Give kids food for thought

IT IS absolutely vital to feed our children well – their energy, vitality, and ability to concentrate all depends on the quality of the food we feed them.

When I say well, I mean wholesome, nourishing, naturally-produced food, free of chemicals, additives and artificial colourings.

Kid’s palettes are very sensitive and can pick up nuances of flavour or lack of much more acutely then we often can. I have observed this many times over with my own children and grandchildren. Little Amelia Peggy was first introduced to tomatoes and baby cucumbers when she was about eight months old in the summer of 2008. She loved them and ate them like fruit. It was quite noticeable that she ate less at the end of the season when both vegetables and fruit lose their sweetness through lack of sunshine. Eventually the crop was finished, but she was too young to ask where they had disappeared to.

Some months later while she rode around the supermarket in her mum’s trolley she got very excited when she suddenly spotted some cherry tomatoes in the vegetable section and gesticulated wildly in their direction. She was a bit baffled at the packaging but she couldn’t wait to get at them. She popped one into her mouth chewed a little, grimaced and promptly spat it out. She literally didn’t eat another tomato until she plucked one off the plant the following summer. This and many other examples have led me to believe my theory about children’s palates but this is only anecdotal evidence.

Parents who grow their own vegetables, herbs and fruit will confirm that their children will eat everything particularly if they have helped to grow it. Visitors are constantly amazed to see our grandchildren tucking into platefuls of mussels or peeling shrimps or wiggling periwinkles out of their shells, no one bats an eyelid – they don’t think there is anything peculiar about it.

The little ones run into the greenhouse and pluck the beans off the plants and eat them there and then. They love shelling the broad beans to find the tiny beans cuddled up inside the furry lining. Of course they also eat them cooked but many never even make it into the kitchen not to speak of the pot. Porridge or fruit muesli is their favourite breakfast. Several of the grandchildren don’t know any other breakfast cereal exists. When our eldest grandson Joshua was about five he arrived home from school one day and much to Rachel’s surprise asked for Corn Flakes, she wondered why he wanted them. It transpired that he had no idea what they were but wanted to have the little toys from the packet like his pals at school, so Myrtle collected them from the Corn Flakes in Ballymaloe House and then he was happy. They also baffle their friends by fighting over the drum sticks on a chicken which causes a bit of a problem considering each chicken only has two drumsticks. So far we have managed to pass off the delicious crispy wings as mini drum sticks.

Good food habits are unquestionably laid down when children are young. If they are introduced early to a variety of foods, they seem to enjoy them as the norm. One can control their diet well when they are little but it becomes more of a challenge when they go to school.

It’s a huge help to parents if the school have a healthy eating policy and refuse to allow fizzy drinks and bars into school lunches. Nonetheless – once they go to school they’ll get to taste all kinds of foods that include flavours specially formulated to stimulate a craving. Still if you have managed to foster good eating habits when they are little you are likely to experience less difficulty.

I’m quite sure my grandchildren would tuck into a well-known brand of burger as good as the rest, but it’s a rare treat. Nourishing food does not have to be expensive, food is cheaper and has a much better flavour when it is in season.