Feeding — Babylicious by Figur8

Parenting: Light at the End of the Tunnel for Picky Eaters

May 24, 2013 by Shen-Li Leave a Comment

To the parents of fussy eaters, I just wanted to say that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

When Aristotle started eating solids, we had a rough time feeding him. He didn’t like a lot of food and there was a lot of stress over his lack of enthusiasm for food. As I’ve said before, when you come from a Chinese family – a traditional at that – a child that exclaims, “I hate eating!” is like a child who has just cussed every expletive on the “no-no” list.

Even though I read that most picky eaters grow out of the picky eating phase by about 7-9 years, I confess that I feared this day would never come for us.

To highlight the extent of Aristotle’s pickiness, let me relate some of the feeding experiences we have had with him when he was little:

Aristotle liked a particular brand of instant noodles but only that brand. If you tried to substitute it with another brand (we ran out of the ones he liked one day), he wouldn’t eat. We’d cooked it up, used the same flavour – chicken – and served it on a nondescript plate, but he only had to take one mouthful to know it wasn’t his brand.
I tried to sneak bananas into a juice blend and he would not have any of it. The moment the cup reached his nose, he turned his head. Even though he was keen to try it only a moment before, his acute sense of smell told him it contained something he wouldn’t like.

There was really no way to hide anything from him because his senses were so discriminating. He could smell the rat from a mile away. This was not a boy where you could pull the wool over his eyes.

Now that Aristotle is 6, I have noticed a different pattern of food consumption. He has been more willing to try “new” things. He is also expanding his repertoire of “favourite” foods, eating foods like nasi lemak and curry chicken, prawns, meats with different preparations, and even some veggies, like broccoli. To increase his green count (veggie consumption), I started mixing fruit and veggie smoothies in the Vitamix and he has been drinking them by the cupful. Make no mistake, the fruit and veggie smoothie would never have worked a couple of years ago, even though there is not a hint of green in the taste.

I won’t go so far as to say he eats everything now but he does eat a heck of a lot more variety than he would have as a younger child. So if you have a fussy eater, too, it may just be a waiting game. In the mean time, if you’re up for it, you can try some of the tricks we did to boost our picky eater’s food consumption:

Health and Nutrition: Boosting the immunity of a picky eater
The Sneaky Chef and Deceptively Delicious didn’t really work for us but it’s worth a shot if you’re desperate
For parents of younger children starting solids and moving to finger foods, Annabel Karmel is one to try – her recipes didn’t work for us but other mothers have sworn by her
If the Sneaky Chef doesn’t work for you, you can try hiding veggies in your chocolate milkshake
Novelty sandwiches and other pretty food

We have also found two tactics that work fairly consistently:

eating in the company of other children
exercise or vigorous play before meal time is a great way to boost an appetite

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Filed Under: Aristotle, Feeding, health, Hercules, Parenting Tagged With: children, Feeding, fussy, Parenting

Health and Nutrition: Boosting the Immunity of a Picky Eater

May 15, 2013 by Shen-Li 1 Comment

The boys have been getting sick a lot lately. We’ve made so many trips to the doctor’s in the last few months that I’m seriously concerned about their health. I suspect it that a large part of the reason is due to Hercules starting school in November. Unlike Aristotle, who is a bit of a germaphobe, Hercules is filthy. He puts anything to his mouth, including the soles of his shoes, so it is hardly surprising that he picks up a lot of germs. Throw him in with a bunch of other little kids who can’t keep their germs to themselves and it’s really a recipe for sickness.

Of course, the boys’ diets leaves a lot to be desired since they don’t really eat veggies or fruits – Hercules is marginally better than his brother in this department but not by much. Additionally, I haven’t been consistent with the vitamin supplements and now that Hercules has weaned, he hasn’t got the protective benefit of my breastmilk either.

To give their immune system a bit of a boost, I’ve been trying to improve their nutrient intake…

Wood’s Cold Shield

Contains immune boosting ingredients: Vitamin C, Zinc and Echinacea. I give this to the boys whenever they are coming down with something because it is supposed to help reduce the severity of the illness and shorten its duration.

Colostrum Supplements

Colostrum is the stuff that is produced during the early days of breastfeeding. It is supposed to be high in antibodies which helps to strengthen the immature immune systems of young babies. Now it seems that taking bovine colostrum supplements may be beneficial to the immune systems of children and adults. Before you rush out to the pharmacy, let me first warn you that the jury is still out on whether it really does provide added benefit to the immune function. Even if it does work, you’ll need to do your research on your supplements to make sure you get the quality stuff.

We were given a tub of colostrum powder by a doctor we saw when Hercules was sick. The doctor says that all of his patients who have been on it have found it really helps. The powder mixes up like milk powder and tastes a bit like skim milk. Hercules and Aristotle won’t take it neat so I have tried to mix it with Milo. Hercules managed to get through half a cup before he told me something was “wrong” with his Milo. That’s what you get when you have kids with sensitive palates. I blame their father.

In the end, the person who has benefited from that tub of colostrum powder has been me. Is it helping? Well, I don’t seem to be getting sick quite as often or as badly since I started taking it. Or perhaps it’s just placebo? Who knows…

Healthy Cooking, Healthy Eating, Healthy Lifestyle

March 4, 2013 by Shen-Li Leave a Comment

Those who know me will know that cooking is not my forte. To state it simply – I loathe it. For me, a meal is just something to get you through the day. Dessert, on the other hand, is something else altogether, but now that I have kids, that’s also a different story. I have to think twice before succumbing to a sugar craving because it attracts my two sugar babies who will believe that such indulgences should be a norm rather than the occasional treat.

As my other half so smugly pointed out, now that I have kids, it’s no longer okay to do a half-baked effort in the kitchen and call it dinner. I should make some attempt to get them to eat real food and learn to choose healthier options, to boot. And I agree. Really, I do! But I’m sure that most parents who cook for fussy eaters will understand when I say that it is terribly disheartening to spend hours in the kitchen cooking up what you anticipate to be a fantastic meal only to hear Aristotle’s petulant, “I don’t like it,” while Hercules spits it out then clamps his gob shut and insists he doesn’t want to eat.

I have in the past attempted to facilitate healthy eating with special recipes for Aristotle, such as the ones from sneaky chef and Annabel Karmel. Unfortunately it was to no avail. With Aristotle on a less than desirable diet, it was also too much to hope that his younger brother would not pick up his bad eating habits – although, in my defense, I must say that Hercules’ diet is still healthier and more varied than his older brother’s. Needless to say I gave up on the special recipes and decided to be grateful when they ate anything at all since I was under pressure to get them to eat. And if you missed the significance of that, let me point out that in a traditional Chinese family food is love so you can figure the rest out yourself.

Now that the boys are older and slightly more reasonable, it is time to refocus on their diet. So this is begins my effort to cook “easy, delicious, healthier” dinners for my three boys – with the emphasis on “easy”. Recently, we had “Gyu Soba” which was so well received that I have recorded the recipe in my cookbook for fussy eaters. The plan is to create a working menu of easy, delicious, and healthier dinners catered to the taste buds of my three fussy eaters so step aside Lapine and Karmel. I should add that it has been quite a challenge considering the barrage of inside jokes relating to my non-discriminate – even pariah – taste buds. Then again, my taste-testers are all fussy eaters so you can be assured that the recipes can’t be all that bad…

If you liked the Gyu Soba, take a look at the small selection of recipes I have already collated. They aren’t entirely healthy but they did make the taste-testers cut:

Easy Authentic Recipes for the Undomestic Goddess

Do you have fussy eaters in your household? What are. Some of your winning recipes?