What do your children eat?

[Passthecoffee]

Basically just looking for inspiration. I've 2 DC's 10 & 9 and they just won't eat anything remotely normal or easy.

1 won't eat the likes of sandwiches, sausage rolls, scrambled eggs or any eggs for that matter, yoghurts, basically all the normal lunch stuff you'd have in the house. If she could live on chocolate brioche she would.

The other won't eat similar things including spag bol, roast dinner, any sort of dish I cook gets met with that's disgusting, I'm going to vomit, that's making me gag.

So I'm looking for some inspiration - anyone else out there with fussy eaters?

Comments such as 'let them starve' 'go to bed hungry' 'in my day. . .' Aren't helpful. Dinner times are stressful enough and they'd happily refuse dinner and just have toast instead to get out of eating it.

One will eat the likes of gravy and beans when at school but not at home because mines not the same.

I'm longing for the day I could just rustle up toasties, beans on toast, scrambled eggs for lunch and everyone would just be thankful, eat and keep quiet.

Parents of fussy eaters - what do you feed them?

Mine are fussy eaters.

They will eat different things. It’s a bit random and changes all the time.
Fish fingers, chicken nuggets, spag and meatballs, hot dogs.

did yours have reflux as babies? The paed. Suggested. They still have milk intolerance and that is putting them if eating as they get discomfort when they do. But are so used to it they don’t notice it.

Well what do they actually like? Will they eat fruit/veg or are they getting away with eating the brioche all the time?

Favourite meals here are

Macaroni cheese
Steak wraps with peppers and cheese
Sausages (though sausage sandwich is the fav)
Gammon with pineapple rings
Chicken or prawn stir-fry with noodles

Lunches that aren't sandwiches

Tomato soup and bread rolls with butter
Bagels with cream cheese
Savoury pancakes
Cheese and crackers

Mine are fussy but they'll eat a lot of stuff if that makes sense.

Tonight we're having spaghetti and meatballs. Dc1 (7) will have broccoli and raw carrots, meatballs fried in butter, spaghetti and garlic bread. None of it can touch and the vegetables must be crunchy.
Dc2 (5) will have broccoli and carrots cooked as part of a tomato sauce, meatballs fried in butter and spaghetti and cheese bread. The spaghetti and the sauce can be mixed but the meatballs must be separated.

What if they helped cook? That's how I've got my two to try stuff. They both love raw red onions.

Buttered prawns with crusty bread. Make your own pizza night. Pasta with butter and marmite. Hotdogs with salad. "Picky plates" with salmon, Cucumber, hard boiled egg whites (only egg whites) are some of my two's favourite meals.

Can they explain what's yucky about it? For dc1 it's things touching and sauces but he'll mostly eat the components.

Seconding the question of what they do actually eat?

mine are fussy too.

If you asked them to list 3 different meals that they liked what would they list?

Give them what they like on repeat.

I think the more stressed you get the less they eat. Get them involved in cooking and try to avoid buying the crap. I work with these age groups and put a small amount of new foods on the plate with something they like and ask them to try it but no pressure

With four kids, this is what I can’t be arsed to do!

successful things here are things like tacos, chicken wraps etc where everyone serves themselves as they can then just take what they want.

they will all eat spag Bol but I don’t want to do it too often as they’d go off it!

No they didn't have reflux as babies, they were a pleasure to feed back then

All different.

boy 13 health freak basically wants chicken and rice all day every day
apart from Sundays then he stuffs his face with sweets treats and a curry.

girls 22 and 16 - shit. Anything unhealthy and full or carbs. No salad veg fruit nothing. Done trying with them. Vapes and Diet Coke is there basic diet.

youngest daughter 9 - thanks be to god she eats whatever is put in front of her then another plate literally.

all within healthy bmi , active (apart from 16 year old who doesn’t do any activitity other than walking to another room to get a charger.

Sorry, I totally missed your second paragraph about picky tea etc! I meant doing different components for each kid. I used to do it but got fatigued! 🤣

What do they like? One of mine was super fussy not liking vegetables, gravy, but she did like things like fish and hollandaise sauce, curry (as long as no visible onions of course), chilli again no visible veg. I found getting them cooking helped. She now eats most things

Mine are similar ages and are fussy in different ways...it has taken me years (and I mean that) of painstaking perseverance in introducing new foods very slowly, one vegetable at a time, cut up small because one doesn't like textures and the other didn't like flavours...they still complain at times but they do eat (albeit one takes forever) fresh meals that contain different tastes/spice/texture...but the battle still is ongoing to broaden....it's been my biggest challenge so far with them.

Yes, they would eat a lot of fruit - not so much fussed on the vegetables. Although the 9 yr old will eat frozen peas straight from the freezer.

Definitely not just allows to survive if chocolate brioche.

Would happily survive on chicken dippers every day though. I didn't try and mix it up to chicken fingers but apparently they're horrible.

Maybe I ramp up the fruit along with bits of what they actually like

If they like fruit, get them cooking a dish like mango chicken curry, not spicy unless you add extra chilli. Super easy if you used canned mango from world foods aisle (I hate preparing fresh mango!

If they’ll eat toast, give them toast. Always with an offer that they can also have as much or little of the main meal you’re cooking as they like. Allow them to help themselves. Sit at the table together and model the eating you want to see. They’ll eventually grow out of it - and I say that having been the child who was a fussy eater myself. Pretty much are just plain pasta for two years in my early teens. My mum neither acknowledged nor pandered to it and I’m a perfectly healthy eater as an adult.

Thanks. That's reassuring to hear. I know the more I'm stressing about it and making a big thing if it, the less likely anything is going to change.

One of mine is autistic . The other is a fussy vegetarian. My DH is also a fussy eater.

The vegetarian would happily eat pizza and chips all day everyday. He will not eat any form of potatoes that are not chips.

My eldest is actually more open to new foods and flavours which is surprising. But he is particular about sauces, how things are presented and definitely doesn't like spicy foods.

They do live off a beige diet but the alternative is they don't eat. Kids WILL happily starve themselves and I've yet to meet a child who 'won't let themselves go hungry.

My kids do eat fruit and veg so I make sure they have loads of that. Both are weird about pasta with sauce on it which is the hardest thing IME. But they like it plain with loads of salad and some ham/chicken/quorn so that's our 'quick and easy tea'.

Have you tried something like soup for lunch? Both of mine will eat soup (but only creamy chicken or tomato).