Mixed messages on healthy eating anyone?

I've been reading a Canadian book on planning mealtimes for toddlers - I won't name it because I wouldn't recommend it - but it struck me again how hard it is to get a straight answer on healthy eating for kids.

I actually thought I was going to really like this book because it went to great lengths up front to explain that all families manage food and mealtimes differently, and that other parents will say things that sound judgemental about what you choose to do, but that you just have to make a call about what path you will take and stick to it.

This seems like important advice to me as you definitely will hear at some point from another parent "I would never feed my child that!" or "We don't let her eat any of that plastic food" or "my child will eat absolutely anything". I myself have been told that "kids love steamed vegies" which made me wonder why Leo wouldn't even touch them. All these statements will undoubtedly make you feel bad about how well you manage feeding your kid.

However, then the book goes on to make some calls that will also make you feel bad about your choices like: you should never, ever feed a toddler raisins or sausages unless they are chopped into tiny pieces as they are choking hazards (bad me), don't let your kids anywhere near a tree nut before the age of five because of the risk to themselves and others (fail) and that you should never use food as a reward or bribe (I've already confessed to that one). Later it says that you will "obviously have ditched watching tv during mealtimes already" and "surely that's what you both would want for your child" which just made me both feel guilty for still doing it myself and hope that no single parent would spend their spare time reading this book.

The good thing about this book is that it was a reminder not to be preachy to other people about what your toddler will and won't eat. There is a quote from a mum in the book that says "some mothers will boast to you about what different foods their kid will eat or how much they can pack away" - I am definitely guilty of proudly telling people that Leo will eat 21 little banana pancakes for breakfast on the weekend and I can see how that could be annoying.

It also reminded me to stick to my guns and ignore unhelpful advice. So if there is anything that I write that annoys you or doesn't at all fit with your experiences - just ignore me, I won''t mind!

Don't eat me! New vegie tactics

Just thought I'd share a quick tactic that my very creative husband has been using with some success this week -he gives the vegies voices and makes them scream "Don't eat me! Don't eat me!". For some reason this makes Leo desperate to eat them. Admittedly this doesn't work for many mouthfuls of the things Leo doesn't like but one snow pea is better than no snow peas!

Sweet, sweet bribery...

High up in the long list of "things I would never do when I was a parent" was bribing a child with food. As has happened with most other items on this list, I have had to cross it off this week!

After a significant period of bath refusal, I finally caved and told Leo he could have an icy-pole (or in his words 'a big one') if he would get in the bath. On the first evening it worked and I rejoiced in my cunning succcess. On the second evening it failed and resulted in an almighty tantrum "I want a big one...I want a big one".

Admittedly the only reason I caved on the bribery issue was that I recently read Joshua Gans' "Parentonomics" in which he has moderate success using what he describes as incentives: jellybeans helped the kids get toilet trained and the promise of dessert helped kids get through their vegies. Clearly Joshua's children are more receptive to the food rewards or the tasks are not so terrifying as Leo finds the bath.

In good news, Mr Williams managed to talk Leo into having a shower tonight with no icypoles involved at all. Phew!

Travelling with toddlers and their tummies - round 2

Earlier this year I posted my top tips for travelling and eating eith little guys after we spent three and a half weeks in the UK and Croatia with Leo who decided he was a fussy eater on the way. Last weekend we went to a gorgeous wedding in New Zealand and it seems I have either:

a) learnt a lot since the last trip

b) become more organised

c) become more relaxed

It was probably a combination of all three but this trip was at least three million times easier than our European vacation.

I think the tips from my last post still hold true but I've got a new one - if there is something healthy that your toddler is crazy about, focus on getting this into them and letting the rest go. To illustrate - Leo is awesome at eating porridge and also avocado on grainy toast so I made sure he had this every morning and considered everything else a bonus for the rest of the day. It's really good for your mental health to look at the situation like this in my experience and they really will survive!

In other news, if you can ever get yourself to Waiheke Island, just across the water from Auckland, I would strongly recommend it. And while I'm on recommendations, we stayed at this amazing child-friendly, two-bedroom cottage called Larkfield and it's what a parent's dreams are made of - bucket of toys, kid-friendly DVDs, port-a-cot, proper kitchen, wipes in the bathroom, walking distance from the shops. My list could go on forever - go there!!

Hooray for preservatives

I read an article by Alyssa McDonald in the Sunday Life magazines in the Age on the weekend that argues that people shouldn't get hung up on not eating preserved food in its various forms and should really just limit their salt, sugar and fat consumption if they want to be healthy. Unfortunately it hasn't been posted online so I can't link to it.

My first reaction was obviously to want to argue back that surely eating fresh food should be a primary aim in any diet. Then it hit my, we had eaten all sorts of fruit and veg that day but almost none of it had been actually fresh - especially what Leo had.

To summarise what we ate - corn cakes using tinned corn (Leo prefers it) with salsa and sour cream , dried apricots for morning tea, pasta with frozen peas, tuna, pesto and some chopped fresh spinach, watermelon for afternoon tea, good quality frozen fish and vege dumplings with rice and sesame seeds for dinner (Gaz and I had an Asian style pork belly hotpot with eggplant and daikon).

So Leo had had a little bit of spinach and watermelon as his only fresh fruit and veg for the whole day. Everything else had been tinned, dried, frozen or mashed up into a dumpling. However, I still think it looks like a reasonable menu for a toddler which has really made me reevaluate whether preserving methods are really that bad.

Any thoughts??

Surprise success - green rice recipe

I found a recipe the other day for a brown rice and spinach bake that the author swore her two children loved. I thought that there would be no way that I could get Leo to eat this sort of thing so I set out to prove her wrong. I kept pretty close to the recipe but changed a few things to make it a bit more kid/Leo friendly

Initially I thought I was right that this recipe was a reject as Leo immediately asked to get out of his chair when I served it up but once he tried it properly he ate most of the bowl so that will show me. It's a hard sell but definitely worth a try:

Eleanor's Green Rice Recipe
1 cup brown rice
2 cups vegetable stock
1 onion finely diced
1 tspn olive oil
250 gms frozen spinach
4 eggs
1 handful grated cheddar
1 handful grated parmesan
1/4 cup pine nuts

Put the brown rice and stock into a saucepan, bring to the boil, then simmer for 30 minutes or until cooked through. Meanwhile toast the pine nuts lightly in a saucepan and put aside. Then heat the olive oil in the same pan and lightly fry the onions in the olive oil until translucent.

Put the eggs and spinach in a blender and blitz until thoroughly mixed. Once rice and onions have cooled mix all ingredients and pour into a well greased pan.

Cook in an oven heated to 180 degrees for 40 minutes until set and lightly browned. Serve and persist with your whingy toddler!

Lying to kids only works once :(

One of the first nutrition books that I got out from the library (I think it was this one by the CSIRO) suggested that rather than tell kids that food was "good for you" or just "healthy"you should try and link the food to a specific outcome. If I remember rightly it used the terrible stereotypes that boys will want to hear that food will make them run fast and girls will want to hear that food will make their hair shiny.

I experimented the very next day by telling Leo that if we put sesame seeds in his porridge they will make him strong and it was a huge success. Most days Leo will ask for porridge with magic seeds to make him strong.

However, when I tried it with carrots (carrots will make you run very fast) it didn't work at all. In fact, every time I've tried it with any other food, it's totally failed.

So while I would totally recommend this tactic of hyping up the nutritional benefits of healthy food, I would definitely say save it for the one food that they otherwise won't eat!!