I know IABU I feed my DC rubbish but feel too overwhelmed to change things :(

[toomuchjunk]

I have 4 DC and DH in the army away a lot. Me and 4 DC eat rubbish I know we do and I want to change. I have all the cook books, but feel to overwhelmed by all the ingredients etc. Also meal planning for 3 meals plus snacks and deserts takes me hours and I get stressed. DC are used to having sugary deserts like angel delight, jelly, ice cream and I don't know how they would react to plain yogurt or fruit. I cook a roast on Sunday with leftovers on monday but the rest of the week is frozen pizza, fish fingers, baked beans, breaded chicken fillets etc. Lunch is cheese sandwiches, I just cannot come up with other fillings the kids will eat. Each week I plan to buy healthy food but get overwhelmed with all the ingredients I will need to buy. Plus I have no idea how I will get the DC (age one, three, five and six) to change. There is no way they would eat porridge for breakfast, they all like chocolate spread on toast :( they guzzle sugar free squash and will not drink water. I feel so depressed, I had such good intentions when I only had one child, now I have four and I have lost my way and cannot see a way forward :(

HalfEaten a boiled egg or a handful of nuts isn't a "meal" for a growing child!

Plinth, your parents were champions of the cunning dinner. That sounds excellent.

Everything you're giving them that's processed and frozen is easy to substitute with homemade.
My oh used to make the DDs his 'chicken yumbos' (!). Cut chicken breasts into bite sized pieces, roll in egg then fresh breadcrumbs, onto an baking tray and into the oven for 15-20 mins along with fresh cut potatoes into chips, tossed in a little olive oil. Serve with veg. You can do the same with strips of fresh fish.
Start there and introduce new things weekly, as others have said. You'll get there, but life must be pretty full on with four little ones, I'm not surprised you're feeling a bit overwhelmed!

Yes, its ONE meal. You can balance it with the rest of the food eaten throughout the day.

The first and most important thing to do is to start cutting out all the sugar. Healthy fat is fine - sugar is not.

There is no need for dessert. And don't kid yourself that fruit yoghurts are any better - they are not. Most flavoured yoghurts contain as much sugar as ice cream.

A picnic dinner is an excellent idea, thank you. I think the kids would really like that and a great way for them to try new foods too.

With the deserts, I was bought up always having a desert and I seem to have gotten my children into this habit, I just thought everyone had desert I did not realise it was seen as a treat. None of the children apart from the one year old will eat fruit :( Should I just offer fruit or yogurt after lunch and dinner even if they would pick yogurt every time?? I cannot see any of them picking fruit :( They do eat veg though, peas, sweetcorn, broccoli, peppers, anything really. They just do not seem to like fruit. I don't eat fruit though so maybe that is why :( I was never given any growing up we just never had any apart from going soft apples or going brown bananas in the house! Maybe if I start eating fruit they might follow! It is so tough with DH being away it feels like I am just a full time food provider with 4 DC. Plus breakfast is in 3 sittings as the DC all wake at different times :(

We started out like this. We used to have pizzas and chicken nuggets and chips etc. So I sat down one day with a recipe book and picked our two meals I thought I could cook. And I started to build my pantry food (like garlic ginger sauces etc) eventually I am now making 4 to 5 new meals a week and when I look in a magazine I can say oooh I like the look of that... go down the ingredients and have 90% of them.

That was the daunty bit for me as I didn't have the money for lots of different bits.

Our dinner plan this week is
Mon - African chutney chicken
Tues - homemade chicken korma wirh homemade flat breads
Wed - chinese style pork fillet with noodles

Etc and so on.

Little changes at a time. I'm also growing a herb garden now :D

Wow - a bit too many sad faces in my posts. I'm not that miserable in real life, honest!

