Not letting DD pick what she wants at food shopping?

[DariaK]

DD will only eat home cooked meals, veggies, etc. if she can add that bloody Nando's garlic and herb sauce. It's the mild dipping sauce, comes in a glass bottle.

I'm happy to buy one bottle per food shop but it's not lasting her, she has shit loads with one meal. I'd need to buy about 3 bottles I reckon. If we run out or don't have it, she literally won't eat the meals at all and will have toast or cereal.

AIBU to not buy it?

Was literally going to say, people buy tomato sauce, mayo, bbq etc. sure it’s not as expensive but it’s still a sauce

pick your battles Op. if this is a way of getting her to eat, do it

What does she eat at school?

If she literally won’t eat without it then there’s something going on somewhere.

Is it a recent thing?

I would buy one bottle per week. Subsequent bottles I would allow, but deduct from her "treat allowance" proportion of the weekly shop.

I can’t even see how this works, does she never eat out, at others houses etc. I’d be mixing it with water and explaining to her how expensive it is.

I’d buy it, keep any comments to a minimum, and likely she’ll grow out of it. (Obviously different if you actually can’t afford it versus just bemoaning the expense, but yy to ordering in bulk / shopping around for offers.)

I mean she obviously eats things that it just wouldn't go with like cereal toast and anything like that but if it's a meal, it has to have that on it. There's not one cooked thing she will eat without it but then she will happily have a bowl of veggies and that sauce and eat every bit...

School she takes something like crisps, cereal bars etc. anything packaged really.

Do you cook with salt, spices, seasonings, acidity, aromatics at all? If you don't, that would be why she needs to add them in through the sauce.

Well veggies are pretty boring and a lot tasteless without some kind of seasoning

Would she perhaps like more exciting flavour in her food generally?

Try making a lemon and herb couscous?

Portioning it out is a good idea?

Personally I'd pick my battles and just buy the sauce. It's £12, hardly the end of the world 🤷‍♀️

I remember a lovely paediatrician who did videos when my children were little who said any child would eat anything if it had garlic butter on it! Buy her the sauce. She'll grow out of it.

Would she add it to a curry or a spag bol?

What sort of meals do you cook?

Lidl do a copy of it for £1.49. I'd buy a few of those and decant them into the Nandos bottle.

Great shout!

I'd try buying 7 mini tupperware pots and portion it out on shopping day. If that doesn't work, maybe 14 pots (one for both lunch and dinner)? If really pushed you could get 2 bottles to spread across the 14 meals initially then slowly reduce the serving size until you get down to one bottle a week. Even as an adult it would be hard to judge a seventh/fourteenth of a bottle at each meal to see you with enough to last the week.

Sounds like my DS with ketchup. To help I never pour it on the side, I always sparingly drizzle it all over his food. Then I encourage him to eat so that every mouthful has some sauce on it. Try looking at sauce dispensers, if it’s the one I think you are talking about with the open top this might help slow her down.

£12 pw is a lot, especially with food prices always rising.

I'd say it's quite recent but also not really as it feels like it's been forever, I'd say it's the last 6 months or so.

Well I cook things like shepards pie, cottage pie, roast dinners, sausages and mash, we don't really have pasta much but she has added it to Mac and cheese.

If you're certain there's nothing like autism where there's a taste thing going on, I would be inclined to be a bit tougher to be honest. One bottle of the sauce, and if she runs out and refuses to eat anything else then only the most basic of toast or cereal.

Loads of kids hate garlic

I see many are saying to just buy more sauce, this isn’t the hill to die on. But I think I probably would go the other way and stop buying it altogether. It sounds like dd’s behaviour is quite manipulative- buy plenty of sauce or i I won’t eat. That’s just ridiculous behaviour. It’s ok to prefer a sauce, but you need to be reasonable about it. And not eating the prepared dinner because you don’t have your sauce isn’t something I would allow or encourage by buying even more sauce.

Nice one. I do this to my partner for coffee and other bits and bobs.

Buy the sauce and stop buying packaged junk food for her - explain you can’t afford to buy both. She’s 12 she shouldn’t be that unreasonable.

There's some great copy cat recipes to try on Google. No disrespect @DariaK but your recipes/dishes are very conservative/dull. Both of you try experimenting a bit. Sit with some recipes together and do a meal plan