Adult and child foods? A British thing?

[StandardRussian66]

I got bitched at yet again today by the group I meet with for lunch occasionally.
They find it very strange that my 3 year old eat “adult food”.
I have lived in 4 countries and have only ever come across this in Britain.
It is very strange?
Why would child’s only eat plain food?
My DD had calamari, for reference, incase that is odd. I am part Japanese so she is no stranger to fish.
Aibu to find it equally strange that some toddlers were still being fed mashed food?

Nice try.

Anyway, this kind of bollocks bores me.

No one is saying all British people feed their kids beige oven food every day, just that the practice of feeding children different food to adults is something that is usual in this country but not so much in others.

It's really not that hard to understand.

Twofishfingers

Well... I am one of those foriners and I do find it odd when people come on this website and start making broad statements about any nationalities. The Americans are all like this, the Italians are all like that. The British all bring their children up in this way. French kids all eat snails. It is annoying. and stupid.

Correct.

That's just not true though. In Italy, loads of children are served plain pasta with butter instead of the main meal. And you will get more and more menus in France which include a children's version, with chips, chicken goujons, omelette, etc. It is not just in the UK.

HarrietSmith

I'm sure that none of us have ever gone to another country and used our experiences to make general statements about its culture.

I very much doubt whether anyone has spent oodles of time online - whilst in that country- making oh so sincere generalisations in the topic. Lol

...on the topic

TatianaLarina

Nice try.

Anyway, this kind of bollocks bores me.

There are lots of other threads to pique your interest, I’m sure. Bye.

In France, school menus for kids are very different from the UK. The link is of school lunch menus taken from lots of different schools. Kids have 4 set courses.

cromwell-intl.com/travel/france/school-lunch-menus/

I've seen kids menus in France, but they tend to be smaller versions of what's on the adult menu rather than different food. For example, steak hache, potatoes and peas, available as both a kids and adults portion. Or moules marinere or something.

I've never in my life seen chicken goujons on a kids menu in France. Or chips served more frequently than they are on the adult menu.

I believe you completely OP.

I cross fingers that DS will carry on being as good eater when he's older as he is now!

Well, I have spent the last 8 summers in France and I have seen it very, very often.

I've never understood why restaurants/pubs etc. can't just do a half portion of most of their meals? I know there are certain dishes that this wouldn't really work for.

I prefer to google a bit further than a blogger for my facts, ta muchly crunchy.

Reminds me a bit of when Saint Jamie visited my neck of the woods and showed Italian kitchen staff turkey twizzlers. Some of you may remember it. They were horrified and the Smugmaster spoke on camera about how he was in an Italian primary school, and ALL FOOD in Italian primary schools has to be organic by law.

He was in a private nursery, and there is no such law, either for the private or the public sector. Funnily enough I never got an answer from him when I wrote and asked if he had some kind of agenda in dissing the British diet, anyone would think he was a self-appointed guru and educator of the masses.

Is it because of Jamie that we must police the lunchbox?

I don't think the OP as criticising, she just noticed a pattern and was questioning whether it was a cultural difference or just a 'my mates are weird' thing, which is pretty normal when you're getting your head around a new country. Also, I feel like it's contradictory to say "not all Brits do this" and "you're criticising British parenting" in the same breath, as the latter implies it is indeed a cultural phenomenon.

In my experience/research (read a lot around disordered eating and history of weaning practices across cultures), the understanding that children need to start off with plainer foods is a pretty universal practice BUT there are a few key things that distinguish this from Anglo-American attitudes, namely:

• what is often considered 'kids' food' here is highly processed, high fat/salt/sugar stuff like nuggets and chips. Compare this to dhal in India or Korean jjuk (rice porridge with veg) or pasta with a simple sauce and it's clear there's something else at play.

