Start them young, I say!

Admittedly, we were at a small advantage because we lived above our own restaurant when the babies came along. It wasn’t en-vogue to be feeding one’s children homemade baby food. It was way more fashionable to be out buying the most expensive organic baby-goop from the latest and greatest health food store. We, as small business owners, did not have a budget that would stretch that far and there is no way in heck the chef would have ever fed his kids something that tasted so terrible. I mean seriously, have you ever tried baby food out of a jar?

Now, a chef’s wife I may be, but my skills in the kitchen are limited to mostly the dishwashing end of business. Learning how to make ‘good-tasting’ baby food was a learning experience that I had not really signed up for.

Teething on lamb bones

Our daughter started to get her first taste of real food at the age of four months old. She was able to hold a lamb bone and it became her favorite teething toy. I started feeding her solid food shortly after that but only food from my plate. From the start, the Chef & I decided that we would not be the kind of parents that cooked one meal for adults and another for the children. By the time she was fourteen months old there was only one food item she did not like. Blueberries. Go figure.

Twelve to seventeen times

This is how many times it takes to introduce a new food to a child and to get them to actually like it. I can attest to the fact, now that we are foster parents, it feels like it takes twelve to seventeen thousand tries with some children. Keep the portions small. Remember the size of a toddler’s stomach is similar in size to their fist. Only give them a very small bite-size taste of the new food item and encourage them to eat it first. Then allow your child to eat a healthy amount of the other food items. Remember it is always best to put a smaller amount of each food item on the plate and wait to see if your child is hungry enough to have seconds.

Lead by example

If you are one of those parents who like to say ‘my kid won’t eat anything but chicken nuggets’ then I have only one thing to say to you. Stop buying chicken nuggets. Great, they like chicken. Buy a whole chicken and give them a piece on the bone. Teach them how to chew real meat, not processed pieces. Now, take a look at your own plate and eating habits. Do you load up your plate with salad and vegetables or are you piling on the pasta and the meatballs? If you have a long list of items you do not ‘like’ then sort out your own eating habits first before you start to teach or preach better eating habits to your offspring.

Oh yeah, and get outside. If meal times are making you crazy, go to the park and have a picnic. This takes the pressure off you and changes the dynamics entirely for the child. Be consistent with your child and talk to them about what it is you are eating and where it has come from.

A few easy tips

Cook with colour. Children love food to look vibrant and appetising. If making a pasta dish, throw in a handful of spinach leaves and some cherry tomatoes to give it a lift. Do not start doing this when they are five. Start now when they are infants so they are accustomed to seeing (and wanting) all that colour on their plate.

A little bit goes a very long way. Start small. If you have a toddler that is very fussy at the table then start with baby steps. If having pizza, then top it with rocket or fresh spinach leaves and drizzle with balsamic vinegar and a bit of freshly grated parmesan. If you do this every time you have pizza, sooner or later the child will eat the greens.

Sometimes, raw is better than cooked. Throw a few peas in the pod into your next bowl of soup. They are sweeter when uncooked and add a great green boost to a bowl of oxtail soup. Carrots are another item that can be eaten raw. Include this in your toddler’s diet, grated on their plate, at every meal. That way, you never worry about them choking!

Hunger is the best sauce

I used to think they would die of starvation but the truth is, they won’t. Kids are way more stubborn than adults. When our firstborn was just learning how to talk, we made a very conscious effort not to allow her to say ‘I do not like’ when she was referring to food. I taught her to say ‘I do not care for that’ if she discovered a food item that did not appeal to her young palate. She was typically too lazy to get that whole sentence out, and just ended up eating what she was presented with. Except for blueberries, of course.

Sometimes it is best to get out of the house at mealtimes; pack up a few sandwiches and head to the park. Try to focus less on the eating, and more on the enjoyment of the afternoon. I find that the harder they run and play outdoors, the hungrier they get. When presented with a healthy sandwich they are normally so hungry, noses are rarely turned up at the fare offered.

Talk to your children

Eat dinner together. Get them involved in the preparing and cooking process. Tell them where the food comes from. Explaining the circle of life – from farm to fork – to a young child is easy. They are fascinated with stories like this. You can show them a cow out in a field and then draw a picture of the cow showing all the things that come from it like milk, cheese, butter, beef. The next time you prepare beef for dinner, show your children what it looks like raw so they grasp the cooking concept.

