Floating sorry I went to bed
yes I did realise it was a cat but having put a fair bit of thought into my first post on the subject, when I assumed it was a child, I didn't see why the jolly jape of it being a cat should stop me from ranting on
Floating this is probably going to sound vastly smug but I don't tend to have food available that I don't want ds to eat. Thus in theory he can more or less choose what he wants, when he wants. In practice, he usually sits down with us and eats the same things as us, at meal times. This is what I strongly encourage, so you can see I am also exercising a lot of control over his eating. I don't feel comfortable letting go of the reins completely. It's convenient for me if he eats at the same time as us, plus it is a socially useful habit, and a pleasant experience for us as a family.
Sometimes however he doesn't want to eat at meal times so the meal is over as far as he is concerned. If he asked for food later I would say help yourself from your snack drawer (not the fruit bowl as he would actually prefer not to eat proper meals but to eat fruit instead). Or if it was an hour or two later I would make him a sandwich or something.
I wouldn't however personally be picking spinach out of a meal. If he didn't want to eat the spinach that is his affair but he can pick it out himself!
We are often engaged in negotiations about food, like right now he is asking for bread and jam, and I am suggesting he has bread and peanut butter instead. But although I don't let him decide entirely what he eats and when, I draw the line at making him go hungry because he wouldn't eat when I wanted him to.