Help feeding teenagers

DamePiglet

I have a picky husband, I call him the complainer. Don't tell them they are eating healthy just try to disguise it. Brown pasta put sauce on it. the rice, take your potion out and put a little butter and grated parm cheese on it, you'd be surprised how just that improves the flavor. I try to eat low carb but I make a starch every night for them, I just don't eat it. Mashed potatoes, add cauliflower to it they will never know! Grind up loads of veggies in a food processer and mix them in, they will never know! Tell them to try what ever you make, if they don't like don't eat it. I do this my whole family eats better and actually like the healthy stuff! good luck!

Oh my...
Finicky teenagers are going to detect cauliflower in mashed potatoes.

My husband would, and he'd be unhappy at my misrepresentation. And that's what it would be.

No they won't. I pulled this over on my nephews just a few weeks ago, and they didn't know. They even went back for seconds. After I told them they were astonished.

Still misrepresenting.

"Pulling it over"
How nice. Lets not be honest, let's trick them.

Then let's wonder why they don't trust us.

This. My kids knew what they were getting, and why. Just because they didn't like it, didn't mean they didn't have to eat it, if it was good for them. How will they learn to eat healthy if they are tricked into eating healthy foods? Who is going to sneak it into their food when they move out on their own?

:drinker:

csuhar

I live with my boyfriend and his teenagers. My boyfriend wants to eat healthily and I am a week into 1,200 a day and Insanity.

My trouble comes when preparing meals for the kids. They don't like brown pasta or brown rice, prawns and fish in general are a no no for them. So I usually end up preparing two meals, eg a prawn and salmon brown pasta meal and then a chicken and white pasta one.

Does anyone have any suggestions for low calorie meals which are not loaded with carbs for fussy eaters??

It's a challenge to provide meal suggestions because only you and your boyfriend know exactly how fussy they are. And, I will admit, I can't tell from my seat where their fussiness comes from. I've known people who were fussy because they didn't like the food offered, people who were fussy because they didn't like the person offering it, and even people who were fussy because they didn't like that we didn't go to the restaurant they wanted to go to.

So fussiness could come from many areas.

I do think that the idea of letting people load their own plates is a possibility. I've been to many big family meals where that worked very well to accommodate different tastes. Don't like Brussel Sprouts? Just pass them on to the next person.

There's also, given that we're talking about teenagers, some merit to the idea of "eat what is provided, or make your own meals" because that should be within their capabilities.

I will say that in my family as I was growing up (so this doesn't have to apply anywhere outside my family), the rule was that we ate what mom cooked or went hungry. And, while you weren't required to clean your plate, you DID have to finish it before you could eat something else. There was no saying "I don't want to eat my beans" at dinner and then eating chips an hour later. And that meant you sometimes ate things you didn't really like, but there was still some level of what you might call accommodation. My brother didn't like peas (or anything green, for that matter), so we wouldn't have peas TOO often, and when we did, he was allowed to have a smaller portion, especially as he got older. But my parent's approach was that, as long as my brother and I were their legal responsibility, that included making sure we ate a balanced diet, so he still had to eat his veggies. When he turned 18 and went off to college, he was allowed to eat pizza for every meal if that's what he wanted.

chandanista

How do you feel about crock pot meals? You can assemble a bunch at once, throw them in the freezer, and pull them out as needed. You can adjust your eaten portion, have it with brown rice while the others eat with white, or whatever.

Here's a blog a friend linked to me yesterday, this page has 10 recipes but if you look on the right there are links to previous entries of 8 or 23 top crock pot recipes. Most of these are a protein and a bunch of vegetables, with things like soy sauce and barbeque sauce (you can probably adjust that for healthier results if you are watching your sodium, etc) :

http://www.mommysfabulousfinds.com/2013/10/easy-crock-pot-freezer-meals-2.html

Beyond that...I'd be tempted to eat a Lean Cuisine every night and toss them a cookbook when they ask "what's for dinner".

WendyTerry420

It's not so much parenting advice, as perhaps shock at the disrepect and ingratitude. Growing up, I didn't love everything my parents cooked for meals (both cooked), but I ate them because your past palate is neither a predictor of health, nor your future one and if you don't expand it while young, it actually can become very difficult to expand later.

This is so not true!

My parents had very simple tastes, they still have actually, and my brother and I spent the first 16 or so years of our life eating very simple meals of meat and veg. Casseroles, roasts ans such were almost all my Mum cooked, a treat was when Dad cooked a full English breakfast when Mum was working late. However as adults we both discovered a world of food...literally. We are both keen cooks and will eat (or at least try) just about anything. Your palette changes as you get older, in fact you start to lose the ability to taste strong flavours, so strong flavours that children dislike will likely be fine for them as they get older!

