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?

Your home made meals of spaghetti bolognaise, chilli, curry, stew, shepherd's pie are all moist.
If your children's current preferred foods are dry, then start there.
Offer sausages (chicken fillets) chips and peas with some gravy or a warm tomato (pasta type) sauce for dipping. Gradually introduce different sauces and flavours on the side of foods that they are comfortable with, until they are commonplace enough that you can put a dollop of the sauce or of gravy on the plate with the other food on top and they can tolerate that. Then you can swap out the chips for mash or rice. If they can eat chicken fillets with chips and a curry sauce dip they can eat the chicken marinated before cooking, and from there it's barely a skip and jump to chicken tikka with salad and rice or naan.
Eat with them when you can, let them serve themselves and keep offering new things. If you are enthusiastic to try then they will be too.

My DD eats everything but I was the fussiest child in the world.

Fussy kids often like food that can be separated (like burgers and chips) - do homecooked food but not things that are mixed in together eg I would eat salmon/chicken/pork chops etc with separate veg such as new potatoes, broccoli, carrots but I wouldn’t eat bolognese, shepherds pie, stew etc. I do now, but that was my food hell as a fussy kid as I wanted to inspect every mouthful.

With DD with most meals she serves herself, she chooses how much of everything to have. She started off with just tastes of some things but now she has pretty much everything in quantity apart from onion and celery and leek, which isn’t bad for 4.

I eat most things now but still generally prefer things that are more separate- it drives my DH to distraction that I will eat my roast dinner in order and don’t mix up the elements! But that’s how I like it.

Pizza can be an amazing way to get children to try new foods.

The teen used to hate spinach until I put garlic spinach onto pizza, while the youngest really took to it in lasagna. Suddenly it became a new favourite.

You can do similar things with burgers (make the occasional vegetable pattie instead of a meat-based one, swap the brioche for wholemeal or simply try different types of seed) and chips.

Fakeaway nights with several food choices are also great. Little bowls of colourful anything to stuff into a taco shell, wrap or even grill raclette-style (if you have one of those) are amazing.

I also have a 3-bites policy in my house. The youngest hates mushrooms. I still occasionally cook with mushrooms and they need to eat 3 before being allowed pudding. Regular exposure does change tastebuds over time; it can take 21 times + for a child to get used to a new taste.

I only cook one meal, if they don't want it they can eat boring Weetabix. I don't pander to making different meals. We all eat at the same time, have always done this. No one eats separately.

I also only offer one meal. If they don't like it, I don't let them go hungry but they can only have bread and butter/weetabix/fruit and yoghurt..... basically something that doesn't require cooking another meal but means they won't go hungry.

Then it's perseverance and not getting into any arguments over food e.g. they eat it or they have Weetabix and which option they choose is up to them, I try and stay pretty relaxed and unbothered about it (which is admittedly difficult when you're frustrated.) However with this approach and keeping on offering them different meals DDs are now both very good eaters aged 6 and 4.

Regarding sausages, pizzas, nuggets etc I just don't buy these sorts of foods for them. If you've read about UPFs you already know they're full of rubbish and addictive. There are some non UPF "junk food" items in the supermarket that I compromise on. E.g. McCain Naked oven chips are just potatoes and oil so I do cook them sometimes, or we make our own potato wedges.

Pizza is a good one to make yourself if they like it. They're not difficult to make at home from scratch (you can make the dough just with equal parts flour and greek yoghurt.) Then they can choose their own toppings.

I try to give them some agency over mealtimes. It's my choice what to cook but it's their choice whether to eat it or not. I do also involve them in meal planning e.g. if they asked for burgers I'd make them from scratch with mince and an egg and get them involved.

I only ever made one family meal that I expected everyone to eat. I do think that the fact that we always sat down to eat at the dining table together helped, OK sometimes DH would be still at work but myself and kids always ate together talking about our day. There would be occasional things that they didn't like but generally all three ate everything and I do think that eating as a family helps with this and also encourages good table manners. I was always shocked at the way some other children behaved in restaurants, being allowed to leave the table, eating with their hands as if they had never been taught the correct way to behave.

I always recommend this book.

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/karen-le-billon/the-7-secrets-of-raising-happy-eaters/9780349404455/

You can get it on amazon as well- just this was the first link that came up.

It's really well written and sometimes I re-read it just because I enjoy it!

Not much use for y older one with autism and food issues but was absolutely brilliant for his younger brother who does not have those issues.

I was brought up eating everything so was flummoxed by a child who hated everything and would literally throw up if you presented something on the plate that he was afraid of.

I have a 4 and 6 year old who both go through fussy periods. I do an approach where will alternate a challenging meal with a favourite. The favourite is still homemade but something they are likely to eat. The challenging food is something adjacent to something they like or a liked food with additional new components (usually a vegetable)

We then put it in front of them and they get the choice to eat or not. If they don't want it we simple shrug and say ok but you aren't having anything else. They might get a piece of fruit before bed but that's it, we very rarely have outright refusals now. We don't expect the plate to be finished either only that a decent effort is made.

I also often try to give them meals with separate components so sausage, mash, peas and red cabbage with gravy with everything separate on the plate. They will sometimes not eat one component (mash usually, the weirdos love red cabbage) but eat the rest which is fine.

