Au pairs and food

metro baby has a good line on it i think. This is the person looking after your babies. Quite frankly if it was me that was your aupair i would be pretty annoyed if you started to dictate my diet on the basis that pasta and veg was too much out of your way.And i definatly would not eat 'easy food' as you describe it not part of my culture to eat that kind of food and would be pretty upset to have this expected of me in my 'home'. my type of easy food involves quickly made soup/pasta rice with veg or something definatly NOT breaded frozen chicken.

They are now part of your household and even though they are employees you have also said that this is to be their home while they are with you. Pasta and veg is not an extravgent expectation to have avalible in your home. and at the end of the day you want them happy in your employment and as a result offering good care to your little ones.

i found even more discussions about aps and food, if anyone wants to read here
aupairmom.com/groceries-how-much-extra-can-your-au-pair-ask-you-to-buy/2009/07/03/celiaharquail/

You can't make a grown woman eat the things you want her to eat.

I personally would be really disappointed with a cheese and tomato sandwich for my lunch every day, and would be appalled at being expected to eat oven chips, pizza and 'best quality' breaded chickenshit at what someone insists is my only hot meal of the day.

I don't think youi need to examine her eating habits, you need to examine yours.

I also think it is unreasonable not to be able to offer some things that your au pair enjoys eating - especially if she is making them herself. Most of our au pairs have been adept at making a huge saucepan of vegetable soup with rice/noodles and veg that lasts them a few days.. It costs almost next to nothing and they sometimes wave round an old chicken leg from Sunday lunch in it a few times to make it tastier.!

All the au pairs we've had from central Europe have all wanted bigger breakfasts and lunches, and not been into big dinners we tend to have in the early evening. They seem horrified that we fill up at that time of night without the time to then burn off the calories..

If it was your daughter going away to stay with people in another country, what would you want them to offer her.. I usually try to think along those lines..

There is absolutely no way I would ever eat oven ready chips and chicken, etc. And I do work and usually don't get home until 6.30 pm or 7.

to be honest, i can't see how wanting to eat VEG for lunch is a terribly fussy thing

i really want to know what country this AP is from but she must think that Britain is VERY odd - i do think we should make some compromises, afterall when i go abroad i only eat the aspects of their food that i can stomach (e.g. i can't stand rye bread, i can't eat curry for breakfast (india) or fish soup (japan) and couldn't eat them for a year)

Aldi do brilliant pasta, pasta sauces and veg, seriously. Well up there with the standard of Waitrose but half the price. I would do a big stock up shop there and let her get on with it.

I would also not enjoy eating chips and chicken nuggets. I also hate sandwiches and have a hot lunch at work with a bit of salad and another hot meal in the evening, otherwise I whack the weight on and I am starving hungry the whole time. I think pasta's a pretty reasonably lunchtime meal, tbh.

With £2.50 you buy a huge bag of organic frozen broccoli and a bag of organic frozen spinach (frozen veg is actually good)This is plenty to last 2-3 weeks to add to pasta or rice. Plus some carrots or culiflower, or tomatoes and salad leaves here and there. Can come to maximum £5 per week! Considering that you pay an AP very little on the basis that you provide bed and food this makes you very unreasonable. Some of us pay £50 for one evening babysitting (plus snacks or pizza). Work it out.

It is pasta she asked for, not caviar

I also think it´s unreasonable to expect her to eat just bread for lunch and junk in the evening.

Almost all other countries (even poor ones!) do a hot lunch (doesn´t have to be fancy, can be cabbage soup, or pasta with veg).

I don´t understand that you think veg is expensive. You can surely afford a few potatoes, carrots, cabbage, leek? Seasonal stuff?? Doesn´t have to be organic avocados and asparagus!!

I think YABU.

She should accept eating seasonal veg though.

Poor AP, she must be horrified at British eating habbits....

btw I wouldn't eat chips and chicken nuggets either. We make very varied and good quality home-cooked food, which I think should be acceptable. But I think it's v.unreasonable to expect someone to eat processed food and leave the veg.

Caterpillar, that's horrible! Reminds me of the Filippino housekeeper I knew in Hong Kong who worked for friends of mine. She packed up food after dinner and sneaked it around to her friend working for another family in the building, who was only allowed to eat leftovers, and so had nothing to eat if there weren't any. She was literally starving. Shocking.

If I was an AP and thought I was going to live with a 'healthy eating' family, but was begrudged veg and pasta, and left chips and chicken nuggets to eat, I'd go home - I think you're being really unreasonable.

@ Catepillarr

does she have gruel for dinner too?

