To expect my children to eat real food?

[chickpea1982]

How do I get my kids to eat real food?!

I have 3 DCs - a 7 year old, a 6 year old and a baby just a few months old. Leaving the baby aside, my kids just want to eat pizza, burgers, sausages and chips. They will eat vegetables if forced, and will voluntarily eat fruit most days, but often (mostly) turn their noses up at "home cooked meals" e.g. spaghetti bolognaise, chilli, curry, stew, shepherd's pie - nothing very exotic! They absolutely refuse to eat anything more adventurous - things like chinese food are rejected outright. . They obviously get enough to survive, and I consider myself quite fortunate when I speak to mums with kids who refuse to eat anything but cheese strings and white bread, but I know it's not good for them to eat so much processed meat, and they need more vegetables for their health. I also want them to like home cooked food. I worry that when they get older they will think that food = burgers and chips, and they won't feel the need to learn to cook or eat well.

What makes it even more maddening, is that sometimes one child will like something I make, but the other will hate it. What should I do in this situation? Should I force the reluctant child to eat the food?

Any tips on how I can encourage them to eat "real" food?

I was very sceptical about Chinese food as a child and what made me more keen was going for dinner at a friend’s house where her mom made sweet and sour chicken. It was very kid friendly- no weird unidentifiable vegetables etc, and plain white rice. Maybe
try making a simple home made version of your favourite Chinese dish and get the kids involved in preparing it. Once they’re familiar with the flavours and textures they may be more willing to try a bigger range of things.

Be a bit careful with the whole I will only make one meal and if my kids don't eat it they either go to bed hungry and/or get it again the next day.

My mum did this and it transpires I am one of those kids who won't eat when they are hungry. I have memories of being presented with the same meal for up to three days and I just didn't eat.

The strategy works in some kids but not others.

In terms of introducing them to Indian, Chinese and Mexican food, I would suggest that they are given rice and plain meat with the option of the curry or Chinese sauce on the side. Initially they could just dip their meat into the sauce and as they develop more of a taste for it, they may be prepared to have the same curry as the adults. For Mexican, have a bowl of spiced meat and a bowl of plain meat in the table with your vegetables and fajitas and they can try both?

that's hardly relevant is it, you aren't responsible for the health and development of your guests! like most parents, OP wants her children to be happy and healthy, and food is a big part of that

Just remove the burgers etc from the menu. Don’t make them any more. Stick with home cooked meals or quick but healthier things - omelettes, jacket potato and so on. I’ve never really made burgers or pizza for dinner, I acknowledge it may just be the child but DD is a great eater and eats pretty much anything including mushroom risotto, lentil soup, all the greens.

Does anyone have any tips for introducing new flavours like chinese or mexican type food, curries, or even things like lemon (not a flavour they like at the moment

Get them used to flavour in a format thats basically sweet/palatable, but also don't force too much change at once - keep it visually and texturally similar and shift it gradually.

Deconstruct! Don't offer a paella. Offer: a choice of plain, or flavoured/chorizo seasoned rice. Put on the side: prawns/chicken chunks
Different coloured peppers
Green beans

Don't try and force a curry sauce. Do something like satay chicken skewers made with peanut butter - don't have a lot of liquidy sauce as they just won't trust you on whats in it. From there move to mildly seasoned tikka style bites.

Make biscuits spiced with ginger, cinnamon, cloves etc.

Garlic bread is simple and plain looking but tasty

Make nigellas sticky sausages - kids love these as they are sweet with honey but you get a soy sauce flavour.

Make burgers at home and play around with flavouring the mince.

You need to do all this constantly as it takes weeks to go from tasting something to liking it. You can't keep doing 5/7 meals a week of fish fingers and chips and only a couple of better meals or it'll take you years.

make pasta sauce with hidden veg , blend it
same with pizza sauce

The whining will probably disappear quite quickly once they realise you have put a boundary in place and are sticking to it. (Assuming there are no underlying issues)

In terms of new foods, introduce them alongside stuff they already like. Or at least make sure there is stuff being served they will eat. They will probably need to be introduced to a new food a lot before they will eat it. That’s perfectly normal. I think about 10-20 times is what is recommended during weaning.

Have you tried slow cooked rice like biriani style? Thats a good way of adding some gentle spices, plenty of recipes online. Start with minimal spice and gradually increase. Its a great way of introducing beans and lentils to their diet too. Deliciously Ella cook books have lots of healthy unprocessed ideas for snacks and meals. I love her sweet potatoe wedges which have cinnamon, rosemary and paprika.

Things like pizza, burgers, chips, nuggets etc can all be made from proper food and pretty easily.

But some ready made pizza dough, some grated cheese and toppings

I often grill a chicken breast and put it in a brioche bun with some lettuce for a chicken burger

My dd had home made chips today which I did in the air fryer. I also do home made wedges a lot.

I find kids like things to be separate on a plate so I choose a protein, a carb and a veg rather than actual dishes if that makes sense.

