Picky eating - and sugar

Malika

Well-Known Member
What do you do with your children's picky eating?

Tonight for supper I prepared something J has never had before - cauliflower cheese. I am now paranoid about all the differences between American/British culture so should this not exist in the States, it is steamed cauliflower with a cheese sauce on top :) Anyway, having planned this because it was made with milk, wholemeal flour,lots of cheese - J immediately refused it saying "Beurk!" (French for "Yuk!"), insisting that he "didn't like it" even though he had never eaten it... Refused to touch it and would clearly have gone into full tantrum mode if I had tried to insist.

He ended up having a small bowl of rice salad larded with ketchup, two fromage frais with sugar (of course), a spoon of chocolate hazelnut spread with a little bit of milk... Not too disastrous I guess but it is often like this with new things that he instantly takes against and refuses...

And then... I am thinking of trying the Feingold diet but, apart from the usual difficulty of fitting this in with school meals and being at the childminders', how on earth to get J to give up sugar... he craves it, which is apparently typical for kids for whom it is not recommended. Any thoughts/experiences gratefully received!
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I used to love cauliflower in cheese sauce... Haven't had it in ages... Sounds yummy though.

What's a fromage frais? Fromage is cheese, right?
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
Rice salad? Fromage something or other?

Kiddo is picky beyond belief. The good thing is that her tastes are close enough to mine that we manage (except she likes ketchup and I like honey mustard or A1 Sauce). Since we're both so picky, we do a lot of label reading, and I'm grateful every day that there are lots of fiber-enriched foods out there now that don't taste like [bleep]. You can even get ice cream with fiber in it! This is a good thing, for we also crave sweetness and refuse to eat veggies.
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
Like the Blue Bunny and Skinny Cow ice cream stuff. And it doesn't taste all BLARG, either.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Now, come on, folks, it's not difficult... Rice salad: a mixed salad containing rice. Fromage frais: I have been into the Aladdin's caves that are American supermarkets... you have 3,000 varieties of breakfast cereal on display! I refuse to believe you do not have fromage frais or some variant thereof - little pots of soft creamy cheese eaten as dessert... Three dots just for you HaoZI.
But you are not helping :) How does one get the child to eat all these healthy things and give up sugar??
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Mixed salad containing rice? Oh, ugh! I was thinking it was like a bowl of cold rice with some sort of dressing... I'm now getting an image of lettuce and cold rice. EWWWW! And, if we have fromage frais, I'd be surprised... From what I was able to find on Google, it's like a cross between cottage cheese and cream cheese, only less fat than either. I can't imagine how you'd put sugar on this and make it palatable. (The cheese by itself, sure.)

And those 3,000 varieties of cereal? Are mostly sugar and food coloring. They mostly taste the same.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Okay, good response to part one... And the answer to part two? Which is how to deal with the constant whining, tantruming, refusing to go out the door to school or whatever it is if J does not get his chocolate spread in the morning...
I have seriously thought that I could only do a "detox" with J if I went away to some deserted spot with him for two weeks where there is nothing but birds and insects to witness the meltdowns over sugar withdrawal...
Too bad you can't try fromage frais and sugar, Step! It's truly delicious... and standard eating for children here. As for the rice in salad... I didn't think there was anything controversial about that! Well, well... different worlds, different lives. If we were in Morocco, we'd be sucking the marrow out of sheep bones and declaring it delicious :)
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
*gags at the descriptions of most of the food on this page regardless of place of origin*

I gave up on the sugar thing. The best we've managed on that is getting her on dark chocolate instead of a lot of milk chocolate. And I use a lot of artificial sweeteners. Doesn't help that I have such a heavy sweet tooth myself.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Yes, but you are all (in my humble opinion) being as bad as J and saying "beurk!" before you have even tried it :)
There are many possible variations of rice salad. This one contained:
rice (cooked, I hope it goes without saying)
cooked asparagus, chopped
sweetcorn
tuna fish, tinned, in olive oil
If I'd had any to hand, I would have put some nuts in.
tossed in French dressing.
Please try it at home!!
Fromage frais is not really a cross between cottage cheese (which I agree would not be nice with sugar) and cream cheese... it is like... fromage frais. Can you help out here, 3Shadows?!
All this talk about Feingold, etc, is all very well but what do you do if the basic ingredient - co-operation - is missing?
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
I used to tell Miss KT I ran out of (fill in the blank), and I'm sorry, but that's not what we're having for breakfast today. Then when it's time to go, pick up the screaming child and leave the house.

