What can i feed the fussiest eater in the world?

Debt_Free_Chick

Penelope_Penguin wrote:

The "healthy eating" message makes me furious!! :mad: This is intended for couch potato grown ups, with poor diets and no exercise, NOT for energetic, growing primary school children. Fatty food is now banned from lunch boxes at my son's primary school. Not in his lunch box, mate, he needs all the calories he can get.

Penny

I kind of agree with you, but healthy eating IS intended for kids. Have you noticed how many obviously obese children there are, these days? Glance at McDonalds and see just how many kids eat that rubbish.

I don't mean that kids need to diet - far, far from it. But they do need a healthy balanced diet, with plenty of fruit & veg. And I don't mean "low fat" packaged stuff either.

Indeed, I think that skimmed or semi-skimmed milk and "healthy" margarine spread things are complete rubbish too and bad for children, as they contain far less natural Vit A & D compared to whole milk and butter.

I could make a rational argument to make just about any food "healthy" or nutritious ... including chocolate cake! :rotfl:

Debt_Free_Chick

moggins wrote:

Thanks PP, she's both fussy and slow and since the school keep nagging on about healthy eating she has become obsessed with it, everything has to be declared healthy or she won't eat it.

Teach her basic nutrition - seriously. Get yourself a book about nutrition, if you're not sure or find one aimed at educating children and explain why what you're giving her is nutritious. Don't be concerned about stuff like "low-fat" - change the emphasis, so that you find positive points about whatever you want her to eat. Here's an example ....

She is 5 for pete's sake, she is supposed to be more concerned with how much chocolate cake she can get down her than how healthy it is!

This can be healthy, especially if you make it yourself so you know what goes into it. So if you made a choccie cake, you could tell her it's healthy like this ....

Eggs - protein, to build a strong body. You need to eat protein every day as the body can't store it.

Eggs also contain just about every single vitamin, except Vit C.
Vit A - for healthy eyes.
Vits B - for lovely skin and shiny hair.
Vit D - for strong, healthy bones
Vit E - for healthy nervous system and heart

Chocolate - carbohydrate to give you lots of energy (honest!)

You see where I'm going? You just also need to teach her the "moderation" rule ... and I wouldn't start with "good food/bad food" .... all food is good if you don't eat too much of the same stuff. Actually, I might teach her that packaged/processed food is bad .... get her to make her own HM burgers! Great moulding all that meat & onion into a pattie

You may find the British Nutrition Foundation helpful, especially the stuff under the Teacher Centre.

HTH

annie-c

I used to teach my niece about nutrition starting from age about 2-3 - all very simple stuff at first, like how drinking up her milk would make her a strong girl and help her run the fastest, and that fruit and veg gave her beautiful clear skin and sparkly eyes, etc. By 5-6 she was proudly helping in the supermarket, choosing which veg she'd like for tea when she stayed over, and on one memorable occasion telling random other shoppers that they 'would have less wrinkles if they ate more fruit and veg'!!! _pale_

What she also loved to know and discuss (though happily not in the supermarket!) is that fruit and veg help people to pooh and keep their insides healthy...... Some kids just love 'pooh-talk'!

As for cooking together, what about setting up a plastic garden table outside and letting her get messy. Things that kids can help with include mixing together mince, onions & seasoning, for home-made burgers, mixing cakes/crispie cakes, decorating meringue nests/fairy cakes with fruit and cream. Make a huge fuss of whatever she makes and let the whole family praise her for her cooking efforts (to take the attention away from hher eating habits)

Also, don't necessarily assume that because she is a child she will need to eat 'children's food' - you could have a theme evening each week where you cook a different meal from a country around the world - and read together about the country and what is thought to be a healthy diet there. Doesn't have to be complicated - a basic tomato and onion pasta sauce cooked slowly until it is sweet like jam is cheap to make and can be accompanied by tales of the Med, where the sun shines all day every day (exaggerating a bit, but all in a good cause....)

A different but related idea (and there is still just about time to do it this year), is to grow your own fruit/veg - there is nothing more satisfying than cooking/eating with produce from your own garden. You could stick in some cress, lettuce, spring onions and radishes right now, and could probably get some strawberry plants from the garden centre for an autumn crop.

Good luck!

Annie

Debt_Free_Chick

annie-c wrote:

Also, don't necessarily assume that because she is a child she will need to eat 'children's food'

Hugely agree with this. I wouldn't eat half the stuff churned out "children's food". Also, serving different food to children simply "singles them out" and highlights that they're eating something that mum & dad aren't.

Children normally love to mimic what mum & dad do ... well, at least until they become teenagers, anyway :rotfl:

Penelope_Penguin

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

Penny

I kind of agree with you, but healthy eating IS intended for kids. Have you noticed how many obviously obese children there are, these days? Glance at McDonalds and see just how many kids eat that rubbish.

