To not understand adult food vs kids food?

Yeah, I mean I understand that some people think young children having a sophisticated palate is a class marker

You have to scrape the barrel to find class markers with toddlers when they all eat bogeys, can’t wipe their own noses and struggle to pronounce synthetic phonemes 😂

No it's not.

This is a very cute story.

Fussy eating is a normal developmental milestone for toddlers. It’s actually evolutionary, as it’s the age when small people had to learn that some berries/leaves etc are poisonous and you can’t just eat anything you find on a bush. They also have different taste buds to adults so some young children taste dark green vegetables as very bitter.

Our toddler went from eating everything (olives, chilli, fish etc) to suddenly much more selective. We still feed him child sized portions of normal adult food but he’s now very picky. So for example if it’s curry he’ll just eat the rice. If it’s sea bass, potatoes and broccoli he’ll just eat the potatoes. It’s probably even less balanced and nutritious than the “kids’ food” about which so many parents are so scathing, but I’m not going to make multiple meals.

‘This whole thread is a stealth boast.’

💯💯💯💯💯💯

Yeah, I mean I understand that some people think young children having a sophisticated palate is a class marker, or that it reflects particularly well on them as parents, and fine for people to have that little emotional boost if that's what they want. But as you say, children of all cultures will tend to gravitate towards simplicity of taste - French kids with their Nutella on toast, Indian kids with Bournvita milk & sugar, Japanese with Kakigori...of course you'll always get kids with adventurous taste buds but I'm not sure it proves anything much either way.

Mine eats mostly what we eat - he isn’t that keen on highly spicy food so we tone it down for him with yoghurt, but he eats everything else we eat (except salad, strangely, but that isn’t a hill I need to die on). He tends to have half of my main course and a side of chips or veg, I have the other half and a salad.

Jarred baby food aged 3 sounds like potential SEN to me - the only three year old I know who would tolerate a pouch over chips is autistic with a very limited food repertoire.

I think the point is that, in much of the world, beige kids’ food simply wouldn’t be an option. They’d have to eat some form of ‘adult food’, as that’s all there’d be.

I’d never even come across either ‘kids’ food’ or ‘fussy eating’ as concepts before I moved to the U.K. When people from places where this isn’t ‘a thing’ say they don’t get it, it’s not a judgement (although I appreciate why it feels like one, particularly if you’re struggling or have struggled with a fussy eater). It’s often genuine bafflement.

The above also applies to pride and/or smugness about what or how ‘well’ your child eats. Why would that be a source of pride?!

Who feeds a three year old jarred baby food?! Unless there’s some kind of developmental issue.

This.

All you parents whose kids will eat anything and everything - do you think the rest of us actively discouraged this in our kids? Do you think we like cooking different meals? Some kids are fussy, some aren’t.

DS1 was terribly fussy, and would rather starve than eat stuff he wasn’t keen on. If he forced himself to eat it he’d vomit. Now he’s 19 and he eats anything.

DS2 ate anything as a young child. Now he’s mid teens he’s become ridiculously fussy, and has a tiny repertoire of meals he’ll eat without a big drama.

I've got about 4 foodstuffs I don’t like. I’m incredibly unfussy. Did my absolute best with my kids diet, but ultimately they are who they are.

This whole thread is a stealth boast.

It's also the weirdness of thinking/expecting that a small portion should cost less than an adult portion. Most of the cost to the restaurant is per-plate, regardless of how much is on it. But we expect a child's meal to be cheaper than an adult meal.

And this is how we end up with the concept of Hungry Horse as good value..

It’s really not ‘only in the UK’ you find this. It’s common in America (not surprising) but as an expat who’s lived in a number of different countries around the world I can confirm it’s also common in many countries.

We brought our children up to eat whatever we were eating ourselves and this would lead to the scenario you describe whenever I was with my sister who had children of approximately the same age - she'd want to give them pizza every time and looked askance at me giving mine fish & rice & vegetables

I may have said something like my dd would never eat that but it wouldn’t be said with bad intentions, more i wish she would eat more varied foods.
My dd even from weaning has been fussy about foods in general she’s just never been overly interested in food, where as my son will eat anything both weaned the exact same. It’s not that she’ll only eat ‘beige’ food as she isn’t a big fan of a lot of them either, she just only likes certain things.
I wouldn’t feed a jar of baby food to a 3 year old (not a chance my dd would eat one either) but I also wouldn’t make a judgy comment about someone doing it. Trying to get food in to a child that isn’t overly interested in eating is hard and maybe that’s what they’ve found works for them.

My three kids love a good steak. Rather than chicken nuggets and chips when dining out, we would buy a steak and split it if the restaurant was okay with that. I mean, if they wouldn't give us an extra plate to split an expensive steak between 2 kids they got the nuggets though. Ain't no way I'm wasting steak money for bellies too small to eat them.

Yes!! SO much of it on this thread too. Honestly the smug judginess of so many posters on this thread is a lot even by MN standards. Good for you that your children eat homemade sushi with raw fish (bit cringe you felt the need to brag about this btw), but honestly - calamari is just a different variation on a chicken nugget. Carry on using this thread as an exercise in showing off the food your kids eat that you think makes you a superior parent, you clearly need that validation. For the most part, everyone’s doing their best - whatever they choose to feed their children.

I wonder if it’s a concept that’s grown from people using jars of baby food to feed their kids.

I do think some people get very over confident in the “oh my child eats everythjng” side of things too though and can come across as very judgmental.

when DS was 2 we went on holiday to Greece and he ate everything and anything offered he particularly loved the Moussaka and the different dips IIRC. By the time he was 6 he hardly ate anything. At 9 he was fitted with a feeding tube!

you can start out with the best of intentions but it doesn’t always work that way. For what it’s worth he is 15 now and I would love to see him eating nuggets and chips.

I don't think there's many little kids eating from a variety of very different food cultures though. Nor a variety of very strong flavours.

Yes, of course, all MN children, obviously, but globally I'm guessing most eat a milder tasting version of their national cuisine.

All of those are perfectly normal foods. Kids in Greece will eat Moussaka, kids in Thailand will eat Thai noodle salads, kids in Italy will eat risotto… but British kids can’t, they can only eat chips and beans! Oh, and fish fingers. 🤣🤣🤣

As for it being a ‘British’ thing, an Italian told me that so many Italian kids virtually live on pasta and tomato sauce until they’re about 15.

Oh, and the kids of DD’s Italian friends (in Italy) habitually had Oreos for breakfast.

IMO there’s too much automatic slagging off of anything perceived as ‘British’ on MN.

Lol. So do most 10 month olds. It's when they get to 2/3/4 and realise they have the power of choice that you're fucked.

My 10mo was an amazing eater. At 4... well, see post about having bolognese in two bowls.

Children have different taste buds to adults. Very young children have around 30,000 tastebuds spread around their mouths, by the time we reach middle age only about a third of those remain and they're on our tongues rather than being spread all over. This is why tastes change over time, and also why many young children don't tolerate certain foods - especially those which are bitter, spice or astringent. It's also why very young children can be fussy about texture.

All kids are different though, I don't think you can have black and white rules. Some kids will eat what adults do, some will not.

Interesting research here if of interest: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4654709/

3 years old on baby food ?! That's ridiculous.

Agree with all this, great post.