We do expect our Au Pair to adapt to what we eat to a certain extent but I am more than happy to get her the food she likes including things that only she will eat, and my justification for this is that DH and DCs don't eat fish or drink coffee but that wouldn't stop me buying it for myself.

on of the aupair i know was told yesterday, that basically what she is allowed for lunch is bread and butter! hope she'll realize that this is not acceptable and either makes the family to accept that or leave!

I tend to buy my aupair what she likes within reason. The aupairs I have had have only asked for a few extra things which I am happy to accommodate.

I really don't think pasta and veg is an unreasonable request for lunch - she could be insisting on eating expensive meat and organic fruit and veg every day.

What I do find is that my current AP is used to having a very large hot meal both at lunchtime and dinner too, which I think is a cultural thing. My au pair eats lots of food, and very unhealthily too, but that is her choice and I wouldn't like to tell her what she can and can't eat, and how much of something she is allowed to eat.

To manage my budget I buy cheaper alternatives where possible, write up a clear menu plan so she doesn't end up eating what I have already earmarked, and I don't replenish non-essientials during the week if they run out- such as biscuits, crisps etc. I also find bulk buying food from places like makro and costco helps too.

I think you are faced with 2 choices here - either you can tell her what she can have for lunch and risk upsetting her, or buy cheaper pasta and veg instead of the organic variety for her - which I think would be a compromise on both parts.

i always intended for aupair to feel like one of the family. She is an adult - we do not dictate what she should eat or when. My dh and i both work long hours so rarely eat an evening meal during the week (if we do its often 8.30 which is too late for her to eat.....tbh its late i accept that). Mostly we try to eat lunchtime at work. If we do cook of an evening we cook enough for her to have for lunch next day. (and us!)
At weekends we cook family meals which she shares.
I buy what she likes - not what i think she should eat. cereal, bread, cheese, salad, fruit, vegetables some fish. If there is something in particular she wants she writes on the board and i get it at next shop. (this week was kiwi fruit)i know she likes choc so i sometimes buy luxury choc deserts as a treat. so its a few extra pennies here and there. she is happy. i am happy and most importantly my ds is happy spending time with her before we get home from work.
i have shown her how to put on heating during day if she gets cold. however the house is not generally cold and her room is in the loft and therefore warmer anyway. she is sensible girl and is happy to just put thicker jumper on rather than heat whole house up when its just her there.

'Still tend to think on principle that staying in someone else's house, you accept what's on offer, unless, say, you have an allergy, and that it's for the ap to adapt to the family, not the other way round!'

... if you are staying, yes. but she is living there so def. should be able to choose her own cereal! what 'special' food is she demanding? from what you've written in your posts i feel you are beeing a bit unreasonable imho.

i know i am lucky, but my family buys me basically everything i like to eat, some of which they dont eat at all. i get my own pots of soups, own yoghurts, own vegetables /carrots, lettuce, frozen sweetcorn/, special type of bread, different cereals if i want them and even raisins/nuts and an occasional bar of chocolate. we eat different stuff for lunch /unless db likes what i had cooked for myself/ and then tea together, usually prepared by the family.

is she your first ap? and is it her first ap job? i think your situation could be a typical example of different expectations and different /eating/ habits on both sides.
is the only problem she eats pasta and not sandwiches for lunch? lots of people, including british, consider that as reasonable lunch. btw where is she from? probably from a country where a hot lunch is a norm /adn perhaps a hot evening meal as well/. it is then very difficult to feed your body just cold sandwiches for lunch on daily basis. lots of foreigners also find british bread not very tasty /if not hardly edible/ and also not very filling. its bad enough trying to adapt to everything else in a strange country but if you cant eat properly because you feel the family doesnt let you it makes your life thouroughly miserable. i hav enoticed, too, that often british people eat smaller portions then people from other countries.
so while i realize the whole ap thing is about learning and experiencing the life in the uk, i feel there needs to be some space not to make it uncomfortable /for both ap and the hostfamily/.
she might not at all realize, unless you specifically told her, that bread and cheese are for lunch and not breakfast and pasta are for dinner in your house. also , if you told her you eat healthily in your household /which i think you said you have/ it probably didnt occure to her that this could include things like chips or chicken in breadcrumbs or ready made meals.
if you think you need to address it with her i would suggest you sit her down, explain what people in your family eat for breakfast/lucnch/dinner and that you have a budget for food. explain what is considered as a treat or what is for children only. ask her what typical meals would be consisting of in her country. then perhaps ask her how far does she think she can adapt and you can work out what you are able to afford to buy to keep her happy foodwise.

in a lot of countries the bread, cheese, yoghurt and fruit you leave for lunch time would be seen as breakfast items. and most would boak at the oven ready teas you're leaving. it's quite a culture shock. so you either tell them to get used to your way. or you pay up to make things their way. or, you compromise.

