Beets Yuck!
There is this coffee shop restaurant in our neighborhood that has menus designed by little kids. Each one has a different picture drawn by a kindergartener from a local school. My favorite one, is this huge picture of a plate of beets with a big red 'X" over it and it reads "Beets Yuck!" I actually happen to love beets but, I find the picture to be so funny and adorable. It is just a classic sentiment to how most kids hate anything that's vegetables.
I don't know if you have ever tried to be a personal chef for little kids, but in my opinion it is really hard. Mostly because the challenge of cooking meals that consist of the five "kids food groups" is, if not completely disgusting, nearly impossible.
What are those food groups you ask? Any parent, or nanny, or child, will tell you that the five major food groups for a kid are, French Fries, Chicken Nuggets, Ranch Dressing, Ketchup, and Mac N Cheese. Honorary mention to Gummy Bears/ Gummy Snacks or any other fruity sugary thing that is kryptonite to healthy teeth.
I consider myself a pretty decent cook. I make relatively healthy dinners that are also delicious. But if you were to ask my kids their opinion about it, they would probably respond with a barfing emoji.
I try to not get super frustrated (aka go full on Ms. Viola Swamp) when they refuse to eat anything that I have spent time preparing. Like the time I took nearly two hours making individual Shepard's pies, 100% from scratch, that would rival anything a traditional English pub could make, only to have my daughter take a bite and then start gagging, LITERALLY gagging, and then cry that it was the most disgusting thing she'd ever eaten, immediately followed by my son dumping his personal pie onto the floor and then leaning over his high chair tray with excitement as he watched our dog eat the whole thing.
Recently, my daughter has decided she wants to be a vegetarian. I support her choice. I mean, we are all basically vegetarian anyway. I only eat chicken and fish, and when I do, it's only about two or three times a week. On Monday, I made vegetarian toastadas. I think they were amazing. But, of course, she refused to eat any of it and asked if she could have something different, like pasta or a muffin.
I am beginning to suspect that her wanting to be "a vegetarian" is possibly a ploy to only eat mac n cheese and tader tots for every meal. When I told her that being a vegetarian does not mean all you eat is pasta, she was super disappointed and has since sort of backed away from wanting to be one.
My son is a little easier as he's just 2. But he is has his own annoying habits. Like, his constant grazing. Toddler grazing is the most frustrating of eating phases, not just because of the sheer amount of food waste that he is responsible for, but the mess it leaves on the floor. Thank Goodness we have wood floors, we'd otherwise never get our deposit back. He almost daily will take one bite of a variety of things and then leave them in just as many places all over the house like an amnesic squirrel hiding nuts for the winter. A soggy protein cookie stuffed under a pillow in my bed was my personal favorite.
But thankfully he will, for the most part, eat just about everything at dinner time so that's a relief. However, I know that it is only another year or two until he is in the "I don't like anything" phase.
Why does food have to be so complicated? I mean, it's just food. We only need it to, you know, not starve, so why not just eat it and be done with it? Why all the hemming and hawing about not wanting to eat it?
Personally, I find eating to be inconvenient. You know what I mean? It's just one more thing that needs to be done each day. One more thing that I have to worry about, one more thing for my kids to pick a fight over.
It's all just such a pain, the planning for it and the thinking about whether or not the kids will like it, and then the compromising of wanting something I really like but then the kids absolutely don't like. And then shopping for it and then cooking it, to then have almost all of it go virtually uneaten once it is all plated and on the dinner table, and then getting annoyed because I could have just made what I originally wanted because nobody ate anyway. It is just exhausting. It would be so much easier if humans just didn't need to eat. Especially tiny humans. It would be a huge burden off my plate, no pun intended.
But, whatever. I guess that's all part of being a kid? Only wanting french fries and ice cream? And truly believing that anything "healthy" is poison? True story, my daughter once asked if the salmon dinner I made had been poisoned. When I told her no, she preceded to take a bite and then pretend that it was, and declared in a loud Oscar worthy performance that she had, in fact, been poisoned. I would have been furious if it wasn't so funny.
These kids of mine really give me a run for my money with the food stuff. I don't remember being this picky when I was a kid so I am not quite sure what I did karmically to deserve this.