And both the rice salad and the fromage frais sound great to me.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
"Fromage frais" = Fresh Cheese. I haven't been exposed to that one since I spent a few months in Quebec (years ago). And yes, it isn't "like" anything else...

Rice salad = same concept as pasta salad, only the starch is rice instead of pasta. (our family won't touch pasta salad, so this probably wouldn't work either... our favorite mix-up is "wraps")

You're actually doing pretty good if the kid is eating those things...

Cut out sugar? How on earth do you do that when husband needs a chocolate fix every day???
Seriously? Everyone is allowed a small quantity of quality chocolate every day. Kids get theirs after some form of exercise. Deserts are mostly fruit-based, for a treat we add a little ice cream or sorbet or whipped topping... once a week or so, we have something home-baked (brownies anyone?) but I use the excuse that there isn't time during the week. That isn't going to work much longer... K2 is getting old enough and good enough to keep us in baking 24/7!

More importantly, where are most of the calories coming from? If they are getting good portions of protein, veggies, fruit, fiber, milk, etc., then... its hard to say "no" to sugar.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
No, I know - it all seems too purist for words. I personally have no problem with sugary things in moderation but a lot of people talk about how sugar is "bad" for hyperactivity. I'd like to do a complete detox with J for a couple of weeks just to see if it makes a difference to his behaviour - but like I say, it would have to be in the wild where no one can hear you scream...
As for co-operation, Step... well, J DOES co-operate :) Of course it's not all the time and it's often only after I ask nicely and "explain" but still... grateful for small mercies, I suppose.
 
K

KatieLouWho

Guest
I have french Canadian parents, my grandmother served fromage blanc which sounds like fromage frais. We would have fromage blanc au miel (white cheese with honey) for dessert, its like thick greek yogurt and not as bad as it sounds....really.

As for the picky eating, I would enjoy some ideas as well. We have been slowly cutting sugar from Kates diet slowly, we cut all juice out whichh was a lot easier than I thought it would be. We stopped with sugary cereals and bought healthier options like Cheerios and Chex. Our problem is vegetables, there is not one vegetable that we can get her to eat. I have tried every which way of hiding them but she cannot be tricked. We did get her to drink a V8 one day, huge victory dance that day I tell you. Hasn't happened since but you have to take what small victories you get :)
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
I gave up on the cereal battle. How it works: I buy granola-type stuff for me, Kix or Cheerios for them. They eat mine, then pour TONS of sugar on theirs (When I walk in as Onyxx is making herself Raisin Bran and there is more sugar than cereal... SHUDDER). I buy the granola stuff for them (they liked it when it was MINE)... And it goes STALE. I give up and buy stuff that looks and likely tastes like sugared rabbit pellets. They're happy. I'm happy because at least they're getting MILK in the morning.

I don't think a small amount of sugar should be an issue. As much as I described above - well, it'll rot their teeth, and make them vomit, but I haven't personally seen any correlation between the sugar and behavior. When I removed it and gave them artificial sweetener, there was no difference...
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
I think a lot of the studies that dug deeper showed that it wasn't so much the sugar as the post-sugar crash that contributed to behavioral issues. My friend had a way of hiding I think it was asparagus in a dessert she passed off as sugar cream pie. I actually liked it (*gasp*) but Kiddo wouldn't go past the first bite.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
You can puree almost any veggie and hide it in "yummy" stuff.

For instance: Pureed together carrots, zucchini, spinach, and mushrooms, added to spaghetti sauce... No complaints...

Carrot puree is fantastic for other stuff, too... Since it is slightly sweet. Smoothies, especially. Sweet bread. Chocolate pudding...
 
Top