Our au pair is into healthy eating, but she also knows we shop on a very tight budget; so we compromise. I buy her a few items for her own consumption per week that we don't tend to buy for ourselves (i.e. lactose-free milk, plain yoghurt, fresh fish, muesli), and then she eats our food, but adjusts it to suit her.

It really is about give and take, and good communication - which isn't a problem if both parties are reasonable.

I had a dippy AP who decided just to subsist on veg, and her energy levels dropped something rotten, and I found her asleep on duty mid afternoon a few times when she was supposed to be looking after the children. I actually told her family about this as I started to get worried about her health (they were quite nice and sensible). But I was glad to see the back of her in the end.

WRT heating, I always make climate change arguments about this as this hits home a lot harder with that age group.

Off topic, but it's my fault it's being discussed, the heating thing - we also have a big house which is expensive to heat - last au pair would put the heating on all day (and all night on a couple of horrendous 'oh my god I'm being baked in my sleep' occasions) at 25+ degrees (at one point we used £125 of oil in one week). Fast forward a year, same big, potentially cold house - current au pair (altogether lovely and considerate) uses the plug-in heater we've provided for her room (which old au pair would also have blasting away) and on very cold days she boosts the heating so the rest of the house is warm when the kids get in from school. Kitchen is always warm - has an aga so there is always one warm room anyway.
Its the difference in the au pair's attitude - from 'they can afford it and I want to be hot in every room all day long' to 'it's sensible to heat the room I'm in rather than the whole house' that makes the difference.
Back to the food issues - good luck to the OP

The heating is a hard one though. I don't have it on in the day because we have a big house and it's horribly expensive, but it can be as low as 12o inside, and I'd have a job telling someone else living in my house they had to put up with it. If I'm freezing I'd light the fire, but I def wouldn't trust any of the aps we've ever had with a fire - they were all so much more ditsy than I was at 20. They make me feel quite old fogey in-my-day ish actually.

Re the food thing, I have always been quite strict regarding no separate food, except buying the odd snack thing that they wanted. One ap instructed me that I had to supply her with 2l of Evian water everyday. I just said that the tap water was fine for her just like every one else in the family and she didn't ask again.

I feel for you, millarkie.

I too would nip any attitude of entitlement to free spending of host family's money in the bud. How cheeky to comment on your 'low' supermarket bill, as if money grew on trees. My current aupair also has the heating on throughout the day. When I come home from work, the house is boiling hot. I am biting my tongue and hoping for warmer weather soon.

I'm one of the posters who has had a thread in the past about an au pair with expensive dietary needs. A bit similar to you in that she said that she ate 'everything except offal' but in reality was on an extreme 'healthy eating' diet with no carbs, so ate fruit, veg and soup made from organic stock powder. We eat vegetarian and are far from unhealthy (no processed foods except soya sausages because my ds is a fussy thing and won't eat them). She would eat part of our evening meal (without the carb) but with extra salad. Our deal with the au pairs is in our 'handbook' and says that they can help themselves to food and that we will buy foods that are requested so I found it difficult to say 'eat some pasta/rice/bread and fill yourself up!'
Our food bill doubled when she was here!
The eating of fruit/veg is, I think, particularly annoying because you need to keep buying them (if they ate all the biscuits you could stop buying them, or just 1 pack a week, if they eat all the salad you have to replace it...and then they eat it before you get home anyway).
Our au pair was definitely thinking that we were 'rich' and therefore it wasn't a problem. And (the week before she left) even made comments on how our supermarket bill was so low compared to other host families (I pointed out that we don't buy Meat or alcohol and that she had only thought about the big weekly shop and not all the top-ups during the week which almost doubled the amount).
I kept her for the full time she was meant to stay, but having had lovely au pairs both before and after her, I think I should have just got rid of her sooner. A knock-on effect of her not eating properly was that she was continually cold and had the heating on max all day - cost us a fortune in oil as well. And at one point I found her literally taking the veg from my dc for her own plate and leaving them with noodles and a couple of beansprouts each (whilst she had a plate of stir fry veg).
Hope yours is not as bad as that!
I would go for talking to her first - and cheaper pasta (there are worse things for them to eat), and maybe pointing out what is for dinner (do you menu-plan so it's easy to see what can't be touched?), but if there is no change then learn from my mistake and start looking for someone else before you spend every evening rushing to the shops to get veg.