia, researchers gave carrot juice to pregnant women several days a week during their last trimester. Six months later, when their babies were offered carrot cereal for the first time, they ate 20 percent more than babies who had not been exposed to the juice in the uterus."

So if you're eating for two, and facing hormonally fueled food cravings, just remember: if you want little Lola to eat her peas and carrots instead of hurling them from the high chair, the time to teach her the virtues of veggies is now, while you've got a captive audience.