To cook from scratch or not to cook from scratch - that is the question

[handlemecarefully]

I cook from scratch 90% of the time - largely because I want my children to eat well and don't want to rely on processed food. I vary the menu quite substantially too using recipe books extensively.

But I wonder why I frigging bother! Dd is 3.4 and DS 19 months. They eat okay - i.e. sufficient range of vegetables, fruit, fibre and protein but from a very limited pick list. Pasta is rejected, my chicken casserole with dumplings from last week was spurned, so was boeuf bourginone (sp?) etc - sometimes even cottage pie gets the cold shoulder. It's really demoralising.

What would you do - just offer them the limited menu options that they will eat repeatedly, which are:

*fishfingers, jacket wedges and french beans
*home made chicken nuggets, home made over chips and broccoli
*home made pizza, new potatoes, carrots and peas
*mixed vegetable frittata and baked beans
*fish pie + veggies
*roast with all the trimmings

• and that is it? so they would get 6 different options repeated cyclically every week. Should I just throw in the towel and do this? - it would make my life easier..however equally I am worried that they will get bored with these and stop eating them too if they are endlessly repeated.
  
  Oh, what to do!
  
  (I don't enjoy cooking from scratch btw, I am prepared to do it and do infact do it, but it's completely disheartening when it is not appreciated and fed to our chickens)

[handlemecarefully]

I meant to add

Oh woe is me!

[Pruni]

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[cod]

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[handlemecarefully]

Thanks re the encouragement, sometimes you can't ever imagine your children growing up to eat red pepper and aubergines etc! - so it would be okay to just offer these staples (the ones I have listed) and not try to introduce anything new? (which will be rejected)....

I'd forgotten sausages Cod - yes they will eat those. I could get the good ones from the Butcher which don't have dodgy bits of gristle and stuff in them

I think I might avoid play dates involving tea for a while. I have a friend who I feel silently judges me re my children's lack of 'range'. I swear she thinks I'm doing something wrong.

[Earlybird]

I think the range of what your children eat sounds great - in fact, far better than what dd will happily eat! Hope I never meet your judgemental friend!

Seriously, I find that sometimes the effort made to fix something special/yummy/nutritious just isn't worth it. If I've made a big effort (which also doesn't come naturally to me), then I am quite unhappy if most of it is binned. It's far less stressful to give them something you know they'll eat....though it could become a vicious circle as their food range isn't expanding.

I read somewhere that, on average, a child has to have a new food about a dozen times before it is truly integrated into their range of "acceptable foods". Not sure if that is true, as I haven't had the patience to buy/make something 11 times in the hopes that they'll like it somewhere around the 12th time at appears on their plates!

Good luck. I think getting kids to eat right is a very fraught area for most parents.....

[Carmenere]

Please keep trying the kids with new foods occasionally. I just say that because I really hate those kids who wont eat anything but pizza and chips. You sound like you are doing an excellent job looking after your kids nutrition and the 'limited' selection you have outlined contitutes a very healthy diet.
I inherited a 14 yr old dss who was a vegetarian who diddn't like vegetables. This was an incredibly difficult situation for me as I was a chef and have studied nutrition. Basically his mum (and I suppose his dad) had allowed him to eat nothing but margherita pizza, potato wedges and and the occasional tinned vegetable his whole life. He actually has a borderline serious muscle problem that was probably caused by lack of calcium in his diet . His mother out of ignorance (I suppose) had just not bothered to encourage him to try new foods- and such his intake of nutrients was quite restricted. It has taken two years but he now has expanded his diet to include, lentils, chickpeas, salads and omlettes and such-like. He even makes a really good vegetarian curry - I am very proud of him.

Obviously you are much more informed (and caring) than my dss's mum and I'm not drawing a comparison but I just wanted to illustrate what can happen if children aren't exposed to different tastes and flavours.

Sorry for the rant

[Carmenere]

Please keep trying the kids with new foods occasionally. I just say that because I really hate those kids who wont eat anything but pizza and chips. You sound like you are doing an excellent job looking after your kids nutrition and the 'limited' selection you have outlined contitutes a very healthy diet.
I inherited a 14 yr old dss who was a vegetarian who diddn't like vegetables. This was an incredibly difficult situation for me as I was a chef and have studied nutrition. Basically his mum (and I suppose his dad) had allowed him to eat nothing but margherita pizza, potato wedges and and the occasional tinned vegetable his whole life. He actually has a borderline serious muscle problem that was probably caused by lack of calcium in his diet . His mother out of ignorance (I suppose) had just not bothered to encourage him to try new foods- and such his intake of nutrients was quite restricted. It has taken two years but he now has expanded his diet to include, lentils, chickpeas, salads and omlettes and such-like. He even makes a really good vegetarian curry - I am very proud of him.

Obviously you are much more informed (and caring) than my dss's mum and I'm not drawing a comparison but I just wanted to illustrate what can happen if children aren't exposed to different tastes and flavours.

Sorry for the rant

[Bozza]

Either you have told her that they will not eat much or you have her round pretty regularly for her to realise that. Personally I would do both maybe a couple of times a week try something different and then stick to the tried and tested the rest of the time.

