What was wrong with DD"s birthday food?

[TeapotsInJune]

My DD is two and I held a very small garden party/picnic. I am vegetarian and will not be buying meat for my daughter but I of course don't mind if other people eat meat! However, I personally won't buy it.

So for the food we had a couple of tables in the garden with egg and cheese sandwiches, salad, crisps, jelly, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and apple juice and sparkling grape juice to drink, plus iced water. I also had ice cream to go with the jelly but that wasn't out!

I then had a text from one of the women who is more the friend of a friend saying "not being funny but u obviously make ur choices but u shouldn't expect em to b made by others luv kids where dead hungry when they got in."

I am pretty cheesed off actually! That was my daughters birthday - it isn't as if I marched around snatching burgers off the children! Was the food I provided okay? I thought it was ...

!!! What a rude woman.

However, I would poss have done cheese muffions or crisps or breadsticks and cheddar cubes or some other carbs as your menu was a tad light on carbs. BUT it's a lovely menu and guests could just have topped up at home :)

My 2yo DS3 wouldn't have been able to eat the cheese sandwiches, and wouldn't have touched the egg ones, but he would have proceeded to eat his own body weight in fruit, and have been full up on it.

So on that basis alone, YANBU. There were crisps, jelly, sandwiches, fruit...surely not many DC's would eat so little of all out of what the OP served that they would go home hungry?!

I have had fussy blighters in amongst my older DC's, and DS3 has allergies - but ALL four of them would have found enough food when they were 2yo at the OP's party to be full up, albeit a different selection for each of them!

I don't see why kids should only eat bland food. FAOD I am not talking about piling their food full of salt - obviously.

Boosiehs- I didn't say kid's should eat bland food, on the contrary you should encourage them to be adventurous. However many fussy eaters fall into a category called supertasters- meaning they are much more sensitive to strong flavours than the rest of the population, because they have a higher number of papillae.

A supertaster will therefore find strong flavoured foods e.g. olives and anchovies unpleasant to eat, and so it is probably best to ensure that if you are catering, especially for young children who can be particularly fussy, you provide at least a couple of bland foods e.g. bread and butter, plain pasta, crisps, breadsticks, crackers etc.

horribly rude message whatever you chose to serve.
btw your party menu sounds lovely.

Chocaluvva I really don't think it would be wise to try to save egg or cheese sandwiches that have been sitting out on a serving plate for a couple of hours in order to eat them yourself later. Eggs really need to be refrigerated. I wouldn't touch them if they had been sitting in the garden for more than 15 minutes.

And actually, the OP's comments about nutrition and children's teeth, etc, show that nutrition was one of the things she took into consideration when planning the menu for the party, along with her perfectly reasonable preference not to serve meat products. Look back through her remarks about low sugar and dental hygiene, etc.

I am in agreement with Shiraztastic and Changeling on the subject of sugar and dental health and the point that this was a party, not an ordinary afternoon at the OP's house. Fuzzpig too on this point. A little of what children fancy does them good.

While there was theoretically nothing unsuitable for children in the spread, the nutritious food was left uneaten and as a result at least one child went home hungry.
CouthyMow -- the junk 'disappeared' to use the OP's own phrase. That indicates to me that the OP could have served up lots more of it and it would at least have been filling. Meanwhile the nutritious salads and sandwiches were left. Children vote with the act of emptying plates. And at the end of the day it was a party, not a lesson in proper nutrition.

Or maybe it really was supposed to be a lesson in proper nutrition and the rude texter felt a bit shown up, hence her text?

fgs OP said there were crisps jelly and sandwiches - maybe it is the way i was brought up but to complain about the food at a party you were invited to is the height of bad manners.

Everyone has said that Texter was rude.
Many people when they host a food event are very bothered about catering for all types of palate. Because OP was so bothered about the text I thought she might be one of those people, hence the meant-to-be-helpful suggestions.

math - My comment about being pleased to have leftovers was not so that I could eat them myself! IME leftovers = full up guests or fussy guests. Fussy guests can't realistically expect to have their foibles catered for anyway. Therefore I would consider leftovers to mean I'd provided enough food.

The OP is clearly conscientious about giving her DD good nutrition and looking after her teeth - that's why she didn't want to have them eating junk/sweets etc but I'd be surprised if she thought she'd use the afternoon party to get maximum nutrients into her DD and guests - it was one afternoon.

"I really don't think it would be wise to try to save egg or cheese sandwiches that have been sitting out on a serving plate for a couple of hours". Thanks for the lesson in food safety!! (Do you really think I don't know that wouldn't be safe? ) Anyway, the OP didn't say she'd had the food "sitting out" for two hours.

The OP asked if her food was okay. It was. If she had invited the guests round from 5-7pm they could reasonably have expected the food to be a feature of the party, as they would be there at a mealtime not that the texter would have been justified to criticise anyway. But it was in the middle of the afternoon.

It doesn't matter that "at least one child went home hungry" - it was dinnertime when said child went home presumably.

OP, what was wrong with the food? Nothing.

Not. A. Thing.

StrawberryTot, you are being ridiculous. It's not the least bit unreasonable to not put out a meat option. Non-veggies supplying a veggie option is a completely different thing.