I don't mean that kids need to diet - far, far from it. But they do need a healthy balanced diet, with plenty of fruit & veg. And I don't mean "low fat" packaged stuff either.

Indeed, I think that skimmed or semi-skimmed milk and "healthy" margarine spread things are complete rubbish too and bad for children, as they contain far less natural Vit A & D compared to whole milk and butter.

I could make a rational argument to make just about any food "healthy" or nutritious ... including chocolate cake! :rotfl:

Sorry, I do take your point; I wasn't expressing myself very well. It was late last night, and the glass of red was just hitting! My point is that children are growing, so need a different "healthy diet" from adults.

Here in rural Yorks, we don't have McD (thank goodness!), and there are very few overweight children.

I really speak from the point of my own children; can't speak for others. My daughter had similar probs to that of OP, so I was giving my experience only. My children walk to and from school, go out to play after school, cycle to friends houses, dance, gym, netball, swimming training, football clubs. We also do lots of outdoors stuff at the weekend, and hoildays. They get bored by TV and video games, unless adults are there to interact with them, they'd rather be playing with toys.

For them, skimmed milk, low fat, is nonsense. However the school "healthy eating" message dosen't take children like them into account. For my children, "healthy eating" needs to be calorie dense, or they'll fall over.

I'm more than happy to debate this point further; no offence has been taken!:D

Penny. x

PS, just read a bit further. Couldn't agree with you more about "good and bad" food. Good and bad for who? I've taught my two from an early age that there is no such thing as "bad" food, just too much of a good thing. I had a red-headed friend at uni whose skin went orange due to too much vitamin A. She loved liver and carrots, and in the end they were "bad"...........

ziggy2004

I have 2 fantastic childrens cookbooks The river cottage family cookbook by Hugh Fearnley-whittingstall and Fizz carr and children's cookbook by sara lewis (this one came from a poundshop) The have a range of recipes in them and especially the river cottage one is great as it explains a lot about where tyhe food comes from. I loved helping my mum to ccok when I was little and as i teenager I taught my little sister how to cook one of her favourites was baking cookies i would make the dough and roll it out and she (and a friend) would use cutters for shapes and then decorate with ginger/rasins etc they could not get enough!
X Anne

FunkyFairy

Hi Moggins,

I had the same thing with my DD. She weighed only 16lb 4oz at a year. She did not wean until she was 14 months and had to have soya products as she was very sick with dairy.

My DD went around a corner when she hit 6. She now eats like a horse and will try anything.

Her brother loves corn on the cob and she asked to try it last night and she ate the whole thing.

I look at her eating her dinner now and i wonder why i was so worried.

She is still very small she is 8 1/2 and wears 5 - 6 clothes but she eats everything and anything.

oops_a_daisy

Hi Moggins, my daughter was always a very slow ( lazy ) eater. This stemmed from going from baby food to 'grown' up food because she was so lazy she couldnt be bothered to chew!. She only likes certain things and picks all day long. She is better now she is older ( now 12 ) I just make sure that she can have a proper breakfast even if it means a little dish with dry cheerios to pick at and a glass of milk, lunch is at school and make sure we have a meal at night. She can not have a pudding till she has cleared her plate. Luckily she loves fruit and veggies so I just make sure the fruit bowl is always full for her to pick at and put veggies in with every meal. She will not eat meat and never has ( going back to the lazy cant be bothered to chew days ) so I make things with Quorn which she will eat. Although she is not under weight she is thin and I do worry about it but she also does loads of excercise which makes her hungry. I think all I can say is make sure you have loads of healthy snacks around for in between meal times and serve up easy to eat meals at meal times. All the best and good luck

newleaf

A colleague of mine was told by her Health Visitor that she was being too restrictive in her 2 year old's diet and that he wasn't getting enough fat. She told her she should take him to McDonalds once a week!

Aril

Hi Moggins
Is your DD a milk drinker? My mum always used to make us a choc milkshake with a raw egg whizzed in to make it frothy [obviously caution needed with v.young children] as my sister wouldn't eat eggs. You could also add fruit to it.
There is a website called https://www.cookingforchildren.co.uk which someone recommended here previously. Haven't checked it out but may be worth a look.
The library will probably have some good cookery books for kids which may have some recipes in to tempt her. The Roald Dahl one could be worth a quick look!
The other thing my sister [the same one as above] is now doing with her 5yo DD to get her to eat more as she's a light grazer is getting her to down the carbs at the beginning of the meal. The problem there was that she was eating fruit in between meals and then drinking milk and becoming full up. It's working well so far.
Good luck
Aril