Help please! Recipes for picky kids to get their 5/7 portions a day

[WoolyMammoth55]

Hi all,

My DS is 4 years old and got teased this week at school for being chubby :(

I'm trying to be honest about what I'm doing wrong (don't have a great relationship with food myself) and one basic thing I realise is that he often turns his nose up at veggies and I often let it slide for a quiet life.

SO I'm really making a conscious effort now to get them into him, and would really appreciate any recipes that work for your kids?

He doesn't have many sugary snacks or drinks, so I don't think it's about removing things from his diet, just about adding in more healthy choices.

I make him packed lunches for school with a sandwich (usually Philadelphia cheese or humous), a Nakd bar, some fruit, a small box of cucumber or mini tomatoes and either a pot of plain yoghurt with honey stirred in, or a small portion of plain nuts. He usually makes a reasonable go of eating his lunch.

If I can get him into eating fruit for breakfast, instead of bread which is his current choice, that will be better. But I'm really stumped for dinner ideas.

Currently:

• He will eat unlimited bananas and berries.
• He will eat apples if chopped up, and sometimes a satsuma if I peel it.
• He likes avocado and tomato and cucumbers, so once a week I chop those up and make him "sushi" with a little rice and the veggies wrapped up in seaweed sheets.
• He loves pasta and cheese with broccoli - that is currently his dinner at least 4 nights a week...
• He refuses cooked carrots, peas, sweetcorn, courgettes, peppers, cabbage, brussels, potatoes, mushrooms.
• He also dislikes the texture of meat and also gets sad about the animals (we aren't vegetarian but he has friends who are who have talked to him about this!) So I struggle to get him to eat any meat dishes, e.g. he spits out pasta if it has a bolognese sauce.
• He will eat fish fingers but no other fish so far.
• I've had no luck with getting him to eat chickpeas or lentils in food.

Can anyone share anything that has worked for them? I have tried google but honestly there are very few "healthy recipes for kids" that I'm seeing that even sound palatable to me - let alone my "I-just-want-plain-pasta" boy...

Thanks in advance :)

If he’s not keen on cooked veg can you push raw veg more. I see you do cucumber sticks for school, will he eat raw carrots, peppers celery. Maybe if served with a dip, hummus and guacamole sound possibilities but also look at things like salsa or purée roasted peppers and carrots with cream cheese and serve as dip.

Could you sneak some veg in his sandwich? Hummus and grated carrot or finely diced peppers.
If pasta, cheese and broccoli is a hit have you tried cauliflower and broccoli cheese?
Could you try homemade fishcakes? You can stir through some veg with the potato, sweetcorn or peas work well. Or use sweet potato to add a portion of veg.
If it’s the meat he dislikes in a bolognaise can you instead serve a tomato and veg based sauce? You can add what ever veg you like and blitz it smooth if necessary.
It sounds daft but I’ve had success with skewers. Literally peppers, tomato, courgette on a skewer with chicken/prawns/haloumi. For some reason the stick makes a difference!
Also breaded cauliflower. Literally blanched cauliflower florets, dipped in flour, egg, breadcrumbs with Parmesan and baked.
Corn on the cob.

Other than the cheesy pasta and broccoli what other meals will he eat.

Does he eat beans?

Mine turns her nose up at canned baked beans, but will devour almost any bean in a stew or casserole especially if there's a bit of meat, sausage or chorizo, and some rice to go with it. She'd eat this twice a day if she could.

I sneak peeled courgette into my tomato and cheese sauces - cook it with the sauce and then blend, it is completely undetectable. Makes both slightly healthier.

Give your DS a recipe book and together stick post it notes on the pages of the things he’d like to try. Then, when you make something that he’s expressed an interest in, show him the book to remind her that he chose it. I did the choosing from the recipe book thing with my Dc and they chose stuff like tuna burgers, sweetcorn fritters, enchiladas etc...
Also take him shopping and let him choose out the fruit and veg. One success I've had is with broccoli. My son wouldn't touch it with a barge pole until I got him to pick the one he wanted at the supermarket. Then we came home and he washed it and broke it into pieces and popped it into a saucepan.
Use exciting names for foods and ham up the name ...
Playing with food doesn't have to be a bad thing. We used to pretend we're dinosaurs eating trees when we eat broccoli – adds a bit of fun to the meal!
My children eat things that they wouldn’t normally eat if it’s on a skewer! We also had a cheese fondue at New Year and they were dipping things that they’d normally turn their nose up at.
We've explained about vitamins and minerals and how they help your body grow and stay healthy. My DD will now eat mushrooms because she is desperate to be a big girl. And DS will flex his muscles when he's eaten a lot of veg!
Even if he doesn’t accept the food the first time you serve it for dinner, he might the next time. Apparently it can take up to 10-15 tastes of a new food before your child gets used to it, so it’s worth persevering to widen the range of things he will happily eat.
Offer condiments. Sometimes, all my DC needed to eat a certain food was a little bit of dressing or for example, sweet potatoes with some ketchup. Don’t limit the use of condiments; eventually, he might opt for the items without them.
If you know another child who’s an adventurous eater, invite them round for tea – watching them eat different food might just encourage your ds to join in.