I will never, ever, ever eat this food. Ever!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this sentence. I’ve lost count. And something tells me that in the next 10 years I’ll hear it hundreds of times more.

When Miss Z was 2 we met a family during our holiday in Portugal. They had a little girl just 5 months younger than Miss Z and they started playing on the beach. We became friends rather quickly and went out for a few meals all together. They invited us to their house as well.

The Mom of the little girl said to me she was amazed at how well our little Miss Z ate her food, no matter what it was. She continued “our little girl doesn’t eat anything. Literally, nothing!”

I tried, as usual, not to comment at the time. I just observed. Sometimes, I could see my hubby looking at me, as if to silently share a view of what we observed.

My new friend was spoiling her daughter with choices. And when that happens at that young age, any child will refuse to eat stuff like vegetables, fish, etc., and default to their favourites – normally sugary or salty foods, yogurt, ice-cream, biscuits, chocolate, crisps, and so on.

I believe that you are what you eat (Dr. Gillian’s words). And if you don’t take control of your kids’ diet right from the off, then they’re the ones that suffer later on.

It’s not something that happens overnight. You may have started well, weaning them at 6 months with loads of vegetables and fruits, and no nasties, but at some point because you were tired, or they were ill or some other situation happened, you took a shortcut. “Ok, honey, would you like some biscuits instead?” or “I’ll just make you a sandwich then”, etc., etc.

By offering a young child an alternative, the underlying message is that the food you originally put in front of them is not good enough. There is something better. And once you go down that road, they will certainly take advantage.

With my kids, our diet principles are actually simple. They have porridge with fruit in the morning, they have a fruit based snack with some nuts or cheese mid-morning and mid-afternoon and the other main meals are a combination of vegetables (2 portions), carbs and protein.

Some Moms I know will ask me “but how many different carbs can you offer them? Potatoes, pasta, rice, what else?” There are literally loads more carbs, some much healthier than those three… Some examples: sweet potatoes, quinoa, bulgur wheat, pearl barley, buckwheat, millet to name just a few.

I created a list of foods in the categories Vegetables, Fruits, Protein, Carbohydrates and Complex Carbohydrates and stuck it on the fridge door. The kids diet then became a game of pick and choose.

You may think this is too radical, but the truth is that, apart from seasonal colds/flu, my kids are really healthy. And to me that’s worth a lot. Besides, we do give them free reign on weekends (check my other post).

If you offer them a diet like this from the beginning, they are unlikely to refuse foods later on. But of course, there’s always phases they go through and times when they are just naughty and defiant.

At those times, if they refuse to eat a meal, I default to Supernanny’s advice. “Ok darling. You have 20 minutes to eat that meal. If you don’t eat it, that’s ok. But then that’s what will be on the plate at dinner. And no snack”.

This may sound harsh, but it works almost 100% of the time. There are phases where kids don’t want to eat a certain food, and I accept that and take it off the menu for a few weeks or so, and then try to re-introduce.

But you know your kids. When they refuse a meal altogether that they’ve happily eaten before, you know they are trying their luck. If you accept it and offer an alternative, they know they’ve won, and you should be prepared for owning up to that slip a few months down the line when “they don’t eat anything except crisps and yogurt”.

At our house, there are no alternatives. If they don’t like it, we offer it to them next time. And next, and next. It has never gone further than 2 meals so far. Just in case you are wondering if I do let them starve, I do give them their breakfast regardless. And by the amount of porridge they eat in the morning, they would definitely last a day if need be 😉