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Real food at proper mealtimes. Have fun learning about where real food comes from, grow things yourself - even if it's just mustard and cress on some kitchen towel, make food from scratch yourself as much as possible. And do it by hand so there's plenty of opportunity to talk about what's happening and why. There's a lot of science to talk about when you're making proper food. Making fruit crumble, for example, was a favourite from when the DB was tiny. It needs fingertip work to rub the butter into the flour - it's a lot of fun for a child to master that skill and eat the results. (He also used a knife from being small because I wanted him to learn about controlling a blade, and safety in general. I know not all parents would go along with that.)
That sounds like a very good plan for letting a child learn to have a good relationship with food. I particularly like that your son was and is a participant in making the food. I helped my mom in the kitchen from a small age because she worked full time. I also helped her with the weekend baking and she explained why we did the things we did. Mom was NOT good with a knife so I didn't learn good knife skills until hubby showed me.Originally Posted by silverbirch
Jessica, some very useful pointers from Andrea above. Here are a few remarks from me. Anecdotal evidence: the DB (17) eats most things and doesn't have a sweet tooth. He ate what we ate from when he was weaned. The principle we used was based on being a participant, not a consumer. Real food at proper mealtimes. Have fun learning about where real food comes from, grow things yourself - even if it's just mustard and cress on some kitchen towel, make food from scratch yourself as much as possible. And do it by hand so there's plenty of opportunity to talk about what's happening and why. There's a lot of science to talk about when you're making proper food. Making fruit crumble, for example, was a favourite from when the DB was tiny. It needs fingertip work to rub the butter into the flour - it's a lot of fun for a child to master that skill and eat the results. (He also used a knife from being small because I wanted him to learn about controlling a blade, and safety in general. I know not all parents would go along with that.)
IMO being in the kitchen or harvesting food from a garden and finding out where and how the things we eat are grown/made is a good thing for anyone at any age.
Dagmar