Why would they eat fruit, if you offer desert after each meal? Obviously, the desert is sweeter. And fatter, to top. Stop offering desert. Offer fruit before meals, as it is very quickly digested and if eaten after meals sits in the gut rotting waiting for the meal to be processed - not good. Tip - when you offer fruit, cut it into bites - much easier to eat for small kids (even for grown ups) and also much more appealing when you see the juicy pieces and smell the lovely fruity smell. Mmmmmm :)

www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/meal-planning/

this ^ might help
find out what fruit they will eat, then get it a couple of times a week

I could have written your post ten years ago! I had four children aged 5 and under, DH away in the forces..and kids who just wanted chicken nuggets and chips!

They didn't die of malnutrition and they aren't still eating chicken nuggets either :):)

I gradually gained confidence in cooking basic meals (I still don't do cooking for pleasure...I'm just not interested enough!).. and had a basic bunch of reasonably healthy meals..
It used to go something like :

Sunday.. roast chicken, potatoes, carrots, parsnips (disguised as potatoes)
Monday... beans on toast
tuesday Pasta and bolognaise sauce..(bought) but threw in sime fine chopped veg
Wed ; Jacket potatoes.. choice of cheese, tuna, coleslaw
Thurs; curry with rice (usually chicken) chuck in some sweetcorn, onions...
Friday.. chips!!!

It still DOES go pretty much like this.. but the roasts have become varied, and even DS1 now happily eats just about any roasted veg.. beetroots, sweet potato broccoli etc.
I batch cook a huge vat of spag bol (again..lots of veg thrown in) freeze it.

I'm never going to be pouring over a cookbook.. I just am not interested, but the children are older teenagers now and all have grown up strong, healthy, and unlike me, three of them enjoy cooking!!!

Snacks became grapes, raspberries ( shove a small grape inside a raspberry and eat.. fun for the kids to do!) and random fruit.

• we did have a 4 year long phase of DS1 eating an awful lot of pot noodles but that's normal teen stuff and I made sure he drank gallons of milk and orange juice

I'd ditch the puddings tbh.. no need.. 'if you are still hungry here's the fruit bowl' OR raw veg bowl. I don't like fruit very much..never have, but love raw carrots, cauliflower, fresh cooked beetroot etc the my lot have taken after me and are often found scrunching through a bag of salad or a ton of baby tomatoes!

it IS tough when you are alone and doing it all.. and you should not be so hard on yourself.. just make easy changes..small ones...

You are not being unreasonable. It sounds as though your kids´ diet is OK. They´re eating home-cooked food which is a great start.

Can you make a bigger roast on a Sunday and that way have sufficient leftovers for Monday and Tuesday? A roast can be a good way to get children to eat a few veg. without fussing. (Or perhaps do a mini-roast mid week?) Also you could try mashed potato instead of roast potatoes sometimes - not necessarily healthy but just for a change in their tastes. (Then perhaps mashed sweet potato or other roots/tubers in future).

In my opinion there´s nothing wrong with baked beans, fish fingers or breaded chicken fillets. Will your children eat frozen peas, or sweetcorn, with these meals?

Can you get the kids making pizzas themselves using French bread (or any bread product, really) as the base? Messy, yes, but it might increase their interest in what they´re eating and it can be a bit healthier than frozen ones as you can use less cheese and maybe even get a few finely chopped vegetables into the topping.

Bolognese sauce for pasta can be made in bulk and frozen. Also you could make a batch of chilli con carne with minced beef, finely sliced onion (and garlic and or red pepper, if you wish), baked beans and some chilli powder (dried oregano is nice in there too). Freeze and take out to defrost in the morning when you want it for dinner that night. To save even more time you can get microwaveable pouches of rice and pasta.

Do they eat eggs? Omelette or scrambled egg is a nice quick dinner made from scratch.

The thing that I would be tough on personally is the desserts as they don´t have much nutritional value. Miss out the desserts on weekdays and give a slightly larger portion of dinner instead. Perhaps have an after dinner card game instead? For the weekends if you´re making jelly you can pop in some tinned fruit - I am sure they would still eat that? Orange jelly with tinned mandarins is nice, (you could even cut the mandarin pieces in half). Otherwise squeeze 2 or 3 fresh oranges and bung the juice into the jelly instead of cold water.