Do you and DH eat the same as the kids? We always eat the same because I am not prepared to make two sets of food but it makes me feel less bad if it is rejected. Actually (and I will probably jinx myself my typing this) mine are going through a good eating phase. DD(18 months)has eaten a full apple (pips and all) and 3 bananas since Saturday rather than just pears all the time. DS (4.9) actually comes to the table and tucks right in and actually said to me on Sunday lunchtime "that looks interesting mummy" - it was jacket potatoes with left-over bolog. & grated cheese.

A few months back I could occasionally get DD to eat a bit of stewed fruit or chopped up strawberries and ice-cream. And DS would come to the table saying he didn't like it before he'd even seen it and whine and mess about. Then he was poorly and went really skinny. Just telling you this so you see that it might turn around in a few months.

[handlemecarefully]

Thanks all...okay a compromise, I'll stick to the list I have identified except for one or perhaps two meals per week when I'll present them with something different to ensure that they are still exposed to new things?

[Pruni]

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[Bozza]

hmc if you make it something that you and DH would eat maybe you won't feel so bad if the kids reject it?

[sickandtired]

I had to put broccoli (SP!!!!!!) on ds1's plate about 20 times, occasionally putting it on the fork for him with his mashed pots until now he eats it and likes it with no prompting.

I am now doing the same with cabbage and other meats, I think the best way isn't to cook a compleatly different meal foe them but to add something different to what they do like, on the side.

Hope this makes sense, its worked for me

[elliott]

I agree that you have to keep putting new things in front of them and eventually they will often go with it. Ds2 is much more inherently fussy than ds1 but because they like different things, and I am not going to restrict their diet to just the things they both really like, they often get faced with something they are not fantastically keen on. I'm learnign that if I sit it out (not always easy) ds2 will often just start eating it. He's also a terrible one for eating the bit he likes and asking for more. Again I have found that being firm and sitting it out will often result in him finally giving up and eating the potatoes/broccoli/toast/whatever....

[handlemecarefully]

A final question on this (I'm getting anal and over analytical):

Of the one or two 'new' meals that I give them each week, given that it takes 11 or 12 attempts before they will eat them (see Early Birds's post), is it better to stick to the same 'new' options for say 11 weeks consecutively...because, if it's 'new new' every week they won't have a 'dietary memory' of turkey fricasse when it eventually comes around again will they.

Am I making sense?

[handlemecarefully]

Elliott

"I'm learnign that if I sit it out (not always easy) ds2 will often just start eating it. He's also a terrible one for eating the bit he likes and asking for more. Again I have found that being firm and sitting it out will often result in him finally giving up and eating the potatoes/broccoli/toast/whatever"

I have tried the above for a good long while with dd. She'll just eat the potatoes and veg and leave the main course and will leave the table perfectly happy. She sometimes complains about being hungry later and I don't give in and offer something else. But next day, same cycle repeats - it would seem ad infinitum. If I was getting small breakthroughs like you I'd be happier to persevere...

[Bozza]

I'd go somewhere in between. So not 11 new meals in 11 weeks. Maybe 4. And maybe something that could be served with potatoes/veg that are already accepted some of the time.

[handlemecarefully]

That's sensible Bozza. I have been turning this issue over in my head for such a long while that I can't think for myself on it!

[oliveoil]

Do. Not. Set. Me. Off. On. Eating. Habits.

I DETEST MEALTIMES.

I do the same as you HMC (are you me?) and wonder why I bother most of the time.

Sigh. Oh to not give a shit and just feed them crap.

x

[Bozza]

I've been there hmc and oo but sometimes it does get better. I despaired of getting DD to eat fruit but managed through the manipulation of her big brother. Putting a plate of sliced up pear in the middle of the table for them to share eventually paid off. Also didn't feel bad about it being wasted because he was eating it! Then I had the simpler problem of getting her to stop stuffing slice after slice into her mouth to make sure she got more than he did.

[handlemecarefully]

I'll hold onto that though Bozza - that it will get better,

No I'm not you Oliveoil, I suspect your cooler than me!

[handlemecarefully]

"you're"

[oliveoil]

am not cool, I do the cardinal sin of letting them see that you are bothered, giving dirty looks out. At a 3 year old? Like she cares!

Then, just as you have had just about ENOUGH, she eats savoy cabbage like it is chocolate.

I have a 'testing corner' on the plate, so she has her normal meal, but has to try the new food and is rewarded with a marshmellow (bad bribe alert) if she eats it.

[handlemecarefully]

Ummm, I do the reward thing too. It is usually a chocolate coin! Dd got 2 at the weekend for eating (with much grimacing)spring greens.

[oliveoil]

oh I have no shame, bribes gallore in our house.

If I have spent ages whizzing breadcrumbs, it needs to be eaten GODDAMMIT.

[elliott]

oh hmc I hate being quoted back like that....always sounds so horrible and smug....
I do have bad patches too, honest. And I know it is mostly just about luck - I can see that there is an innate difference between ds1 (doesn't really care all that much what he eats) and ds2 (definitely has strong preferences for certain things). Its just I have been surprised myself when he (eventually) ends up eating (and I think 'ha! you fraud - of course you like potatoes, you just like fish fingers BETTER')
But yes it is demoralising when whole meals are rejected!