"the food our children eat"

[miggy]

Am currently reading this book and it is all too horribly familiar. I can see exactly what she is saying and agree with most of her comments. My childrens poor diet is my major regret. DH and I love food and I love cooking, we will eat anything, but my children eat total rubbish only. What I would love to know is has anyone tried the techniques suggested in this book and did it work for you?

[seahorse]

Miggy - don't beat yourself up over it - They will probably grow up to be complete foodies - My children are younger but it is obviously a DNA thing - ds is a beanpole (at 3.5) and dd is a big strong lass (as you might say) at 18m - she will eat anything at the moment. Have succeeded with getting apple down ds by explaining that firemaen all eat fruit and veg to gorw tall enough to climb the ladders safely - unbeleivably he's fallen for it - apples have to be peeled though - will not touch a banana but eats olives by the bucketful! - Yorkshire puddings are a favourite of all children and dead easy to make - saying that I'd have thought that pancakes would be but ds wouldn't touch his!

We consume lots of sausages and I feel a little guilty about that but I only buy the v. best organic expensive ones - also dsicovered that they love hotpots (shepherd pies type things) home made in their own little ramekin dishes - you can hide all sorts of veg underneath the creamy mash.

[EmmaTMG]

Cheesy potato wedges

3 large baking potatoes, scrubbed.
1 egg.
75g/3oz fresh brown breadcrumbs.
50g/2oz grated Cheddar cheese.
2 tsp olive oil.

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
   Halve the potatoes lenthways, then caut each half into 4 wedges making 24 in total for each potato. Boil the wedges for 10 minutes and drain well.
   
2. Meanwhile beat an egg into a shallow dish and put the breadcrumbs and cheese into another dish together.
   
3. Dip each wedge into the beaten egg and then into the breadcrumb mixture. Make sure each wedge is completely covered with breadcrumbs and transfer to a baking sheet.
   
4. Sprinkle the olive oil over the top of the potato wedges and cook in the oven for 20-25 mintues or until they are crispy golden and cooked through.
   
   Hope they enjoy them.....they are delicious.

[Moomin]

Seahorse - re the sausages. I think the thing is with them to do what you do - buy the best you can. I don't eat meat but dh does and loves the Tesco finest pork & apple ones - a once-a-fortnight treat! Dd's a semi-veggie like me for now.

One of my classroom assistants used to work in a butcher's shop and after he told us all about that, there are very few of my Year 11s who now eat sausages from the canteen! I think there's something deeply suspect about reconstituted meat. It's like the old jokes about what rissoles are made of: earholes, eyeholes and a**eholes!!! Sorry!

[bayleaf]

Yes I agree corbin - dd loves pasta bolognaise and I add carrots, courgettes, mushrooms to it and then blast the sauce in the liquidiser - you really honestly wouldn't have any idea that there was any veg in there other than tomatoes.

[Chinchilla]

I grate carrot into shepherd's pie, as I hate carrots, and even I can't notice them in there!

[Clarinet60]

I agree with www about the nuggets, miggy. I don't buy them so he can't have them. I've made my own sometimes, annabel karmel has some nice recipes for things like that.

[megg]

I have the same problem but how long do you let them starve themselves for before you give in? My ds hates anything the so-called experts say he supposed to like, peas, grapes, mashed potatoes, sweetcorn. A major breakthrough on Friday I got a kid's ready meal from M&S - sausages, gravy and swede mash and he ate it. Unfortunately I can't afford to shop at M&S for ready meals all the time. I can sometimes get away with mushing up food in a tomato-based pasta sauce as ds will eat pasta until it comes out of his ears. On the plus point my dp refused to eat fruit and veg for years and lived on egg and chips as a kid now my fruit and veg bill is sky high as he eats everything raw out of the fridge so there is hope. Dp's mam even took him to the doctors because she was so worried but he's done a complete u-turn now. What disappoints me is that I did everything right when I was weaning him, I used Annabel Karmel and fed him proper fruit and veg and now look where I am with a faddy eater. When I was a child I had to eat everything that was put in front of me and sat with cold liver for four hours (I still had to eat it) but at 3 I think ds is a little young to force that regime on him despite what my dad thinks.

[clucks]

I suspect I may have put DS off food by overdoing the healthy weaning thing. He had pureed, lovingly prepared veg/organic meat twice a day, fresh grilled mackerel (probably loaded with mercury) de-boned by yours truly once a week. Nothing tinned, frozen or re-heated. He hit 10 months and refused everything.

We are still on the white rice thing and I still don't buy junk. He hates nuggets anyway. I sometimes wonder if he had had a few gorgeous mars bars and chips when younger things may have been different now.

[zebra]

Megg; couldn't you make mashed swede yourself at home?

I have often heard that most kids will like almost anything if drowned in butter. Options of mayo, melted cheese and curry sauce in our house, too.

My kids can live on cereal and milk all day, and that's ok, because milk is pretty nutritionally complete and cereal is unsweetened & iron-fortified. We only put our foot down about teatime: then it's eat what the rest of the family is eating or starve until breakfast. When they're older I'll explain they don't have to eat "everything on their plate" -- just a decent sample size of most of the contents. Most evenings both kids have some veg as a result. My 3yo is quite keen on cauliflower at the moment, funny enough.

[megg]

You don't think I haven't tried? He looks at any food made by me as if I'm trying to poison him (funny so does his Dad lol usually because I'm trying to make him eat lentils or chickpeas). I make my own meatballs as well but he prefers the gopping ones out of a can. He will eat my tomato pasta sauces so all is not lost. I just think its genetics. Dp didn't eat fruit and veg for years, his cousins are the same so I'll just have to keep trying and ride it out. I get him to help me in the kitchen but he's still not interested in eating what we've made.

[florenceuk]

Personally I think Blythman, Karmel et al are just lucky not to have had children who were truly faddy eaters. I can see it in my DS who had strong likes and dislikes from the start of weaning. No chance of feeding DS a jar - he just rejected the lot. He's now 16 mths and hates pasta, tomato, cheese, mince - all the things most kids are meant to like! If all he ate was spag bol I would be happy as at least it is reasonably healthy and easy to do. Now he just rejects anything that looks like something he won't like. Also he is not interested in anything we eat unless he has already eaten it and knows it tastes OK. And the really faddy stage is supposed to start soon - not sure what we will be reduced to eating then! Has anybody with a really fussy eater found it got better as they got older? I think it is genetic - his dad is also fussy (different things though).

[judetheobscure]

Don't want to be negative when soemthing has worked, but ready meals are usually very high in salt. That's not to say I don't use them but not on a regular basis.