Let's imagine for a moment that it's nothing to do with meat; think about friends A and B who decide to take it in turn to take it in turns to invite the other for dinner. A says 'I'm allergic to nuts and don't like tomatoes'. B responds 'Oh, I do like nuts and tomatoes - I eat them most days. I don't like fish though.'

So for the first dinner A goes to B's house and is served a tomato salad, followed by nut roast with tomato sauce, then a hazelnut meringue with pistachio ice cream. A can't eat anything at all and goes home hungry.

A is obviously a doormat forgiving sort of person and invites B for dinner the next week. The menu is avocado and mozzarella as a starter, followed by mushroom risotto and a then a chocolate fudge cake. B might think the starter would have been even better with a few slices of tomato, and a sprinkle of nuts would have been nice on top of the cake, but still goes home full up after a delicious dinner containing nothing B couldn't or wouldn't eat.

Was A really being unreasonable not to make a slice of nut roast in tomato sauce to go alongside the risotto? Of course not. And nor is a vegetarian who doesn't put out a bowl of sausages when entertaining non-veggies.

She is a twonk,

Your food sounds lovely, if her chid chooses to be fussy, well more fool it, not your problem,

and you know who not to invite next time.

Is this friend of a friend called Waynetta (see this video), by any chance?

Chocoluvva -- If you consider leftovers to mean you provided enough food then would the disappearance ('disappear' was the verb the OP used) of the less wholesome food mean there wasn't enough of that sort of fare?

So for the food we had a couple of tables in the garden with egg and cheese sandwiches, salad, crisps, jelly, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and apple juice and sparkling grape juice to drink, plus iced water. I also had ice cream to go with the jelly but that wasn't out!
-- Food was left out in the garden on tables with the exception of ice cream. Not good in the case of eggs.

The food was indeed ok, though I would not have touched the egg sandwiches and I think a lot of people besides me are scratching their heads about the absence of cake. I suspect there just wasn't enough of the sort of food small children tend to go for as snacks (crisps, breadsticks, carb-laden junk in general).

It's up to parents themselves to keep their children away from food they consider unhealthy or not good for teeth when they bring children to a party, or just to make sure the children brush their teeth well afterwards and eat a balanced diet at home. One occasion when they snack on junk during an afternoon out is not going to kill them or rot their teeth. Parents who wanted to could have steered their children towards the sandwiches or salads. Since there were plenty of these wholesome items left over it seems the parents were happy to let their children eat the junk and that is their right as parents.

A host should anticipate and go with the flow a bit more (and this is possible without wavering from vegetarian principles) when small children are invited. When you invite small children for an afternoon of activity and excitement in a garden you need to provide snacks for them that they are likely to eat; even though food wasn't the central feature of the party as it would be for an older group at a dinnertime party, small children need to be fueled or they end up cranky and out of sorts. A host who is being conscientious provides quantity as well as quality.

All this angst about what's been served for a children's party! Some people really do have massive issues around food. Children aren't going to faint away from hunger if they aren't being feed their own bodyweight in food!

That's not aimed at you btw Teapots, the food sounds fine to me.

And to answer the original question that woman was startlingly rude and frankly sounds a bit thick.

Fed, not feed.

Surely if your child comes home from a party hungry you just feed them?

The average party only lasts for a couple of hours. It's not really long enough to expire from starvation.

Oh poor you teapots! Everyone criticising your menu for being sugary or not starch enough and well, the cake ,woman, what were you thinking?. My littlest dd is 2 and neither of us take the opportunity of a picnic or playdate to fill up on stodge but a chance for little ones to play together. Your menu was perfectly lovely, I would have hoovered up all the egg sandwiches so do let me know your next occasion and we'll be there

Yes, imagine not having the courtesy to make sure her kiddies party menu met the exacting standards of random cake obsessed strangers on the internet. The sheer effrontery!

Suggest trip to the zoo/cinema/seaside next year. No party.

Your food sounds spot on to me OP. And the texter really rude.

I hope your daughter has had a lovely birthday. I'm sure she has.

Thankyou for the lesson in how to host a get-together in my garden for a two-year old and friends!

I will try to "anticipate and go with the flow a bit more".

Hopefully the OP will heed your advice and try to be more conscientious next time. It's great that she knows now to provide "quantity as well as quality" for the active small children in her garden between their lunchtime and their dinner. It would be awful if they ended up "cranky and out of sorts" due to lack of junk calories. I always thought a load of sugar tends to make small children cranky - very high blood sugar levels followed by massive release of insulin followed by low blood sugar levels resulting in slump/crankiness.

Perhaps you'd consider providing the OP's guests with a similar lesson in how to be ideal guests at a gathering for toddlers.

Beware of random cake obsessed strangers!

Anyone wanna see op's dd get invited to text woman's child's party and spew bright pink milk, cheese puffs, and Nutella sarnies everywhere after a crap overload? :o

She won't be moaning about actual fruit and lack of meat then!!!

I and my kids would all have been very happy with all your food and we are not veggies.

Text her back and say 'what a rude comment to make. There were plenty of sandwiches, salad and vegtables left at the end of the party. Only the junk food had all gone'

In fairness, I'm fairly cake obsessed myself (both making and eating) - it is rather lovely - but it isn't required to be served at every single social occasion involving food.