• This 'something else is directly related to companies like McDonald's who had the stated aim of creating a 'McDonald's generation' by getting kids so into fast food that they'd see it as the preferred meal choice and pass these preferences onto their kids. Research shows that this has now happened: the majority of parents across age and class boundaries in the UK have the internalized idea that what we call kids' food is more desirable than what our grandparents would have considered a 'proper' meal and it is natural for kids to prefer it. So they have a huge amount of anxiety when offering 'healthy' food as they fundamentally don't think kids will like it. Kids pick up on this and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

• Although we historically had the nursery food of the 50s it was not supposed to be tasty - 'eating it up' was a form of discipline more than anything - kids couldn't wait to move on to the 'grown up ' food which actually tasted of something.

• We undoubtedly have less of a food culture than other countries. Sharing food as a crucial aspect of a child's social education and the association of food with love and bonding has been eroded significantly in the UK for a lot of reasons, but the social aspect of eating that makes it enjoyable rather than boring or a site of anxiety has been shown to be less present in UK families than in those of other countries, who wouldn't think of eating alone or of kids eating separately.

• Other countries are moving more towards this model in some ways as the fast food phenomenon spreads around the world BUT it seems to be the stronger food culture that keeps them from adopting the separation of kids' and adults' diets entirely.

I find all this sad if fascinating and of course individual families resist it, but I think broadly that it is a cultural phenomenon. This needn't be read as a criticism, but it is a valid observation and question!

perfume The blogger is posting weekly menus from lots of different schools. Why do you think that gives a false picture?
I don't know what French kids eat at home, but it is clear that at school they are given food that is very different to the food served in UK schools.

wei

Thankyou that has been a good answer.

That's a great post wei, very insightful.

perfume the quality of french school food has been well documented, see books published recently by non-French parents including Karen Le Billion and Pamela Druckerman among others and lots of coverage in the press.

The story is remarkably consistent and reveals a very different relationship with food than here.

www.thelocal.fr/20160902/do-french-kids-get-the-best-school-lunches-in-the-world

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/why-french-children-are-happy-eaters-7712217.html

qz.com/515148/a-typical-week-of-school-lunch-for-kids-in-paris-vs-new-york/

Yes, we all read the French food is the best thing when the French children don't throw food bollocks came out.

Not sure anyway what the relevance of school meals are to children's menus. And as many MNers who live abroad have said, there is simply no blanket "x nationality do this" proof to be had from a handful of us relating our personal anecdotes.

I am not saying French food is wonderful. But my point is that schools clearly do give a much more mixed range of foods than they do in the UK.

Cost of eating out may be a factor. It’s expensive in he uk.
My ds is fussy full stop. But my dd is a lot better. She eats all sorts at home. But eating out I tend to order something I know she will like and definitely eat just because I hate to waste my money. I will give her a bit of what I ordered to to vary it up.

I should add what I mean is she will have days where she refuses stuff and days she won’t. So ordering a big plate of something relatively uncommon is a risk.

Really really interesting post from Wei - thank you for that!

I think that price has played an enormous part as well - the "junk food" culture has been encouraged by 99p (or 99c) McDonald's "meals", among other things, and, iirc, one of the problems JO had with introducing healthier meal options into schools was cost.

But yes to expectations - to some extent, anyway - I've seen this in my own family. When I go to the UK, I stay at my Dad's and my sibling brings their DC over at least once for a meal, which I cook. I've been told "My children won't eat that" - but they do, and one of them even asks for seconds. My sibling won't eat it without picking bits out - but the DC usually do, although the youngest one will sometimes copy the parent and pick bits out too. What I'm cooking isn't amazing but it does contain several veg, chopped very fine (mine don't like slimy textures so mushrooms and onions have to be minced into oblivion so they can't be seen or felt) - but apparently my DN "don't like veg".

Might look like I'm smugging over my sibling, but I'm not - just showing that parental preference can have an effect on child choices in food as well as everything else, even if they try to teach the child different.

23 pages and I'm hungry now.

This is most certainly an American thing as well.