Pages

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Healthy

After way too long of a break, I'm trying to get healthy food back into our house.  REALLY healthy food, as in fresh grains and fresh greens....beans..proteins that aren't breaded and baked....basically, I'm reaching for the stars and want the moon on my plate, with a side of kale chips.  I'd be lying if I said that my kids willingly ate those foods when I was cooking them regularly...they relied on the fact that I would allow bread and butter to be substituted for the dinner I made, after a "no thank you" bite.

We've totally lost the concept of the "no thank you" bite.

Asian meatballs, made with ground turkey, were a huge hit with the big girl, so I took the last bit of meat, made EXACTLY the same mixture as my meatballs, and cooked it up in a skillet to make lettuce wraps.

The look
This isn't funny, Mom.

Asian lettuce wrap

It has color!  It's not WHITE!  It has texture...multiple textures!  Totally not cool!  It has lettuce...that's a leaf....leaves are BAD.


Milk for dinner


I won't even keep my plate in front of me, this is OFFENSIVE!  You took the wrap off the plate and put it in front of me again?  HA, I won't even touch it!


Milk face


Milk...is my life.  It is the only thing that can sustain me in the face of this pure evil.


The big girl was so upset by dinner, she actually came to me thinking she was about to heave.  Not pretty.

Winter is ending, our reliance on potatoes, turnips, apples, onions, and carrots is almost over.  Wish me luck! And...send recipes.  Real food, kid approved...not too much to ask, right?

PS- No, Ernie is not recovering from pox.  She has effectively ripped off ALL her cuticles, and has now discovered that her face has texture, which can be scratched off daily, thereby increasing the texture and prolonging the number of times she can scratch it off every day.  Given this alarming habit, and that she will cheerfully forgo ANY meal that she'd rather not eat, I'm not sure she knows what pain means.

PPS- With one exception, the big girl will not touch soup.  She will not eat leaves of any sort, or anything with vinegar or spice.  She will not eat anything that looks like a casserole, and she will not eat sauce on her pasta, unless it is white. Food must be of one color, and one texture.  You may not chop up veggies and sneak them in.  It may be crunchy or smooth, but it can not be chunky.  All stone fruit is verboten, but berries, cucumbers, potatoes, apples, carrots, and bananas are good.  So is corn on the cob, but NOT off.  Yogurt is good, but should be vanilla, thereby fulfilling the "white" and "smooth" requirements.  Turnips may be boiled and mashed with potatoes to make tatties and neeps, but the end product must be pure white.  Rutabagas may not be substituted, as they will render the final product purple.  Potatoes may be baked, mashed, or fried.  They may not be made into gnocchi.  She will eat quinoa, sushi, edamame, and any breaded and fried minced meat including chicken nuggets (but not strips), fish sticks, and octopus.  She will eat rice with beans.  She will not eat mango, pineapple, kiwi, or anything interesting.  She would live on top ramen, white rice, white bread, and milk if she could.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The picking! Ah! William has picked all (and I do mean all) the skin off of every single one of his fingers... he looks like he has leprosy. If it's not his fingers then it is the sheets which now have millions of little balls of fluff on them. It is driving me crazy!

Are William and E really long lost twins?

By the way, I was thinking that maybe some of the stomach issues might be from chemicals in prepacked foods? The dietitian we met with said that is the most common area that kids have sensitivity to. I've not got Molly with stomach issues too so I've about had it. Ah!

Tammy said...

Oh man,I thought I had to deal with picky... My hubby is uber picky (almost no green, except caesar salad, no turkey, not even ground, and he nixes a lot of veggies, even those that aren't green... and that is just a small sampling), but he doesn't mind texture at all. That would be tricky... good luck!

lera said...

Yikes! Can't help ya there. My husband is the pickiest in our family. It has kind of passed down to the kids (one son picks tomatoes out of spaghetti and pizza sauce). I guess after 15+ years of marriage, I just stopped fixing things my husband won't eat. (He won't touch onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, cucumbers, just to name a few.)

Unknown said...

It sounds like there are some healthy foods in the will eat list. How do those foods stay with her? I feel so bad for the little one:(

Su said...

Ohhh... dear :(
honestly, though, that is pretty good
I know you don't want to hear that, but she does seem to have an array of foods that she will eat.
The stomach issues though, that is troubling:(

LunaMoonbeam said...

Knowing Ernie, this post makes me giggle in a maniacal sort of defeatist way. These kids of ours...they do keep life interesting, yes?

Will she branch out in her sushi-dom? Can you put other things in her sushi, like julienned carrots? i know she loves spicy tuna with sushi rice...that's a good start. See what else she will pile into a bowl of sushi rice...

What I Did Today said...

Ok. I thought Ash was picky. Now I see how wrong I was. I've heard about getting your kids all excited about eating a rainbow everyday (only fruits and veggies count). They get to put a sticker up for every color they eat and the goal is to get red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple in everyday. Here are some links:

http://www.wegmans.com/pdf/EatARainbowEveryDay.pdf
http://www.groovypyramid.com/icaneatarainbow.htm
http://www.eatarainboweveryday.com/

I really can't think of anything else. Good luck!

What I Did Today said...

Oh! I just thought of something else! I recently started using a bento box for my oldest. It's really small and the containers that go in it are even smaller. With 6-9 little places to put 6-9 different kinds of foods, Ash has actually started eating a bit more and accepting a wider variety. It helps that she likes Tinker Bell (on the top of the lid), and small anything AND the freedom to choose what she eats first, middle, and last. Lunch is actually longer than 5 minutes now.

a Tonggu Momma said...

shh... I was that picky when I was her age. Maybe Tonggu Grammy should head over here to commiserate. *grin*

We are on even more of a health kick than usual lately. That Jamie Oliver will do it to us, every time.

Elizabeth said...

boy, does this sound familiar, even with older children. Aaaargh! Okay, here are a few ideas...Fruit Smoothies into which you sneak some raw spinach and protein powder from store or tofu...Edamame? Morningstar Breakfast patties...Pinto Beans and Cornbread with butter....That's as creative as I can coime up with right now. Good luck!