Play is essential in the development of children's brains. It helps promote cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth. Imaginative food play is fun and teaches children about good nutrition, but it is much more.
"I wish you were the kind of mommy who baked cookies," my little girl said to me one day a few years back, while I was taking dinner out of the microwave.
Console yourself that you're amongst the millions of other parents who can't get their kids to eat vegetables. I haven't heard of one case of scurvy reported lately, have you?