Testing has_many with validation using RSpc 2.9.0 + FactoryGirl 3.2

New to RSpec and Factory Girl and lose this battle!

I have a MealItems connection table that has validation for one of its properties. In the rails console, I can successfully do the following:

meal = Meal.create!( ... )
food = Food.create!( ... )
item1 = MealItem.create!( meal, food, 1234 )  # 1234 being the property that is required

Then I can automatically get many products in a given food through MealItem as follows:

meal.foods

The problem is that I cannot figure out how to create factories correctly so that this ratio is available in the specification. I can assign items to food and check them, but I can’t get has_many through relationships that work (food.foods)

Models

class Meal < ActiveRecord::Base

  has_many :meal_items
  has_many :foods, :through => :meal_items

end

class MealItem < ActiveRecord::Base

  belongs_to :meal
  belongs_to :food

  validates_numericality_of :serving_size, :presence => true,
                                           :greater_than => 0
end

class Food < ActiveRecord::Base

  has_many :meal_items
  has_many :meals, :through => :meal_items

end

specifications /factories.rb

FactoryGirl.define do

  factory :lunch, class: Meal do
    name      "Lunch"
    eaten_at  Time.now
  end

  factory :chicken, class: Food do
    name            "Western Family Bonless Chicken Breast"
    serving_size    100
    calories        100
    fat             2.5
    carbohydrates   0
    protein         19
  end

  factory :cheese, class: Food do
     name            "Armstrong Light Cheddar"
     serving_size    30
     calories        90
     fat             6
     carbohydrates   0
     protein         8
   end

 factory :bread, class: Food do
    name            "'The Big 16' Multigrain Bread"
    serving_size    38
    calories        100
    fat             1
    carbohydrates   17
    protein         6
  end

  factory :item1, class: MealItem do
    serving_size      100
    association       :meal, factory: :lunch
    association       :food, factory: :chicken
  end

  factory :item2, class: MealItem do
      serving_size      15
      association       :meal, factory: :lunch
      association       :food, factory: :cheese
  end

  factory :item3, class: MealItem do
    serving_size      76
    association       :food, factory: :bread
    association       :meal, factory: :lunch
  end    


  factory :meal_with_foods, :parent => :lunch do |lunch|
    lunch.meal_items { |food| [ food.association(:item1),
                           food.association(:item2),
                           food.association(:item3)
                          ]}


  end
end

specifications / models / meal_spec.rb

...

describe "Nutritional Information" do

before(:each) do 

  #@lunch = FactoryGirl.create(:meal_with_foods)  

  @item1 = FactoryGirl.create(:item1)
  @item2 = FactoryGirl.create(:item2)
  @item3 = FactoryGirl.create(:item3)
  @meal = FactoryGirl.create(:lunch)

  @meal.meal_items << @item1
  @meal.meal_items << @item2
  @meal.meal_items << @item3

  @total_cals = BigDecimal('345')
  @total_fat = BigDecimal('7.5')
  @total_carbs = BigDecimal('34')
  @total_protein = BigDecimal('35')

end

# Would really like to have
#it "should have the right foods through meal_items" do
  #@meal.foods[0].should == @item1.food
#end

it "should have the right foods through meal_items" do
  @meal.meal_items[0].food.should == @item1.food
end


it "should have the right amount of calories" do
  @meal.calories.should == @total_cals
end

...

My question is:

, Meal.foods , - . MealItem , has_many ?

.