Also I have accidently got them into particular food by hoarding food for myself. Sometimes I buy sushi or marinated anchovies and have them to myself at the table. Naturally 'stinky fish' and salmon maki are now their favourite foods and I have to share.

I only make one meal that everyone eats.
I've spent lots of time educating the kids on why we should be eating healthy food and about vitamins and nutrients.
I haven't stopped them eating 'bad' food but I tell them they need to recognise that they're eating rubbish.

Since they have different tastes, I ask them what meals they'd like and everyone gets their favourite including mum and dad.
I avoid any genuine dislikes but they have to eat, or try to eat, what's on offer.

CBA reading all the thread but my friend’s daughter had the same problem with her son.
She was advised by a dietitian not to fight it too much but to give her DS top quality, homemade as far as possible, familiar food: chicken nuggets made with best quality chicken you can afford, coated in egg & homemade breadcrumbs, chips made with skin on, homemade burgers (see recipe below 🙂), premium sausages containing 90% meat, make your own tomato sauce and add finely grated carrots for pizza topping. Get them involved in cooking as far as you can.

Homemade burgers: use premium mince if possible, 20% fat. Tip into a bowl. Add salt. Using wet hands form into burgers. Pat or spray a little oil on both sides. Leave to set a while if poss. Heat non stick pan ( no oil) fry burgers 5 mins on one side, flip then 4 mins. Your children might enjoy forming the burgers 😀

Jamie Oliver's 7 vegetable sauce is great. Recommend highly.

Thank you! I will look this up to make for my grandchildren 🥰

Try to all eat at the same time.
It's worth it later.

Firstly they are only 6 and 7 so I'd stop worrying about trying to get them to eat spicy or funny tasting stuff.

Stick to kids menu basics such as spag bol (very plain with Dolmio smooth sauce) make the same tasting bolognese each week.

Lasagne might work.

Shepherds pie, same thing - keep it plain and don't put the veggies in it.

Curry - well, mine wouldn't eat curry at that age.
One of them still won't aged 21! I did get away with Uncle Ben's chicken curry and did him plain goujons on the side.

When we are kids food is 'forced' on us. We don't have a choice so the food has to be familiar and likeable. Your kids might have more sensitive tastebuds than you think.

Yes, me and DH had the limited palate dinners too because I wasn't make two dinners. Same dinner on same night of the week.

If you have super-sensitive eaters then they thrive on knowing what to expect each day.

I don’t have perfect eaters so I’m not giving tips from a place of great success but I find it helps to involve my children as much as possible in choosing what our meals will be. As adults we usually get to choose what we eat and it’s quite common for us not to fancy a particular dish or whatever, but we don’t seem to allow children the same discretion - they get what they’re given and they’re expected to eat it or go hungry.

For my picky 5 year old, we have introduced a central dinner plate on the table which has larger servings of our dinner food, which he then picks from and puts on his own plate. The other day he went for the new item (pork steak) and completely ignored the beloved chips! My husband and I were like 😯 but kept our cool. This method has been a major breakthrough for us.

I guess it feels like a win/win - he controls what and how much he chooses off the central plate, so he feels in control, but we have chosen what actually went onto the central plate in the first place, ie not necessarily what he would have said he wanted had we asked him before dinner. Could be worth a try?

My children have ASD, so are difficult/fussy eaters.

If I tried to force eating a meal that they didn’t like and not offer anything else it would make them even more difficult at meal times.

We’ve managed to increase the foods/meals they will eat by having them chose meals from gustos/recipe books, help to cook it, then the food goes in the middle of the table, they can plate up what they feel comfortable with.

They also know that if they try and dislike something, then they can have beans on toast/scrambled egg/porridge/soup - this takes the pressure of them feeling worried about being hungry if they don’t like something and me due to the alternatives being reasonably healthy and quick to make up

I was a very fussy eater as a child. My parents got me involved in the prep and cooking. Fish cakes were good (I wouldn’t eat shop bought ones, or fish fingers). Dad taught me how to make a cheese sauce for cauliflower. They gave me lots of freedom to experiment with salads and fruit, to make stuff for the whole family. Wholemeal bread base for pizzas and rolls for homemade soups. I still love to cook now.

@chickpea1982 For trying curry etc, I do the plain rice to begin (which they’re fine with as bland) and then only add a small amount of the curry on one side of the plate/bowl. I also start with as bland as possible and cook a healthy favourite the night after, so they know they won’t have a brand new or difficult flavour again tomorrow (ds is ND so knowing ahead of time helps). I don’t stress if they don’t eat it all and explain that flavours are something we tend to get used to, that we often have to try new flavours around 15 times (sometimes more) to begin to feel comfortable with them. If they ask, I’ll also serve the rice separately to the curry, but they have to try to have some of the curry first and not just the rice. It works for ds as he then has a ‘safer’ bland focus to return to. I started with spicy recipes where I either cut out lots of the spices included in the recipe and just had cinnamon or smoked paprika in, or where I added the tiniest bit of the recommended amount and as they got used to the flavour increased that amount.

I'd really try to eat at the same time. Even if it's early. Say 6. Then all eat the same thing.

Don't plate up for them. Let them serve themselves from central dishes. Make no comment. Find peers who eat well and invite them to dinner. Choose school dinners.