Cheryl's experimental clam chowder & why I don't force my kids to eat

[cherydactyl]

I had waaaaay too many potatoes sitting around in my cupboard, and a couple of cans of clams, and some bacon fat I had saved, so I made chowder.

I chopped an onion, cooked the onions in the bacon fat until they were translucent, and then put them in the crock. I chopped up six potatoes and three stalks of celery and put those in the crock too. Then I opened my two cans of clams; juice and all went into the crock, along with some black pepper, and about three cups of water. I cooked that on high for about four hours, then added about a cup of soymilk and some arrowroot slurry, more black pepper, some lemon pepper blend, some salt, and a little paprika. It still wasn't as thick as I would have liked, but it was very tasty. I am adamantly against loading up soup with flour to thicken it, on the grounds that lots of refined flour in the diet is not a good thing.

Both illyaa and S ate a bowl and declared it was good, so I am satisfied. M ate a cream cheese bagel and some olives. She hardly ever eats what we are eating, it seems. OTOH, I remember many a night of eating rice with salt and pepper on it when my family were having chop suey and I couldn't stand it. I figured out later that I have a strong reaction to MSG, so there was a very good reason to avoid the La Choy soy sauce in that dish. Which is why I don't force my kids to do more than try things I make, and offer alternatives. Sometimes the body is wiser than we know at the time. S eats a good variety, and she used to be a good deal pickier than even M is now. So was I as a kid. It will all resolve in time, I expect.

Comments

[sarahwilder.livejournal.com]

I used my potatoes to make samosas!

Also, I wouldn't eat chowder for years and years because it sounded like something someone had eaten already.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

rofl!

Mmmm. Samosas. Do you make dough for the samosas or do you use something prepackaged like wonton wrappers?

[sarahwilder.livejournal.com]

This was my first effort and I was really lazy (3 hours of snowshoeing) so I used the pastry shells I had. They turned out surprisingly well.

[vretallin.livejournal.com]

Oh yes our bodies are very wise. Glad you were able to avoid the MSG as a kid. I am sure your kids will appreciate your flexibility with them and their meals.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

I remember my mom telling me, no, I couldn't have hot lunch on salisbury steak day, because she said I was "allergic." So I must have had some strong reaction to it that she saw before I was aware of it. This would have been early elementary, because I went to a different school starting in 5th grade. It took *me* until college and my going to a few mediocre Chinese restaurants before I really figured it out, unfortunately.

[vretallin.livejournal.com]

Oh wow that is not fun. She only knew the general reaction you had, but never really tried to drill down to the ingredient. :(

[rogueeditor.livejournal.com]

Good for you! We've got one great eater and one super-picky eater...but the wonderful thing about your approach (try, but not forced) is that it does sink in and they learn to do it on their own as they get older.

...and maybe it wasn't perfect, but you can always make it again - it's hard to go REALLY wrong with those ingredients. Heck, they're lucky you're cooking them real food. It's such a rarity these days :-)

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

I am trying to wean us all off of fast food, or at least lower the amount we take in. Which is super hard because I crave fast food fries myself on a regular basis. But I'm trying. :)

[presterjon.livejournal.com]

This wise body thing is something i have a really divided mind on. I had the experience as a kid that I was allergic to alot of things (like cabbage and lettuce and beef and milk and pork for instance) and I was a 'picky' child who had to eat dinner or go hungry. On the other hand I have a five year old who would quite happily subsist on mac&cheese and chicken nuggets for at least a year three meals a day. He will often refuse meals and I do make him eat. Course we have engaged in very expensive allergy testing every year since he was two because I wanted to make certain we were not sickening him.
Its a rough call.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

Believe me, it's not easy sometimes. The vast majority of M's diet is: cheese pizza, mac & cheese, plain noodles, chicken nuggets, rice, occasional "plain" chicken, peanut butter sandwiches (no jelly), cream cheese or goat cheese on a bagel or pita bread, crackers or tortillas dipped in ranch dressing, cereal (she eats Grape Nuts and high fiber cereals preferentially, which I find amusing), yogurt (vanilla or key lime), cheese cubes, french fries, strawberries, black olives, peas, and corn. Very occasionally she will eat hummus. And ice cream and other sweets when we have them, of course.

I'm not sure that it is possible break the "I eat these X things and nothing else" by force. I think it's a pretty common developmental stage. We seem to have been blessed with few if any food allergy issues. illyaa was forced to eat as a child, and I see him trying to do that too, but I really don't think it's helpful. I think it skews one's relationship to food, and may set some people up for lifelong weight struggles. But I am not a dietitian or nutritionist; my opinion is that of a lay person who's struggled with the issue.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

Also, let me say that I think the body can be wise about avoidance, but not about craving. All the sugar and fat that is easily available now is too much for bodies attuned to scarcity of such foods. But if someone is avoiding a food, I'd want try to figure out why.

[presterjon.livejournal.com]

"I think it skews one's relationship to food, and may set some people up for lifelong weight struggles. But I am not a dietitian or nutritionist; my opinion is that of a lay person who's struggled with the issue."

That's something else to think about. I don't think its something nutritionists are qualified to have opinions on but I am sure they do. Its more a psychologist's domain. But not being a child and developmental specialist I have no better a notion than anyone. I'll have to see if there is any research some day when I have time.

Power struggles though are generally bad and perhaps worse when they surround issues like food. Power struggles are most certainly my boy's big issue. Usually that's best handled by avoidance through manipulation of choices. Not always possible.
With dinner we tell him he needs to eat it or it goes in the fridge for later. Later he does not get sweets or something, just dinner on the table. My allergy fears means we always at that point offer an unsweetened alternative (like bread and butter or carrot/celery sticks) and if he chooses that, dinner can go away. Still its sometimes a struggle especially since he gets tantrumy when he is hungry.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

What you describe is how I always *intended* to raise my children, foodwise. Then I got a four-foods picky eater, who seemed to be harming himself with his incredibly narrow list of food choices. We've been down a very long road of figuring out what he's allergic to and requiring him to eat foods that are outside his comfort zone, even though it is incredibly hard for him. I question my choices every day, at every difficult meal. His health is much better today, now that he eats a wider variety. But, like you, I'm not sure that making a person eat food they don't want is such a good idea.

Sigh.

On another topic: Cornstarch, or, my current favorite, potato starch, both are nice non-flour thickeners. That doesn't sound like it's what you're looking for, though.

[cherydactyl.livejournal.com]

As I clarified to presterjohn, I think our bodies are to be paid attention to when they want to avoid things, but not necessarily correct when they crave things. The diet available to us is so out of whack from what evolution appears to have selected for (in order to deal with scarcity of sugar and fat sources), we have to be careful about foods we are drawn too.

I'm not keen on cornstarch. I mashed up a number of the potato pieces, which helped. I was actually thinking about adding tapioca at one point. Those alternate measures just never achieves the rich thickness that dairy and flour can. :/ It's one of those things I crave that I'm not sure is really good for me. ;-)

[doghillkitchen.livejournal.com]

I had such Grande ideas about feeding children before I had Alex. I was going to educate his palate until he was super human, my mighty gastronome. Of course reality stepped in and I got a kid allergic to dairy, peas, lentils and peanuts. He likes his food simple, no spices but I make an effort that even though it's not as varied as I'd like it's mostly quality food. I still wonder if my homemade lamb and lentil babyfood contributed to the lentil allergy. Sorry you couldn't make it yesterday.