To think there is no such thing as childrens food

[Willowtree7]

I believe children do not need "childrens food" just smaller versions of... well... just food. It makes me so sad to think that children have fish fingers and chips for dinner followed by a petit filous yoghurt and washed down with squash because that's what we have been led to believe children should have.

I'm totally in favour of an ice cream on a hot day and the odd treat but not coco pops or cheerios for breakfast. It's like people recognise you shouldn't give too many sweets but beyond that don't see nutritional value in meals.

Our diet affects our learning, concentration and health. It's the most vital thing we all need to get right and yet we feed children processed rubbish that is so bland it needs sugary ketchup to give it flavour and this is considered normal.

Before anyone says it's about money and crap food is cheaper, i think A) that's a vop out for people that buy it and B) that's not the main reason people feed children poor diets. It's about lack of understanding of what food is. People that feed children wholemeal bread, humous and porridge are considered to be the unusual ones on some circles!! How did we get to this?

I think more mum's were home then so could cook something with the left overs etc certainly more people went to local schools so none if this sat in traffic for ages nonsemse.

Now people are dropped off to breakfast clubs and fed cheap cereal they then eat at school and we all know how variable the standards are there and often small.. If they don't eat their dinner they really could end up going 2 or three days at a time with out a full decent meal.

Not saying that explains everything but certainly might be a reason. Plus you can't always get much fruits and veg at your local corner shop or even a pack of chicken if your plans change last minute and you wanted to cook a meal when you got home. Garuntee you though every corner shop has a box of fish fingers...

I just feed my dc food

Sometimes they have porridge for breakfast other times it's pancakes crumpets or fruit salad with yoghurt

Sometimes they have fish fingers, few chips & peas I don't class fish fingers as child food tbh as I will very happily eat them myself. I don't know why you would be sad that a child eats fish fingers

Sometimes they have ice cream but I do make it in my ice cream maker ( best gadget ever) so maybe that makes it "not" child food?

They even have pizza & chopped veg. Again pizza isn't child food to me becuase I'm well an adult and I love it!

Other nights they have salmon, broccoli, sweet potato, pesto cod or veg chilli. So the diet as a whole balances out

I've looked after friends children now and then and some children won't eat a veg stir fry or similar but they will eat beige food and a child has to eat so you feed them what they will eat and most fussy eaters do grow out of it in time.

A lot of restaurants are getting better with children's menus, my dc are only small still but most restaurants we have been to have had a few good healthy choices on offer as well as beige

I think what is sad is that parents like the the op appear to think they have the right to judge other parents for simply feeding there dc a fish finger.

Fishfingers are the food of the gods. Fishfinger butty?

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

My DD eats anything and everything. I never (and have never) cooked two meals.

Sometimes we fancy a bit of a relaxed dinner - that's ok in a balanced diet

theres definitely food I wont eat that my kids might - fish fingers, chicken nuggets, baked beans, alphabeti spaghetti. theres also food I eat that my kids wont - aubergines, moussaka, lasagna. I dont know that it is strictly a child/adult food thing though

It would be interesting to know what people are so afraid of the.

In.my day if we didnt want dinner there was no alternative we just went without.

If we went to a friend's house we had what they had and either ate or went without.

Now people rock up to school gates with sandwiches and wraps and crisps and biscuits lest they starve to death between school and the car.

If my kid turned up at someone's house saying she only ate hummus olives and organic carrots you'd call her pretentious and spoilt yet on MN even if you are told a kid eats pizza and provide said pizza you arebatill wrong for expecting the little snowflake to eat it because if it's the wrong brand if pizza it will upset her pizza experience

The amount of babies you see with wotsits and quavers and skips on their buggy trays so babies who are mainly on.milk even need snacks and they gave no idea these things even exist until you buy them so why assume that early that they need that kind of food.

I remember going to a baby group where someone told me their baby only ate potato smiles. He was a baby.

The baby aisles in supermarkets are overflowing with all sorts of nonsense.

Are people genuinely scared what they make won't be appropriate so opt for jars etc? Does increased usage if jars and ready meals mean kids are not as used to the natural variation in state and appearances of fruits and veg?

