Pick Your Food

image from here

Toddlers fussing over food is no news for anyone. As they enter the wonderland of solid foods, they are bound to get lost. They will be picking some as favourites and will be turning up their tiny noses at others.
Little K has not been very different, but I must say he made weaning more easy than tough.
Neither C nor me are fussy eaters - we eat what we reasonably can from our plate; so probably K took it from us. And I would like to brag that I do care to cook fresh meals everyday, so may be that helps too. All proud mums can raise an eyebrow,  and say "Big Deal! every mum does, and should!".

K hasn't been a difficult child on food front (well, on any front really, says the very proud mommy in me). He has slowly built a respectable list of veggies, fruits and other stuff that he readily eats, which as most mums-to-toddlers will agree, is something worth a pat on back. His, and mine.

Over the last month I have noticed that he happily and willingly eats most veggies like cabbage (!),beans, beet root(!),peas, parsnips (!), sweet potato, potato,cauliflower(!),spinach (!), methi ( fenugreek greens) (!), gourds, pumpkins and also raw ones like tomatoes, carrot, cucumber sticks even lettuce!.
I haven't seen much liking for eggplant ( unless well disguised), bhendi (okra)( again, should be accompanied with potato) , bell peppers and mushrooms ( unless on pizza).

He likes Indian food so can eat these in his daily meal -all daals ( lentils)  like toor (split pigeon peas), urad (black gram), moong (green gram), masoor ( red lentils) ; all usals (chickpeas, black eyed beans, kidney beans, moth beans etc) ; roti / chapati, bread, rice, semolina upma, broken wheat porridge / upma.


He also eats a variety of dry powdered chutneys very common to andhra and marathi cuisine. Loves metkut.
He is happy to eat regional dishes like poha (beaten rice), thalipeeth (a kind of bread made by mixing a variety of flours like wheat, sorghum, rice etc) and idli ( steamed rice cakes), dosa (pancakes with a fermented batter).
He eats fruits happily too, and if he is in no mood to eat anything else fruits always come handy.He is OK with most of the common fruits here - bananas, apples, pineapple, strawberries, raspberries, kiwis, oranges, grapes, pears, watermelon. Some exotics like papaya, guava aren't very well received. I have tried mango here a couple of times and he didn't seem keen. But a proper Alphonso mango is still elusive, and I have my hopes pinned on it, that one day K will have his own moment of epiphany.

We cook vegetarian food at home, but he has happily tried chicken and fish elsewhere.
Though he is still not keen on drinking milk, he eats his breakfast cereal well with milk.
He does love eating cupfuls of honey-yoghurt or paneer (cottage cheese), butter and he adores ghee ( clarified butter).
He likes his eggs boiled or fried. Even omelettes work well.

Every time I make a trip to India, I look around just to see what snack or tea-time stuff kids eat around me. I take a trip down memory lane to remember what we ate as kids during those 'neither lunch nor dinner' hunger pangs.
And then I bring it here so that little K can eat it here in London.
Some favourites are rolls - tup-sakhar-poli or gul-tup-poli ( flat bread smeared with ghee, sprinkled with sugar or crushed palm sugar), lahya cha peeth , nachnichi kheer, ravyachi kheer,  bhadang, different types of wadis, ladoos, chivdas.
Biscuits, bars, munchies like crisps weren't very omnipresent then, and snacking would mean eating phutane, or peanuts and a piece of jaggery, sprouts etc.
K is OK with it. He likes chikki, peanuts, soaked almonds, cashews etc.

As happy as I am with his eating habits, he is still my little baby, and I don't mind spoiling him once in a while with treats. Biscuits (cream biscuits please), pastries, chocolates, ice-lollies are firm favourites and greatly relished. The trick is to keep them just as a once-in-a-while treat; if he can have it easily,it loses the appeal.

There are some simple rules that both C and me follow. We don't eat so called junk food in front of K ( well you can't just give it up in a night, can you?) , at least at meal times. We hardly buy crisps any more. Or all the deep fried goodies we were used to, to go with our tea. Or the lovely cakes that you can eat with a scoop of ice cream. No frozen meals, no heat-and-eats. Heck, C even gave up jams on his toast, lest K gets hooked to the sugar-high it brings!

But we are no food police, and we do give in to our temptations once in a while. Just that eating has been consciously more healthy since little K has started joining us at the dinner table.
And no one is complaining!