veggie, high fibre, low fat food to take to work/eat with a toddler?

[MamaChris]

I have a new diagnosis of gallstones, which means lots of high fibre, low fat food. This is fine in principal: I'm vegetarian, and this is what I used to eat before ds, but since ds nearly everything has become cheese based, and low on vegetables (he's sooo picky and we try and eat together). Also, there is no nice food for sale at lunch where I work, so I've been taking sandwiches (again, mainly cheese). I would welcome any suggestions of veggie, high fibre, low fat recipes:

• to share with a toddler (eg one recipe that can be modified at the end into two flavours - one toddler, one adult)
• to take to work (no reheating available).

Many thanks

Pasta salad - pasta with chopped fresh tomato, apple, sweetcorn etc with a little bit of low cal salad cream mixed in. dd likes it - I add a few drops of tabasco sauce to mine.

Mexican Rice salad - cold rice with kidney beans, chopped pepper, cooked mushrooms, advocado and spring onions. I then mix in a little bit of fahita seasoning. dd likes hers plain.

Pitta bread with hummous and grated carrot.

Roasted new potatoes (use that frylight stuff and sprinkle paprika on top) and mix with salad of your choice, ie grated carrot, lettuce, cucumber etc etc

Just forgot to say - just take the bits that your lo doesn't like or add cheese to his.

thanks reesie. hadn't thought of apple in pasta salad - good plan! ds eats both pasta and apple.

and pitta bread good too, he can have cheese and carrot, I can have the hummous (which he won't touch ) equally the new potatoes.

think the theme is doing a hot food that we share, and adding individual cold bits - smart - thanks

My (not very adventurous with food) toddler loves chickpea/tomato stew with quinoa- sounds unlikely but it always goes down well! I usually make it with onion, garlic, ginger, chopped peppers/courgette, and a tin each of tomatoes and chickpeas. I add some harissa paste near the end- usually after I've taken Ds's portion out as it's quite spicy. This is lovely with Greek yoghurt. You could blend the tomato sauce before adding the chickpeas so it looks a bit like baked beans!
If you have a microwave at work this heats up well the next day.

Sorry if this sounds like something that your DS wouldn't touch- I find my DS's tastes are so idiosyncratic that I just don't know what he's going to like until it's in front of him (e.g he adores olives but hates eggs!)

Another thing that goes down well is Shepherd's Pie- I make ours with lots of finely chopped root veg and lentils (usually 50:50 red/puy). I do add mince as well but back in my veggie days I made this with just the lentils and veg and it's still good. Your DS could have his mash with whole milk/butter/cheese cubes etc, your mash can be a bit plainer!

Hope some of this is helpful.

Soups with chickpeas or pulses added to them.

Vegetable and pulse stews

I suppose it's a question of finding protein that he'll eat - which pasta salad and the like obviously doesn't contain.

Would he eat a nut roast or quorn sausages?

Maybe baked potato with egg mayonnaise, or add pulses to the pasta or whatever you're having. And you could always have egg and chips using minimal oil for the egg and low fat oven chips.

Can't imagine many toddlers who'd willingly chow down on kidney beans and chick peas, though - but maybe yours will be the exception.

OLOPS our ds has (typically?) limited toddler tastes. his proteins all come from baked beans, nut butter, eggs, dairy, and (depending on which way the wind's blowing) an occasional fish finger (I'm veggie, he's not). won't touch sausages (real or quorn). he has been known to do lentils in tomato sauce.

Faintly, omdb will try tomato/veg/quinoa and other tomato based stews - once blended and decorated with cheese he may be convinced it is his favourite tomato soup.

shepherd's pie with lentils another possible. he's recently started eating chips, so perhaps with sliced potatoes & grated cheese on top instead of mash.

thanks all for the inspiration. it's hard to change diets overnight. I am cautious of giving ds too much fibre in fear of nappy consequences, but we shall see

Just make sure that altohugh you need a high fibre diet, your toddler does not and should not be eating the same high fibre diet as you.

I would try to add extra fibre to your meal while keeping your toddler's version low fibre (so adding extra puilses and grains to yours, adding bran to your food etc.

Couscous salads are lovely and don't need to be heated up so good for work.

High fibre diets are bad for young children, their systems cannot cope with all that roughage and the fibre will absorb essential nutrients and vitamins form the other food they eat too, robbing them of these from their diet. It's not just the consequences on their nappies!

thanks omdb. I knew that sometime before, but had forgotten it. I think ds is sufficiently picky to avoid most fibre apart from baked beans and fruit, but I'll make a conscious effort to divvy up the plates safely too

I have gallstones too & don't want to have the operation yet as I'm still breastfeeding my son & he's very hard work at the moment as he is not sleeping well.

So you have my sympathy and I shall watch this thread with interest as I am getting bored eating the same things all the time.

I'm back at work in a couple of months and just starting to wean DS, I'm not veggie and I also have a 3 yr old DD and DH to cater for.

I've been quite lucky as I have had no further pain despite not having stuck rigidly to a low-fat diet. I have avoided cheese and chocolate , which I ate a lot of before and am losing weight . I have had the ocassional low-fat mozarella on stuff with no ill-effects.

My DD is a good eater & as long as you don't say something is spicy she will eat it. A favourite of mine is spicy lentil soup (low fat & healthy) and potato and pea curry. Unfortunately, unless you have a good food flask these would be no good for taking to work. I've been eating fat-free yoghurts, malt loaf with low-fat spread & snack-a-jacks (the 2% flavours).

Sorry can't offer much help.