Discalimer- NOT including AN here

I generally have no patience for the fashion of blaming America for everything, but in the case of the "kids food" trend it may be warranted. I grew up in 1970s America and we very frequently had "TV dinners" and frozen chicken patties and "fish sticks" and canned vegetables. My mother was feeding 5 kids and hadn't been taught to cook as her own mother hated it and her father was a very picky, bland eater. She wasn't unusual for her time and convenience foods were therefore a godsend. I was a very picky eater growing up (and had that dread of going to friends' houses and being made to eat something I didn't like).

My DH, on the other hand, had grown up at the same time in the UK and his mother had mostly cooked fresh food with plenty of vegetables at every meal. When we got together he made it clear that's how he expected us to eat (and to his credit he made plenty such meals himself). Even before we had DCs I could see it was making me healthier and it would be a good way for them to eat too.

My repertoire has vastly expanded and my American relations marvel at how well my DCs eat. Once when I was at my mother's I was making a curry and invited my brother, his wife and daughter to eat with us and he asked incredulously "are your kids eating that?!" I said "of course" and because he knew my niece wouldn't eat it he started rummaging in my mother's freezer for her stash of "kids food". My DCs then demanded what their cousin was having. Gah!!

Hi op I agree to some points as before I had my dd I said the same. She will eat what we eat and will not cater for anything else. My dh and I will eat anything, we love exploring food, restaurants and when we travel it's all the cuisine.

HOWEVER, we have a fussy dd and she certainly did not learn that from us, I only feed her natural and clean stuff and sometimes in the kitchen having cooked 4 different meals she will not eat.

I make my own stock which I add to her food, when she has what we have I take hers out before I add any salt.. And yet food with her is hit and miss.

But she does not live on processed crap. I would rather cook 10 different things for her than feed her crap.

I never refer to it as kids food, it's just food. DD when a bit younger loved fish fingers/portions, waflles and peas/sweetcorn but we all had it so it was just a meal.
Kids' menus are usually beige with beans meals, but every once in a while what's the oroblem.
BTW, we're having fish finger wraps for lunch and for tea tonight it's slow cooked chinese chicken thighs and veggie noodles.

In.my day if we didnt want dinner there was no alternative we just went without. If we went to a friend's house we had what they had and either ate or went without.

Absolutely! And in hindsight I'm glad my mother didn't listen to my complaints about her healthy home cooked food and give me the jacket potato & 1/2 block of cheese I requested every night! really want a greasy jacket potato now

I've looked after friends children now and then and some children won't eat a veg stir fry or similar but they will eat beige food and a child has to eat so you feed them what they will eat and most fussy eaters do grow out of it in time.

I agree that it would not be good form to return a visiting child to its parents without having eaten anything, but I think if you did this with your own children on a regular basis it would only encourage them to become "beige eaters".

My DC was a beige eater for a few years due to ASD sensory issues, so god knows I can sympathise with anyone whose kid is fussy..... but the beige in question was still the carbohydrate component of the adult meal he was served - the brown rice with the stir fry, the wholegrain bread with the soup etc. It wasn't potato smiley faces etc, because those food items just don't exist in our house (except on special celebration occasions / days where DC is allowed to choose the menu). I'm not a total killjoy

Now people rock up to school gates with sandwiches and wraps and crisps and biscuits lest they starve to death between school and the car.

Snack culture infuriates me. People seem unable to leave the house for more than an hour without planning a food item.

I really want a fish finger sandwich now...

I don't class fish fingers as child food tbh as I will very happily eat them myself. I don't know why you would be sad that a child eats fish fingers

I think fish fingers are just being used as a shorthand for processed frozen crap commonly fed to kids: chips, nuggets, potato smiley faces, spaghetti hoops, things eaten with ketchup, other carb / protein things marketed at kids in the freezer section.

I would agree that a fish finger made from non processed fish is a perfectly reasonable food item if combined with a meal containing lots of veg and a healthier carb. I think its only a problem if eaten regularly with a spaghetti hoops and chips sort of meal.

Snack culture infuriates me. People seem unable to leave the house for more than an hour without planning a food item

How much does the kid not really being that hungry contribute to refusing to eat stuff at tea time. If they ate at school pick up have dinner at 5 and know they get milk/hot choc and a biscuit at 7 before bed then what incentive is there to eat anything at dinner time. At worst they wait an extra couple of hours and get some toast or a biscuit.

