DC won't eat food that is 'mixed up'

[blackandwhiteandredallover]

...and it's driving me mad!

I am a veggie, though DH and the kids are not. My favourite types of meals, to cook and to eat are things like veggie chili, lentil shepherds pie, stir fries, pasta, risotto etc. When the kids were younger they would eat all of these quite happily.

Now, however, DD1 (age 5) has gradually started rejecting all of these and 3yo DD2 has followed suit!

So now their evening meals are usually one of the following:

some kind of meat (fishfingers/sausages/chicken/pork), with some kind of potato (mash/roasties/waffles) and either broccoli, peas or carrots.
Macaroni cheese with veg on the side
Spag bol (as long as I have blended the sauce so there are no bits)
Home made quiche (only cheese and ham)
Boiled or scrambled egg
jacket potato with beans and cheese or houmous
Soup (only if it's blended)

They do eat fruit and I think their diet is more or less ok, but it's just so boring, and I don't like to cook separate meals so I end up jist cooking what I know they will eat and having the same.

Any ideas of other meals I can cook that might encourage them to try something new?

I think you should go back to the original dishes rather than offering a choice. Some bread and butter on the table, everyone sit together, some fruit for dessert etc. Don't force them to eat the food or even mention the food. Just chat happily amongst yourselves and make it clear there's nothing else available. They won't starve

Thanks for the reply- I have tried that before but tbh it always ends in a nightmare, and I don't like mealtimes being a battlefield. Maybe if I could manage to keep calm and ignore the whining...

I don't like my food mixed up either. >

Is it a "presentation" problem or is it the actual food they don't like?

I have to have mine separate, ifs its runny like spaghetti it can't touch either

unless they have a medical condition or mental illness, this is powerplay via food

i assure you if you stop pandering to this madness, bin the food until next meal, they will eat it.

My son won't eat mixed up food. He won't have soup and most of that stuff on your yes list.

I have always served a wide variety of meals, got advice off HV etc. He just doesn't eat anything if he feels he doesn't like it. Fruit and crackers are on offer but sometimes he doesn't even want them.

He is thin. He has very strong likes and dislikes but has always been like this, it's not a new thing.

I feel your pain. My DD is 12 and she went through this at a similar age. She totally went off anything mixed together and suddenly developed a massive list of things she didn't like, that she'd happily have eaten before. TBH she is still a fussy sod. She has a healthy and varied diet, as long as she recognises it, but she is still now really reluctant to try new things.

I know all the great advice about just taking it away and not making a fuss, but my DD had the worst hunger moods you can imagine when she was younger. Leaving her hungry was just not an option for anyone.

I have gradually introduced new meals and flavours over the years, so we now have a wide enough range of foods that she'll eat, that I also enjoy. It's not a problem at home, and she has a healthy balanced diet, but it's still really embarrassing when we go to anyone's house.

Some dishes I used to do for her were:

Paella / risotto - easy to add extra bits in after cooking eg meat for them / peppers & mushrooms for you

Fajitas - a few bowls of different bits eg meat or fish / salad / cheese / salsa / yoghurt - they can just build them up with whatever they want. DD would often just have chicken and cucumber in hers, but it covered most of the food groups!

Pasta & pesto with veg / beans - rather than mix it all together in the pan, theirs can be arranged in nice, inoffensive heaps, and yours and DH's can be mixed up with pesto in the bowl!

She did eventually grow out of the mixed together thing, and she will now tolerate most things (except tomatoes, or burnt cheese, or peppers, or anything mint flavour etc etc)

Thanks for the advice- it's definitely the presentation that's the problem, they both like peas for example but wouldn't eat macaroni cheese with peas mixed in, so I have to put veg on the side.

Recently they have both taken a liking to pork so I'm thinking of maybe trying a pork stir fry. I guess I could even present it with separate pork, noodles
and stir fried veg, it would just be a pain to cook!

Fajitas is a really good idea, I hadn't thought of that! Easy for me to do a veggie version too, yum

And I know the advice about just putting it in front of them, but I just don't want to make mealtimes awful and put them off certain foods forever. And it's not like they don't eat anything- they just don't like anything that I like! If they lived at MIL's they would be in jeaven- meat and 2 veg every night

blackandwhite when I was growing up (different country) we have dishes in the middle and everyone helped themselves. My siblings always get things onto their plates and mixed them up. I always take a couple of things, kept them separate on my plate, finished them before taking more. Don't see that it's such a bad thing! Now that I'm all grown up and more in charge I cook meals that I like. But if someone plonks a plate of messy food in front of me I don't go in a tantrum. I eat it and say thank you nicely. I think just don't make a big deal and go with it without making too much trouble for yourself!

I have 2DDs and 3SDDs and we live like Uptoapoint: everything goes into the middle of the table and each person takes what they want. Some mixed, some simply served.
As long as no-one is hungry and no-one complains that 'so and so ate all of the whatever' then I think it's fine.
My DP and all his daughters don't eat tinned fish. I and my DDs do. We had an 'Enid Blyton Tea' with sardine sandwiches, honey sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, ginger beer etc. The sardine sandwiches disappeared before anything else because DP and the SDs just forgot they ddin't like them. If I'd plated them up a portion each they'd never have eaten them....

Hmm thanks, maybe all in the middle is the way forward!

Yes to putting things in the middle of the table.

Also though ignoring the complaining doesn't mean battles. You force yourself to stop caring so there are no battles.
DS2 started being really fussy and I just left him to it. No coaxing, no 'one more bite', no aeroplanes, no 'try it' just helped him serve up and when everyone else had finished if he wasn't eating it took it away.
If he whined or played with it or started fussing it was taken away and it was bath time.
If I was doing pudding he go some if I wasn't that was it. Some days he barely ate anything but fruit. He had terrible tantrums too but I knew pandering to him would just make things worse.
It has taken almost a year and he did get thin but he has gradually started eating almost everything again.
I was doing 4 meals a week I could guarantee he would eat and three other meals now I am doing three favourites and four other meals.