Vegetarian fussy eater 4.5 year old food ideas?

[Veggielove84]

Hey everyone

my child is a self made vegetarian, but she has always been a fussy eater. She is thriving so much though and actually a bit overweight. She eats goats dairy mostly with some soy yogurt or goat yogurt and some regular cheese when she has pizza.

Typical dinner foods are plain rice, plain pasta, eggy bread, chips and that sort of stuff, plain as in sea salt and either butter or olive oil as the sauce.

Typical day

Breakfast- Goat milk then cereal with goat milk

snack- either fruit or crisps or a nakd bar or something , she will not eat anything I try to bake her like muffins or flapjacks but will eat my smoothies and spelt flour pancakes

Lunch- sandwich on 50/50 bread with jam or almond butter and jam or occasionally chocolate spread. nothing else on it... paired with an apple and something crunchy usually those baby organic crispy snacks and often a piece of dark chocolate

another random snack and couple times a week a cake when family come over

Dinner- rice, pasta, pizza, chips , eggy bread paired with cucumber or berries of some sort. dessert is more fruit and sometimes a coconut grape sweetened frozen yogurt she thinks is ice cream.

supper- Goat milk and a banana with buttered crackers often oatcakes to get some oats in. maybe some dried dates with this. if still hungry a soy yogurt or goat yogurt sweetened with some honey or maple syrup.

Can I have some feedback please?

Her diet is mainly stodge with added sugar and salt, she needs a lot more protein so that you can then cut out all those snacks.

Would you try cream cheese or peanut butter instead of jam/chocolate spread as a lunch time sandwich filling? If you think it is a texture problem, have you tried serving pureed vegetables? Does she eat vegetable soups?

I think you have to persevere a great deal when introducing new foods, and offer them regularly, day after day, it's a long road but worth it in the end.

even if she helps prepare food she just views it as play and wont eat any and also when we say but look what we are eating as we eat really healthy food , she just says that's for big adults and I will try it when I'm a big girl...

I will have to try things and waste food then again .. if that's the only way and I'm sure it is. I cant eat a lot of things due to health issues so I wont always be able to eat any rejected foods.

She wont eat soup no unfortunately or mashed potato or anything that would mean I can hide anything

If there's a genetic propensity to diabetes then it's vital you cut the sugar out. Coconut sugar cereal is still sugar. Her blood sugar spikes then plummets straight after breakfast so her body sends her hunger signs. Which she satisfies with more sugar! And her blood sugar spikes then crashes - more hunger. Satisfied with a jam sandwich - more sugar so her blood sugar spikes..... you get the picture.

Whole meal everything. Eggs for breakfast. Humus and carrot sticks for snack, decent protein lunch. Yes tough love. Whole meal pasta with sauce. Offer nothing else.

Do you give her a multivitamin (plus iron)?

I think it will take a lot of calm persistence to gradually expose her to new foods and for her to try them and then eat them regularly. But it's worth persisting with. In terms of waste, just give her a couple of bits of whatever the new item is so you're not wasting loads.

I have an incredibly stubborn child who eats almost no vegetables, if I were advising someone else I’d say you just make them but I know from experience it can be very very hard. I have started making my own pizza sauce and using one of those secret veg recipes, so far so good. But attempts to put the sauce on pasta have fallen flat. Even if he ate meat it wouldn’t solve the problem of the veggies.
I’d love to find sneaky ways to bring in stuff like quinoa and lentils. He was weaned on loads of veg i don’t know why he hates them now

this is so true :( Its what I fear. Its going to be hard... she is a tantrum master lol and its actually like having a mini judgemental adult haha, she is an only child as was I and I was fussy too.

That is an idea that could work, the home made pizza with the hidden veg sauce maybe ? worth a shot

Is she at school yet - peer pressure helps!

Do you not insist she tries things? Even at 12 this is the rule with us. It can be a tiny amount but it's every single time up to a point. So DD13 really doesn't like uncooked tomatoes. She's tried them 50x. Not likely to change at the moment.

Could you not get her to try one thing from your meal. And cook your meal that she eats what she can from. Don't cook her meal if you see what I mean.

no she is home-schooled so not a lot of peer pressure if any goes on as she socializes outside of the school setting

Here' the very book for you OP...

Helping Your Child With Extreme Picky Eating: a step by step guide for overcoming selective eating etc.

It's on Kindle for less than £10, money well spent I'd say.

