Kids meals

[WeightoftheWorld]

We are actually vegetarian not vegan but I thought I might get more useful responses in this section.

DC1 is 4 and a terrible eater and going through a particularly awful phase right now. Their growth is already being monitored by paediatrics. DH concerned about protein intake. I can't force my child to eat, but at least I will assuage some guilt if I know I'm at least offering nutritious meals high in protein.

So, what do you feed your kids if you are veggie or vegan? Particularly to fulfil their protein requirements and particularly if they're a fussy eater.

Have you tried the Richmond vegan sausages? They are beloved by my children (4 and 8) (and husband!).

Since you are not vegan, does your child eat cheese? Cheese on toast to dip in some home made soup?

And don't forget that something like beans on wholemeal toast is actually pretty balanced and nutritious, especially if you get the reduced salt beans.

Blending things is also a way to get food in otherwise turned down. I make my own vegetable sauce, it's all veg, tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, courgettes, beetroot... anything really looking like needing used up! You could also blend cooked beans into it.

My children loved a CBBC program called What's Cooking Omari? It's vegan food and they really wanted me to make the macaroni dish which uses pumpkin and nutritional yeast.
Perhaps your child might be interesting in watching and getting ideas?

Greek yogurt, fromage frais for dessert.

Peanut butter, almond butter etc on toast

Hi, thanks for taking the time to respond.

Yes, DH and I love Richmond sausages! So does DS (who is 1). DD likes them too, but tbh at the moment she won't anything consistently, so often will just refuse. That's the same for pretty much everything though tbf. I'm conscious they are probably high in salt though.

Yes, she does eat some cheeses. She won't usually eat cheese on toast, but she will usually eat cheese sandwiches, cheese and crackers, cheese toasties. Tomato soup is the only soup she will eat. She does eat baked beans on toast and she will eat refried beans on toast too (although latter very high in salt).

I have always thought about making blended veg pasta sauces but then I never felt like we had time, and then our blender broke and we haven't replaced it as we hardly used it anyway.

DD has a strong interest in cooking and loves to help out in the kitchen. Just she then refuses to eat what she's made anyway! I will look up the show though.

She does eat yoghurts, and peanut butter. Although a few days ago she suddenly said she doesn't like peanut butter, completely out of the blue when offered it as a pancake topping. So possibly something else she has just suddenly decided to start refusing even though she's always liked it.

Honestly, the stress of it all...

Is her weight low as well as her height? Can you give us an average days food for her? what sort of things does she tend to eat most reliably? And does she snack?

follow solid starts on Instagram if you haven’t already. A great team of specialists in this sort of thing, especially when a child is being monitored for poor growth it is very easy to get into some bad habits because you’re just desperate for them to eat something. SS gives good advice on how to avoid this and particularly around fussy eating. They say that snacks are often the culprit behind poor eating because kids snack too much and too close to meal times (on foods that tend to be quite “safe” and lacking in nutrients) and then there’s not enough motivation for them to eat well at the meal because they’re not hungry enough. Plus they know there will be another snack along soon.

If you can do smoothies or milkshakes then there’s lot of high cal foods you can add to those like coconut milk, avocado, nut butters etc. Add a bit of cocoa powder and it makes a “chocolate milkshake” but you can pack a lot it nutrient wise.

You can make your own refried beans www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220642/quick-and-easy-refried-beans , we use a potato masher instead of a blender.

Make muffins with ground almonds in them add some chopped up dark chocolate ( a 70% chocolate is about 9% protein)

Tesco do a whole range of plant based food.

It's really easy to be vegan and to eat what you'd eat on a "normal" diet. You just need to think about what meat replacements you use!

So we have very recently weighed and measured her. She is short, but thankfully her weight is around the same centiles as her height, so she is a healthy weight for her height, somehow! However the older she gets, the more she falls down the height centiles, and neither me nor her DF are short. I'm slightly above average height, and he is tall. I need to double-check her records but I think she has fallen down height centiles again, and if so, on the advice of her paediatrician we will need to return to have her reviewed again in a month or two (need to check the paperwork for dates) if she doesn't have a sudden growth spurt in that time. She doesn't eat anything reliably to be honest other than maybe fruit, chocolate, cake, and biscuits, stuff like that! She does snack, but not excessively. She asks for snacks a lot but I don't give them to her as then she doesn't eat meals (I've tested this out too, giving her whenever she asks etc and that was as expected, just filling up on snacks and never eating anything proper). She will sometimes have a small, mid-morning snack if she asks for one and has had a fairly early breakfast that day, and she has a small afternoon snack around 3pm each day. Examples of snacks: piece of fruit, pack of dried fruit, packet of crisps or popcorn, two small yoghurt pots, couple of Quorn picnic eggs or cocktail sausages, children's cereal bar, Babybel, yoghurt or chocolate covered peanuts (won't eat them plain), soreen etc. I'm not on Insta unfortunately but will look it up. She has milk before bed, could maybe look to giving a smoothie or milkshake instead. But then I think she definitely won't bother even entertaining the idea of dinner if she knows she is going to get one of those after.

Thanks for refried beans recipe, hadn't even considered it tbh, will look into it. I wouldn't be surprised if she refuses to eat it if I make it myself though. The muffins sound good, I'd imagine she'd eat them. I just feel like I have zero time to bake or do anything creative. I spend almost all my time either working, doing housework, or looking after the kids, it's relentless tbh.

I've been vegetarian for over a decade, so I'm perfectly happy making non-meat choices for meals. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas for their own non-meat-eating children that I may not have tried before that my DD might actually eat.

I've just googled the Richmond Vegan sausages.

Are they the sage and onion ones?

@JeepersCreepersWheredYaGetThosePeepers we prefer the plain ones, we did try those, made fantastic sausage rolls for christmas, but my younger one didn't like them. In the summer last year, they did BBQ flavour ones, they tasted like grilled hotdogs, we liked them.

As for making veg sauce, I batch cook it, then freeze in family sized portions, you can also then use it as pasta sauce, or add spices and beans etc and it becomes a base for something like shakshuka.

I batch cook my own refried beans too, we have them with homemade mini masa tortillas and all sorts of other things for fun dinners in the summer.

I don't worry much about the salt in things like the Richmonds, as I don't use salt in any other cooking, so it easily balances out for the good side.

My girls like breakfast burritos. I cook squished beans in tinned tomatoes with herbs, paprika, small amount of chili, cumin etc, put on half a mini tortilla with grated cheese, then freeze them. Reheat great and they love it. For myself and my husband, I blend jalapenos with jarred red pepper, then add black beans and cheese.

Cheese and tomato risotto
Hidden veg macaroni cheese
Hidden vegetable bolognese with Quorn mince
Sweetcorn fritters and dip
Cheese and tomato bread pudding
Chickpea burgers
Halloumi burgers
Curry
Frittata

I'm veggie and have a veggie child..who.is going through a fussy stage!!
I definitely hide veg within his food, I make my own pesto (and freeze it) with spinich/broccoli peas basil (basically anything green) which he loves.
I do the same with a red sauce - cook it down and whizz it up!
Will she eat potatoes? They can be good for hiding other things.
We aren't really fans on the meat substitutes especially the very meaty ones but they are an option.. I saw unicorn meatfree dippers the other day 😀
Would she shop with you, so she has some choice?

@Rawrrawr1 we got some dinosaur ones and my husband wants us to have a mash potato volcano, broccoli trees and gravy lava LOL