Tonight's dinner is lemon and garlic chicken, with an avocado and spinach salad, and some asparagus risotto. I'll be sure to go easy on the poison this time. ;)
I don't know if you have ever tried to be a personal chef for little kids, but in my opinion it is really hard. Mostly because the challenge of cooking meals that consist of the five "kids food groups" is, if not completely disgusting, nearly impossible.
What are those food groups you ask? Any parent, or nanny, or child, will tell you that the five major food groups for a kid are, French Fries, Chicken Nuggets, Ranch Dressing, Ketchup, and Mac N Cheese. Honorary mention to Gummy Bears/ Gummy Snacks or any other fruity sugary thing that is kryptonite to healthy teeth.
I consider myself a pretty decent cook. I make relatively healthy dinners that are also delicious. But if you were to ask my kids their opinion about it, they would probably respond with a barfing emoji.
I try to not get super frustrated (aka go full on Ms. Viola Swamp) when they refuse to eat anything that I have spent time preparing. Like the time I took nearly two hours making individual Shepard's pies, 100% from scratch, that would rival anything a traditional English pub could make, only to have my daughter take a bite and then start gagging, LITERALLY gagging, and then cry that it was the most disgusting thing she'd ever eaten, immediately followed by my son dumping his personal pie onto the floor and then leaning over his high chair tray with excitement as he watched our dog eat the whole thing.
Recently, my daughter has decided she wants to be a vegetarian. I support her choice. I mean, we are all basically vegetarian anyway. I only eat chicken and fish, and when I do, it's only about two or three times a week. On Monday, I made vegetarian toastadas. I think they were amazing. But, of course, she refused to eat any of it and asked if she could have something different, like pasta or a muffin.
I am beginning to suspect that her wanting to be "a vegetarian" is possibly a ploy to only eat mac n cheese and tader tots for every meal. When I told her that being a vegetarian does not mean all you eat is pasta, she was super disappointed and has since sort of backed away from wanting to be one.
My son is a little easier as he's just 2. But he is has his own annoying habits. Like, his constant grazing. Toddler grazing is the most frustrating of eating phases, not just because of the sheer amount of food waste that he is responsible for, but the mess it leaves on the floor. Thank Goodness we have wood floors, we'd otherwise never get our deposit back. He almost daily will take one bite of a variety of things and then leave them in just as many places all over the house like an amnesic squirrel hiding nuts for the winter. A soggy protein cookie stuffed under a pillow in my bed was my personal favorite.
But thankfully he will, for the most part, eat just about everything at dinner time so that's a relief. However, I know that it is only another year or two until he is in the "I don't like anything" phase.
Why does food have to be so complicated? I mean, it's just food. We only need it to, you know, not starve, so why not just eat it and be done with it? Why all the hemming and hawing about not wanting to eat it?
Personally, I find eating to be inconvenient. You know what I mean? It's just one more thing that needs to be done each day. One more thing that I have to worry about, one more thing for my kids to pick a fight over.
It's all just such a pain, the planning for it and the thinking about whether or not the kids will like it, and then the compromising of wanting something I really like but then the kids absolutely don't like. And then shopping for it and then cooking it, to then have almost all of it go virtually uneaten once it is all plated and on the dinner table, and then getting annoyed because I could have just made what I originally wanted because nobody ate anyway. It is just exhausting. It would be so much easier if humans just didn't need to eat. Especially tiny humans. It would be a huge burden off my plate, no pun intended.
But, whatever. I guess that's all part of being a kid? Only wanting french fries and ice cream? And truly believing that anything "healthy" is poison? True story, my daughter once asked if the salmon dinner I made had been poisoned. When I told her no, she preceded to take a bite and then pretend that it was, and declared in a loud Oscar worthy performance that she had, in fact, been poisoned. I would have been furious if it wasn't so funny.
These kids of mine really give me a run for my money with the food stuff. I don't remember being this picky when I was a kid so I am not quite sure what I did karmically to deserve this.
Tonight's dinner is lemon and garlic chicken, with an avocado and spinach salad, and some asparagus risotto. I'll be sure to go easy on the poison this time. ;)
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