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

[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.