My Children: The PICKIEST of Picky Eaters

 Why don’t my children eat? I ask myself constantly.

I know what you are thinking: “MY children eat, she must be pandering to
 them in some way” and “don’t give them anything else. If they are hungry
 they will eat”

But here’s the thing. I am really not pandering to them. My children simply
 appear to have wills of iron when it comes to food – and yes, they will go hungry.

I have heard it all when it comes to solutions to picky eaters.

‘Don't give them any choice’ is one classic.

I don’t.

‘Just keep putting it on their plate ultimately they will eat it’ is another.

Mine haven't and they’re 7 and 9 years-old.

But I still persist, putting food on their plate for them to waste.

What I have learnt is all that all the advice is complete rubbish when it comes to
 my own children.

Over the years I have tried lots of things to encourage them, including going to a
special children's group for picky eaters. The end result was after 6 weeks my
 daughter LICKED a pepper, once, without making a huge fuss.

One night, on advice from a friend, I tried adding food colouring to make food
 more interesting.

The problem was, I only had green colouring.  And for all you parents out there – here’s
 a tip: green mashed potatoes on shepherd’s pie does not look tasty… I couldn't even eat it,
 so let alone the kids…

Their eating wasn't great before I my brain haemorrhage but after the event I just needed
 food to be straightforward.

People were really helpful but introducing the children to new foods was just not
 important in comparison to coming to terms with the fact that I had very nearly died
and that life had completely and irrevocably changed.

For those years when trying new foods is important I had very little control over food.
I certainly wasn't able to make anything or even think about it to be honest.

On her very first day I asked my Personal Assistant to make the shepherd's pie I usually
made. But when they came in from school, my children’s first words were not to introduce
themselves to the woman who was there to make their recovering mother’s life easier,
instead they stood there with faces like they’d sucked several lemons and said: “Yuck!”
 asking the poor woman: “what are you making?!”

I had warned her but that isn't what you want to hear on your first day…

To get vegetables in them I've taken to hiding it. I am back to weaning when I cook,
 puree and freeze as ice cubes- I add several to pasta bake.

Homemade pitta pizza has a layer of carrot hidden by the tomato puree. Even my
homemade chocolate brownie has sweet potato in it (shhh - it's yummy - they actually
 compared it to ones they love from Costa!) I know that ultimately the kids need to eat
 properly but what else can I do?

'Crudité-Gate' still sticks in my mind for all the wrong reasons. I asked my PA to prepare
 crudités for the kids – there was ham or cheese with bits of cucumber, pepper, carrot and
cute little triangles of pitta bread on their plate as well as a Dairylea triangle AND a little
pot with mayonnaise. It was, I thought, a lovely summer's tea.

Not so. You would have thought I was trying to hurt them.

My favourite moment was my daughter, in front of my poor PA, saying incredulously:
 “you have had 2 hours since we got home from school and you have cooked us
NOTHING for our tea?’

Now this doesn't show my daughter in the best of lights and I should make it clear if
 food isn't involved then she can be lovely, funny, really helpful and truly, she is very kind.

I was going to leave it at crudités-gate but on January 30 we suffered 'Cheesy Pasta - Gate'
 which was worse. In fact I still feel traumatised by it!

As opposed to giving her nice safe, boring plain pasta, I dared add the tiniest smear of a
 cheesy butternut squash sauce. OK, so butternut squash is a bit more risqué than peas or
 carrots but it's a lot easier to hide and you can disguise the taste with lots and lots of cheese!

Anyway, I think the best moment was when my beloved daughter yelled at me that I was
 trying “to poison her” and she was “going to phone Childline”. So I offered to look up the
 number for her (no need apparently – she’d learned it at school!)

What's hilarious and slightly worrying is she wants to be (and has wanted to be for over 6
 months now) a chef.

Now I am the kind of person who would normally encourage... but seriously, a chef?
What will she cook at her future Michelin-starred restaurant? Just cake? All I keep thinking
 is that a few months ago she wanted to be a zoo keeper…

I’m not sure what the answer is. I guess I just have to continue to offer food and continue to
 have the daily conversation of “go on try it”, “just have half” followed by “you just have to
 have X bites”, which I have to say worked better when my children were younger… I’d
love to hear your tips on getting children to eat healthily. Please do comment below!