There are lots of foods I wouldn't touch as a kid that I tried again as an adult and enjoy eating. Most grown-ups expand their food choices. Kids need not be forced to eat things they don't like. In fact, it could potentially cause an eating disorder if you force them to eat.

WendyTerry420

I have a picky husband, I call him the complainer. Don't tell them they are eating healthy just try to disguise it. Brown pasta put sauce on it. the rice, take your potion out and put a little butter and grated parm cheese on it, you'd be surprised how just that improves the flavor.

Eww. Sauce does NOT help pasta or rice with a nasty texture.

glovepuppet

I wouldn't bother educating someone else's children, either. If he raised them to be that way, let him cook for them or let them buy their own food and cook for themselves - they're well past the age where they should be able to cook for themselves.

if you move into their home, and they accept you, throwing a hissy fit about having to boil two pans of pasta is petty and stupid. cooking just for herself and her partner would send a very unpleasant signal about how she views the family unit. looking for compromise meals is a reasonable first step.

WendyTerry420

I really don't understand the blunt and almost aggresive answers some people are giving. Ok, so in your opinions children should eat what is put before them, but that doesn't always work especially when implemented at a late stage. Being a step parent is tough at the best of times and having a confrontational "eat it or go without attitude" could have major repercussions on family life!

Also, for some children it's more than 'being picky' my son has sensory issues and it's taken me 16 years to get him to eat something close to a normal diet...even now he won't eat anything with runny sauce/gravy or any vegetable except peas/mange tout and similar and they have to be raw! Needless to say I cooked seperate meals for him for years. A health visitor once told me to put food in front of him and not allow anything else to eat until he'd eaten it, as children won't starve themselves. I followed her advice and after 48 hours gave in as he was very distressed and so was I! He was 3 at the time and the meal was sausages and mash.

Anyway, to the OP, my advice is similar to what's been said by a few people already.
1. Teach them to cook and provide them with basic ingredients to make simple meals - my son can now cook a few basic meals for himself and it helped him realise how hard I'd been working to keep him fed all these years.

2. Keep talking to them and showing them what you are cooking for yourselves, letting them try what you've made if they want to. My younger son has always tried what we're eating and at 14 he's a lover of all thing fishy.

3. Batch cook something they like (say lasange or similar) that you can freeze and microwave when needed. Maybe make this a cooking lesson for them too?

4. Sometimes you just have to cook two things, even if we're all having the same meal I have to cook gluten free pasta for my husband and normal white pasta for the rest of us, I'd prefer brown but I'm not cooking 3 lots! You just have to compromise sometimes.

thanks - it's easy to see which posters actually are bringing up children. Most of those with the "take it leave it" attitude seem to be referencing their own perfect childhoods.

Mine are 14 and 16. They know how to make basic things like a sandwich or mac n cheese. I make several things that my husband and I enjoy and they don't. I simply announce it ahead of time, and they will know that they are on their own for dinner that night. It's not "take it or leave it," but rather, "take it or make your own." I am so glad they are old enough to take care of themselves now.

Greytfish

I wouldn't bother educating someone else's children, either. If he raised them to be that way, let him cook for them or let them buy their own food and cook for themselves - they're well past the age where they should be able to cook for themselves.

if you move into their home, and they accept you, throwing a hissy fit about having to boil two pans of pasta is petty and stupid. cooking just for herself and her partner would send a very unpleasant signal about how she views the family unit. looking for compromise meals is a reasonable first step.

Good thing no one suggested hissy fits.

You're a tad ahead of yourself. She's neither a parent, nor a step-parent.

ileitch

if they don't like brown rice or pasta, just call them racist.

Ricist.

soldierofgod713

Thats exactly what I say to my step children.

soldierofgod713

Not the racist thing... I say they can eat peanut butter and jelly if they dont like whats for dinner.

dragonflydi

I am a step parent to a rather picky 17 year old girl (as a result of being allowed to eat only what she wanted (and by this I mean nothing but junk) for her first 15 years) and over the last 2 years, we have come to a couple of "arrangements" in this area.

1) She goes shopping with us and picks what she would like to have incorporated into meals, with the expectation that it must be 'reasonably' healthy. For every 4-5 healthy items she selects (chicken, spinach, pork chops, green beans, etc) we let her choose one "lesser healthy" item (usually either frozen pizza rolls or pop tarts ... that is the type of food she existed on completely prior to her dad meeting me). She usually ends up getting to select 2 "junky" items, but in return, we have about 10 with which we can usually muster up a reasonable week's worth of meals with that is reasonably healthy.