If they truly hadn't eaten since lunch and then played outside til tea I wonder if a child really would not eat til the waffles and baked beans came out....

I really want a fish finger sandwich now...

Not as much as I want a greasy jacket potato!! bloody steroid medication determined to make me the size of a house

I agree Giles. When mine has a 4pm snack with GPs he never wants to eat dinner.

"Nothing wrong with fish fingers at all."

Rubbish.

It's ok to feed your kids fish fingers. Most of us do at some point.

But you don't have to lie to yourself that there's "nothing wrong with them". We eat them because they are cheap, easy, and taste ... if not delicious, certainly comforting.

But they are not good for you, and they are not good for the environment. There's no need to pretend.

"The amount of babies you see with wotsits and quavers and skips on their buggy trays"

Giles there are a lot of salt-free, sugar free (basically taste of nothing) snacks that you can buy for babies. This sort of thing.

www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Ellas-Kitchen-Melty-Puffs-Tomatoes--Leeks/290739011?parentContainer=&sku=290739011&voucherCode=&dnr=y&sku=290739011&parentContainer=&voucherCode=

They can easily be mistaken for crisps, but they aren't.

I also often wonder if people mistake diluted prune juice (constipation remedy) for coke in toddler's bottles/drink cups.

fuzzy

AN aside as that's different.

None of us were tripping over collapsed kids who were starving themselves on the way to school or the shop.

So why all these kids who suddenly refuse anything but beige? Even if you needed to stick to quick and simple for busy days that doesn't explain really why the kids refuse regular food the rest of the time.

In our freezer we have all sorts of fresh fish, some meat, some frozen veg and some ice lollies. The DCs eat freshly-cooked meals most evenings and always have. I grew up eating freshly-cooked food so it's an automatic thing for me to continue (plus I love cooking, so it's an enjoyable half an hour decompressing after work).

However, both DCs have friends who visit every few weeks who'll only eat fish fingers, burgers, chicken shaped like dinosaurs, potato waffles, all that sort. My DCs bloody love it; they've spent their lives eating all sorts of 'proper' foods but would chew off your arm for anything in a Birds Eye box. I roll with it because, frankly, their diets are pretty great the rest of the time so there's little point in panicking over an alphabite.

It's about balance. It's about teaching them that there's no 'good' and 'bad' food, that nutrition and keeping your body healthy can be balanced with stuff like junk dinners and there's no need for guilt or bingeing or secret eating. I genuinely think parents who never allow their DCs any sort of junk food could be brewing all sorts of potential problems because part of being a healthy adult is regulating your intake of everything that's delicious; sure I want an 8 person trifle from M&S, but as a sensible adult I know it's going to be better for my body to eat a small portion and share it with the rest of the family. Of course I want 17 slices of toast with loads of butter when I've had a shitty day at work, but the better choice is two slices and a glass of water. If we don't give children chance to learn to regulate their own diets sometimes, we run the risk of them becoming adults who can't regulate themselves.

Well the multipack of quavers open and sticking out the shopping basket usually gives it away.

I know what organix stuff looks like

Op I couldn't agree more!

Giles - I wholeheartedly agree with your post, but of course "in our day" food wasn't so adventurous, exciting or exotic as it can be today. I don't think I had a curry before my teenage years, or homemade lasagna, spaghetti carbonara, tacos, stir fry... One of my (white British) friends even makes her own sushi on a regular basis

Granted it was a long time ago

I grew up in a village where kids were lifted over the fence for an emergency baby sit.

Kids would just come and knock for you they'd join you for tea or you'd eat at theirs.

No mobile phones and none of this meticulous planning and checking the kid eats something. You never thought to ask you simply served up an extra plate of lasagne.

No but we aren't really talking exotic are we.

I mean kids turning noses up at spaghetti bolognaise or the wrong brand of pizza or macaroni cheese. Which we all had back then too.

I wouldn't get too het up OP.

My two ate their fair share of children's food. They're now slim, healthy almost-adults who eat whatever I or DH put in front of them. We've travelled all over the world and they've tried anything and everything.

DS is also a very keen cook, currently making a marinade for some beef skirt.

Fair enough Giles

I just used to get a bit worried when I gave these to DC that people thought I was feeding them actual junk (not naice junk)