As an aside, I wouldn't stress how healthy a food was to a four year old, I'd talk more about enjoyment, taste, colour, sharing and fun.

Plain Quorn pieces might be a good place to start. Not a strong flavour or colour, easy to pick up and I think the texture is fairly inoffensive. I don't find them very interesting on their own, but my toddlers wolf them down! I heat them up in the microwave and serve with potatoes and veg.

If she likes the flavour of eggy bread, would she try other eggy things? An omelette maybe? Add ketchup, a little bit of oregano and grated cheese and tell her it's pizza flavoured

Thank you for the book recommendation I will get that :)

I will switch my food talk to the taste and colour thing etc eat the rainbow and all that :)

good idea about the omelette she could have a little ketchup with it although she never liked to try that either lol

There is many a child who has come to love broccoli because it was called Fairy Trees!

if she's saying she will eat it when she is na big girl, pick an arbitrary day and say 'ok, now you are a big girl so you need to eat this' if you are home schooling you can do some work on the body (picture books etc)

Have you tried broccoli? It's the next step after cucumber towards things like asparagus and string beans. Cheery tomatoes can be quite sweet so she may like those. You could also try things like muslei with fairs yoghurt or bircher muslei. Plain rice in vegetable stock is great for fussy kids. Might be worth taking her to a farm to see the animals bred for slaughter-it may make her feel better about the whole eating neat thing. But goats dairy is great (mine gave a very unfortunate addiction to cows milk, I wish I had persisted with the goats milk but in laws refused to believe that cows milk was the worst dairy source and kept giving it to DC) and if she is growing well then I wouldn't worry too much.

Mine are both quite fussy but I have found the key is to take baby steps by trying one new food each day that is a variant on familiar food.

Thanks racecardriver (sorry not sure how to tag anyone ) I am a worrier :)

good idea about the fairy trees idea since we just made a fairy garden and yes I can make another healthy eating lesson up that's more about the body and stuff

What about baked beans?
I can't think of the brand name but you can get tubes of vegetarian pate in pepper and mushroom flavours, which are nice for sandwiches.
Any of the Quorn/Tesco vegetarian stuff, they do pretty much everything you could think of. I love the vegan bacon on pancakes!
You said she won't eat fish fingers, is it because she doesn't like the taste or because she doesn't want to eat fish? I think it's Tesco (that's where I buy them anyways but it might be a different brand) that do fishless fingers and they are delicious!
Try to get mushrooms, spinach, artichoke, any veg with protein, onto those pizzas!
I know it's annoying but maybe try different brands for things she doesn't like. My brother was a fussy eater as a child (vegetarian family) and he would only eat Tesco beans, and only eat mushroom soup but not mushrooms and not other soup...so you might just be in for a lot of trial and error
And, again also hard, but my niece has tantrums with everyone until she gets sweets. I don't give into her and tell her she'll just have to be hungry unless she eats something healthy first, and no tantrum for me obviously more difficult when it's your own child but if you can put your foot down a bit more about no sweets/snacks until something healthy is eaten.
I hope there was something useful in there for you and good luck!

I would take her to the biggest food shop in your area and tell her she can have all the vegetables she wants - let her choose anything, maybe you and her dad could make a point of joining in and trying something new too?

Would she be interested in seeing the same foodstuffs from a different angle? For example, a tin of chickpeas can be transformed if you bake them with a bit of salt and whatever spices you like. Or if you have chopsticks you could eat oriental-style, have a bit of fun with something different: make an omelette the Japanese way, serve some broccoli with that sesame dressing that makes green veg edible, try some Miso soup with tofu cubes... good way to increase veg and protein intake.

Good luck OP, I was a fussy child very much hooked on carbs and sugar and it's not nice! My life was transformed once I stared eating more protein.

yes I am going to need to be a bit more firm to be honest and not give in all the time thinking it will be ok as she has just gotten used to these same foods and I am going to switch her onto wholemeal bread and wholemeal pasta asap now that should be 2 easy swaps... I hope :) I am also going to attempt to get some eggs into her as of tomorrow morning

yes I am going to try that supermarket suggestion and let her pick a veg to try, saw some mini peppers she might like and I could try baby carrots ?

I want to try that chickpea idea saw it about and never got round to it :) thanks

Egg fried rice, with brown rice, might work too. It's an easy one to add vegetables to if any are accepted, or you can put some on the side.

yeah fried rice might be an option to try as well then she doesn't seem to like the skin of frozen peas when offered and shelling them took ages lol for her to maybe eat 1