Cut out the snacks…offer fruit all day

With a revolving door of foster kids coming through our house during the summer, you can be pretty certain that someone is always hungry. We have a large, and well stocked, fruit bowl that is kept at eye-level for the kids. They are allowed to eat as much fruit as they want all day long. Once it gets within an hour of supper time, we lift the fruit bowl out of reach and offer a glass of water to whomever is looking for an apple. This ensures that they get some of their five-a-day and it relieves us of the pressure of trying to get them to eat more fruit.

Feeding toddlers and fussy eaters of any age can be stressful. Teach your children about food from an early age and eat dinner with them every night. You will gain so much insight into their day-to-day lives and become tuned into their eating habits. Help build their memories around the dinner table. It will be something they will treasure for the rest of their lives.

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First thing is to prepare the ground. Ideally this should be done before Christmas but January or February is not too late. Dig the soil using a garden fork turning the bottom soil to the top, aerating it and getting rid of weeds. Don’t dig really wet or frozen soil, leave till it has reverted to norm. The soil could be nutrient deficient and will need help in the form of rotted compost or manure. In the West a naturally abundant compost is seaweed. Pick seaweed near the sea after a good windy spell. It can nourish the human body as well as the land, being a rich source of minerals. Put a decent layer of seaweed over your soil after digging especially for greedy feeders such as spuds. It’ll disappear after a few weeks so keep adding. Seaweed will also act as a weed suppressant and help prevent leaching of nutrients by open soil over the winter. Another bonus is slugs don’t like it, probably because of the salt but it should retain the worms and other organisms essential to healthy soil. Don’t skimp on the preparation part, if the soil is healthy the crop is much more likely to be, in the same way if we look after ourselves in terms of diet, exercise and enough sleep our resistance to disease is better.

Next find out what type of soil you have. Just because you’re in Galway don’t presume its limey soil (limestone or alkaline) because frequently soil was transported in from elsewhere so it could be acidic soil or clay soil. You can buy a soil pH tester kit for under €10 which will also come with a list of plants suitable for your soil type.

Then pick your spot in the garden. The sunnier the better because most vegetables don’t like being shaded and if you have an area in front of a south facing wall more the better as it will also give shelter from the wind.  Keep away from trees and hedges as these will compete for soil nutrients as well as casting shade. If a shady spot is all you have spinach, endive, peas and lettuce are your best bet. If space is limited remember potatoes and onions take up lots of room whereas rocket and garlic doesn’t. If cost is an issue remember onions are cheap to buy whereas leeks are relatively expensive.

Next get your seeds in from seed suppliers (I recommend the Irish Seed Savers Association or Mr Middleton’s), garden centres or friendly gardeners you know.  Some vegetables are grown from seed in pots but many can be grown by sowing the seed directly into the soil.  Using a trowel make a shallow trench a few cm deep, put the seed in following the instructions on the packet and cover with soil and lightly firm down. A general rule of thumb is to plant seeds at twice their depth. Always sow evenly and think of the size of the resulting vegetable leaving plenty of space in between and then water.  For early seedlings such as potatoes, cabbage, onions and garlic plant after Paddy’s day. This can be done earlier if you have the luxury of a green house or poly tunnel. By April the ground is warming up and the frost should be totally gone so you can sow beet, carrots, kale, Swiss chard and leeks which are late bloomers and will come into fruition towards the end of the year. Perpetual beet is always a winner, it’s more rewarding than spinach because it goes on for longer and does well in the wet.

Garlic is dead easy to grow and a good one to get children involved with, you don’t even need to dig a trench. Break up a bulb of garlic, separate the cloves and stick in the ground, pointy side up about 2cm below the soil surface. Garlic is a natural anti-biotic and anti-fungal so more resistant to disease than many other vegetables.

As wallets get tighter there has never been a better time to put your Wellingtons on and head down to the vegetable patch. If you want to learn more on growing veg I recommend an excellent evening course run by Kinvara Sustainable Living commencing mid January. I finish with a quote from American writer Lewis Grizzard “It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a home grown tomato” I couldn’t agree more, grow your own veg – it’s food for the soul.

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