I would also try some fruit in the lunchboxes such as white grapes. Cheese sandwiches in the lunchbox is fine. (Do you put in crisps or biscuits? I would say take them out and add an extra half sandwich, plus the grapes).

Good luck!

OP, if they eat plenty of veg, that is generally actually better than fruit!

I brought DS up on apple juice (outdated books - I didn't realise everyone was only offering water or milk )and weaned him off by offering 'mountain water'- chilled mineral water with ice cubes in it and a straw.

I agree - pick one simple new dish every few weeks and add it to your repertoire.

Try:

Shepherd's pie
Fish pie
Mild chlli con carne
A chicken casserole
Pork chops in homey and mustard

What about stewed fruit? I often make a big pot of stewed apples and raisins and keep it in the fridge for three or four days. If you do braeburns or similar no sugar needs to be added. Just that with cream for pudding, would they eat that? Or strawberries and cream?

I have got my 3 year old DS weaned off diluted juice by offering sparkling water. He is very excited by the bubbles.

For dessert, have you tried toasted tea cakes with butter? It's still a sweetish treat but a lot less sugar than traditional desserts.

Re fruit - everyone talks about fresh fruit but tinned is also fine, lasts longer, is cheaper and may be more appealing to them as you can put it in bowls like the desserts they are familiar with. Tinned pineapple chunks or peach slices always go down well in my experience, and saves you having the rotting fruit bowl of shame around the place.

haha everythingcounts we have the rotting fruit bowl of shame!! Each week I chuck the gone bad fruit in the bin and replace it with fresh fruit and week after week no one eats it except the baby. That is my guilty secret. I feel like I should stop buying the fruit but somehow that feels even worse!

Some great ideas on this thread, I am feeling motivated again. Thanks guys!

Yep rotting fruit bowl of shame here too.

I buy a load to give the baby the selection, but in reality he's the only one who gets force fed eats it and after a few days I can't pretend its edible any more.

Frozen veg is your friend. Broccoli florets, cauli florets, sweet corn as well as peas. Just as healthy and less waste.

Sorry if anyone's already said this but why do you fell you have to do dessert?

We never have one except very special occasions. It's not necessary and it cuts some sugar out your diet for you actually doing less work not more.

I only offer yoghurt or fruit and it's just another opportunity to get some calcium/vitamins in.

OP you are bringing up 4 dcs with your dh away so you must keep meals/cooking simple.

Some easy meals that we have here:

• Omelettes (you can put any veg in them, we like onions and psppers, or spring onions, or spinach, mushroom)

• Pasta . With frozen peas and pesto. Or spinach and cream cheese. Or ham and cheese. Somet

imes tuna.

• Chicken pieces. Just put them in a try with olive oil and onions, peppers.

• Salmon fillets. In a foil parcel. Serve with brocolli or gren beans.

• Hummus, cheese, veg,

• veggie bean burgers. With wedge potatoes and carrotsor to,atoes.

• Spinach and cheese pancakes.

Dont worry too much about fruit. Veg are more important than fruit.
You could perhaps introduce fruits with pancakes? I.e. bananas and berries.

Yeah fair enough plinth, just if the op is looking for easy ways to improve her diet perhaps cutting out might help?

Nowt wrong ?ith yoghurt or fruit though.

I have banana omelette every morning for breakfast. One egg and one banana whisked together and fried in the pan and a little honey drizzled on. Don't knock it until you try it, simple and delicious food.

I also add sultanas to to the mix as well every now and again.

Fruit is much more attractive to kids if you cut it up and put it in a glass bowl or dish as though it were a dessert.

I put natural yogurt and honey on too but yours might not go for that yet...just chop it up...apples, satsumas, grapes, bananas and put it in a dish.

Make a fruit salad or get older ones to help. Just a couple of fruits and it's delicious.