How did they get offered sausages, burgers and pizza? I don't think this is very unusual nor would I class it as "junk food" exactly. It's just not particularly healthy. I would be very surprised if a child of 7 had never encountered these things. I'm just looking for advice on how to get them to eat a wider range of food.

And as for sausages, but some good quality chipolatas, serve with some mashed potato and peas. That's a perfectly decent meal.

Also picky dinners go down well on bentos style plates or muffin trays where you can put lots of different things for them to try like breadsticks and houmous, olives, falafels etc

I don't think my DD was aware of most junk food at that age. Don't offer it and they can't eat it

1. kids parties
2. childrens menus if you eat out in almost any pub ever (fish fingers... burger ..sausages, all with chips)
3. holidays where you lack the facilities to prep from scratch meals
4. state school dinners!! Ours have pizza every. Single. Week. Fish fingers every week. Things like sausages are frequent. The current crap budget for school meals means the jamie oliver approach is long gone - school meals are really poor.

Persevere! My oldest has always been a brilliant eater - think a large bowl of mussels at the pub age 2! Despite exposing younger son to food in the same way for around 3 years he would only eat plain chicken and white bread/ toast. Now he does have a couple of foods he won’t eat/ really doesn’t like, but is pretty adventurous. As my boys grew older and became serious about sport they also educated themselves on the need to fuel/ hydrate their bodies in the best way.

I would agree to offer alongside a ‘safe’ food (not processed etc just something you know they eat).
Also, keep trying and don’t give up if they refuse it one time. My DS had never eaten the homemade burgers I served and just ate the cheese, veg and bun etc. I always have just put a small piece of burger on his plate each time we have it regardless though and last month for the first time in about a year of having it he ate the burger and now loves it 😆

One meal, all eat together. No choice. That's the dinner.

If they really really don't like it then it gets taken off the menu for next time.

But eating the same as you, at the same time, role modelling eating normal food is the best way.

my kids were more difficult when they were younger, and I started to make meals a bit more fun like tacos they could choose what went on etc.

I've read somewhere that children prefer the predictability of processed food. A homemade shepherds pie is an unknown dish of different textures, even if they've had it before. Shop bought food is always the same.

Maybe try and get them to make the food they like eg homemade pizzA or homemade potato wedges and limit shop bought as much as possible.

My kids are lazy eaters and if I leave out a load of pre cut fruit and veg sticks for them they will happily graze. They've always liked raw carrot sticks, peppers etc. I try to cook 2 different veg with a meal and say they have to have at least one.

Veggie pizzas, veggie burgers, roasted veggies, garden salads (chop veggies small), plenty of ways to make meals appetizing.

Not massively helpful, but just to add that I took my homemade tablet /fudge into work as a coffee time treat. Those over 30 grabbed it like there was no tomorrow. Those under 30/20 stood there clutching their Starbuck take outs, staring at it like it was made to poison them. They clearly weren't going to try anything that didn't have a shop label on it..

My 17 yr old is the same...need a label. 🙄

I was responding to the poster who said adults who are fussy about food are very tiresome. So relevant to that post.

Of course it's different for children, but the "food world" they're growing up in is very different to that which our parents grew up in. Less scarcity of food and much more choice. Teaching them how to make good choices out of what is available to them is more important imo than insisting they eat what is put in front of them.

Surely they are occasional foods though, maybe once a week they might get one of those foods. On the other days they get given a healthy meal, you can’t force them to eat it but if you relent and give pizza/ burgers etc every time they refuse their dinner of course they don’t want to eat anything else!

turn their noses up at "home cooked meals" e.g. spaghetti bolognaise, chilli, curry, stew, shepherd's pie

These are basically all the same meal - minced meat, with various flavours. Okay the stew is probably a bit more solid, but still served in a liquid.

Offer them solid real meat: chops, fillets, steaks, chicken, etc. Very small portions if money is tight - it is the texture that matters, and they can get more protein at other meals, e.g. from breakfast eggs or peanut butter or beans on toast.
Then with the meat give a potato or other carb, and solid vegetables, with a jug of instant gravy, or cheese/white sauce, or just top with a knob of butter.
When the foods are separate on the plate, they can see what is what and are often more comfortable with that.

Does anyone have any tips for introducing new flavours like chinese or mexican type food, curries, or even things like lemon (not a flavour they like at the moment)?

Honestly - don't bother. Give them plain stand-alone foods with simple gravy.

You could make something exotic for yourself, i.e. you make two meals, a nice one for you and a plain one for them. They may eventually start to want to try some of yours.

I don't really allow them to refuse their dinners unless perhaps it is something they really cannot stand. They certainly wouldn't get burgers/pizza etc. if they refused to eat what I cooked for them! But it feels like burgers/pizza/sausages are the only "safe" options I know they will eat at the moment, which is so disheartening, especially when you've spent ages cooking something that any adult would be happy to eat.

They do eat some "real" food - things like chicken stews and roast dinners for example. And I can generally get at least one of them to eat what I cook, even if the other hates it.

Such brilliant advice from all of the posters above, thank you all. I'm definitely going to try out some new approaches with my kids, starting with taking the processed versions off the menu.