Thanks. I notice myself craving way more sugar late at night than I did in my 40s. I blame both hormones and the Pandemic.
We didn’t sit around watching 3 h of Prime or Netflix a night before 2020.
I never snacked while watching tv before March 16, 2020.
I bought the smart TV on March 15, 2020, and signed up for Netflix on March 16th.
I also wasn’t keeping Pringles, microwave popcorn or candy on hand before March 2020.
We used to go to the movies once or twice a week, and my mom would get a medium or large popcorn. I usually would have hot tea. Because I was usually sticking to a diet and not eating crap after dinner. 2020 really undid what had been my regimen. I can hold off on treats from 9 pm until 11 pm, and I lose my self control at 11:02 pm.
I have 3 grandchildren, all raised in the same health conscious household, each with a different food preference and dislike. The eldest craves salt and sugar. Her younger sister devours meat and eschews vegetables except for red peppers. Her brother LOVES plain vegetables. (Once on an overnight I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. His siblings always wanted bacon and pancakes. He responded, “Do you have any more broccoli?”
Anyone who has children or has cared for them knows there are no absolutes and no platitudes.
And anyone who has walked a mile in any parent’s shoes would give empathy before judgement.
Indian kids aren’t eating everything their parents are — there’s parallel food cooked for them, less spicy, easier to feed, kid-pleasing. Sometimes they’ll subsist on plain rice or chapatis. There might be plain yogurt on offer, or fruit, or anything else that a parent can get down.
One of my favorite “just eat something” meals as a kid was chapatis rolled up with jaggery softened with ghee, the other one was plain rice with ghee and salt.
For one of my nephews, it was chapatis rolled up with ghee and sugar, and buttered pasta with parmesan. For the other one, plain rice with ghee and sugar, and buttered pasta no parmesan.
All our palates are expansive now, but we still wouldn’t turn down any of those things
Agreed but at the same time there are different approaches and philosophies from different people and the purpose of a discussion board is to disagree on them and discuss them. For example, you wrote that you think from your perspective it is fine to cook different meals for kids compared what their parents eat and that is totally fine. At the same time, we have a different philosophy and see it for us as a wrong approach and our daughter, since she is pretty much one year old, eats the same as us and we could never imagine cooking something “safe” for her separately
Bravo for your successful first year. Our son was the same. Put it in front of him and he ate it. And then he hit 3 and decided he had definite preferences. He held on to many of these until his teenage years when he started paying attention to his dates’ likes and dislikes, with much more emphasis on vegetables.
I took to heart something I read that said kids needed to be exposed to new foods 10-15 times to fully accept them. So if we were having pasta with pesto, their pasta might be plain the first time, second time I’d smear a little pesto on their plate, third time a watered down sauce. I was also a big fan of reverse psychology once they were verbal: Oh, you probably won’t like this sauce because it is for grownups. #2 kid, in particular, always fell for that one and immediately wanted the “grown up” food.
As young adults, both of them are very adventurous eaters and one of them is a good cook.
I agree that some children who eat just about everything parents eat at younger ages develop marked and much less diverse preferences as they get older. They don’t all develop as Honkman’s daughter has; I have several close friends who had some children who narrowed their preferences. I don’t think it’s fair to blame parents.
In fact my own youngest brother was one such child who at age 6 suddenly started refusing foods he had previously eaten enthusiastically. He didn’t expand his food preferences until he was about 25.
Well, phases of picky eating are one thing. As long as they grow up to be adults who at least try something before turning their nose at it, who cares about a phase of something (well, presumably the parents who have to deal with it )
I concur. The fact that any number of users can seemingly piss away several hours a day on a food forum while presumably working FT jobs— tho we do seem to have a healthy contingent of retirees — while discussing at length the inticracies of a specific recipe or technique, or championing that extra-special piece of cookware, or reporting on their latest 7 day string of 3* blowout meals… that’s the definition of privilege.
Every single user on HO is privileged, and some more than others.
(well, presumably the parents who have to deal with it 
)