2) At my house, she no longer gets to fix her own plate. In lines with the "starving kids in Africa", I take left overs for lunch and she would routinely pile up her plate and eat about 1/4 of it, tossing the rest in the garbage. Now when we eat at my house, I fix her plate and if she wants more, she is welcome to have more, but there is no more throwing my hard earned money and cooking time in the garbage can.

It is hard when you are a step parent and the child(ren) in question have been allowed to behave in a certain manner, even if it being excessively picky eaters. I think like anything else, the answer is 'everything in moderation'.

A step parent is likely to cause more harm than good by suddenly pulling an "eat it or starve" option this late in the game. If the kids were younger, I would have totally different advice but having teen step kids of my own, I totally get where the OP is coming from.

lisst87

I wouldn't bother educating someone else's children, either. If he raised them to be that way, let him cook for them or let them buy their own food and cook for themselves - they're well past the age where they should be able to cook for themselves.

if you move into their home, and they accept you, throwing a hissy fit about having to boil two pans of pasta is petty and stupid. cooking just for herself and her partner would send a very unpleasant signal about how she views the family unit. looking for compromise meals is a reasonable first step.

No hissy fits in this house The reason I posted was to look for compromise meals, If need be I don't mind cooking two meals , it wont ruin my day, but I do all the cooking in the house so it would be nice to be able to make something healthy that everyone can eat and enjoy.

I'm neither a parent or a step parent and to be honest wouldn't dream of telling someone else's children to 'take it or leave it', that's for their parents to do. I also don't fancy a houseful of teenagers bickering with their dad about food. Healthy compromise is all I was looking for.

seltzermint555

I am a step parent to a rather picky 17 year old girl (as a result of being allowed to eat only what she wanted (and by this I mean nothing but junk) for her first 15 years) and over the last 2 years, we have come to a couple of "arrangements" in this area.

1) She goes shopping with us and picks what she would like to have incorporated into meals, with the expectation that it must be 'reasonably' healthy. For every 4-5 healthy items she selects (chicken, spinach, pork chops, green beans, etc) we let her choose one "lesser healthy" item (usually either frozen pizza rolls or pop tarts ... that is the type of food she existed on completely prior to her dad meeting me). She usually ends up getting to select 2 "junky" items, but in return, we have about 10 with which we can usually muster up a reasonable week's worth of meals with that is reasonably healthy.

2) At my house, she no longer gets to fix her own plate. In lines with the "starving kids in Africa", I take left overs for lunch and she would routinely pile up her plate and eat about 1/4 of it, tossing the rest in the garbage. Now when we eat at my house, I fix her plate and if she wants more, she is welcome to have more, but there is no more throwing my hard earned money and cooking time in the garbage can.

It is hard when you are a step parent and the child(ren) in question have been allowed to behave in a certain manner, even if it being excessively picky eaters. I think like anything else, the answer is 'everything in moderation'.

A step parent is likely to cause more harm than good by suddenly pulling an "eat it or starve" option this late in the game. If the kids were younger, I would have totally different advice but having teen step kids of my own, I totally get where the OP is coming from.

Edited. My original comment sounded too harsh. Suffice it to say, I am disturbed and shocked that a 17 yr old needs that kind of micromanagement. She's one year away from legal adulthood. There are 17 yr olds in college, with full-time jobs, and who are parents.

Just wow.

And I don't mean that negatively toward you or anything. I'm just amazed.

dragonflydi

Edited. My original comment sounded too harsh. Suffice it to say, I am disturbed and shocked that a 17 yr old needs that kind of micromanagement. She's one year away from legal adulthood. There are 17 yr olds in college, with full-time jobs, and who are parents.

Just wow.

And I don't mean that negatively toward you or anything. I'm just amazed.

Comments like this is the very reason I stopped even commenting on this site several months ago - I did not ask to be judged, criticized or to have my step-daughter ridiculed because she is not as "mature" as some teens who are "in college, with full time jobs or who are parents" (which does not, in and of itself, make them mature, responsible people and often times, quite the opposite).

I merely offered a suggestion that I hadn't yet seen offered. Nothing more ... but suffice to say that I guess it's a good thing that *I* met her dad and have chosen to love her like my own and *teach* her rather than you, because she deserves better than someone who will merely shake their head in disappointment and disapproval and cast her aside.

Comment further if you like, but I won't be coming back to this thread to see it.