I mentioned before my four year old is eating everything in site and it drives me nuts because I view it as gluttony. It is hard to get out of the house to get food with 5 feet tall snow drifts in the path of my front door, so I am very frustrated when I buy a hude bunch of bananas on Sunday, to see my four year old has eaten them all by Monday afternoon and no one else had a chance to have one. Especially when I purchased enough for everyone to have one a day for the week.
I try to cook healthy and yummy meals, and the rest of the family assures me I do.I am also frustrated that after I found Fastolph sitting in the corner of the pantry on a pile of banana peels, he will not eat his dinner.
I know the poor boy is hungry, he waited until dinner last night and practically consummed a pork tenderloin on his own.
I also think he is bored. His siblings do schoolwork all day, and even though I do some with him, his attention span is not very long. Poor guy is sort of in the odd
man out stage.
Alicia offers some constructive advice:
I almost made a comment about the hungry 4 year old - if you are accurate in your discernment that it is gluttony and not hunger, then I don't have a problem. And if you truly are budgeting food that tightly, I think that it is important to meet the needs of all your children, not just one. But I think that I would offer a constantly 'hungry' 4 year old something nutritious but not necessarily tasty to eat - a hungry child will eat whatever is offered, where as a greedy or bored one will whine "I don't like that!". As a child, I was sometimes so hungy that I ate the pith from the inside of my orange peels, and cracked open the prune kernels and ate the 'almond' inside. My mom had a weight problem and had very warped ideas about how much a growing child needed - I now have a weight problem and my own issues with food - but only one of my 6 kids has weight or food issues, and I guess that is all I can ask for (all 4 girls in my family have issues).
While I am somewhat concerned about weight for me, I worry a great deal more about proper nutrition for all the children. Since Gorbulas is an asthmatic, I worry that proper nutrition is his best line of defense from illness. The same is true for all my children. For example I have never said "Fastolph, do not eat anymore of that because you will get fat." (To be honest, I really do not worry about my kids and weight. In a few years they will no longer be able to eat some of the few things that kids enjoy that adults cannot lie French Fries, let them enjoy them now.). I have said however, "Fastolph, you may not have anymore of that because your brother and sister have not had any." Or "Fastolph, how about a glass of milk instead because I would like to see you get some more calcium for your bones, and less sugar that are in those apples..." Or today "Fastolph, you did not finish your lunch, so you may not have snacks until dinner." He wanted to play instead of eat, so I warned him.
My six year old is just the same. He loves fruit especially!
Good! Better that than the "Cheesy Poofs" et al. that his brothers and sisters have grown to discover.
Lately "Clementine" e-z peel tangerines from Spain have been cheap--that kid can plow through a whole box! When I catch him, I say, "Joseph, STOP! Too much fruit will give you DIARRHEA!"
That usually slows him down for a day or two!
Kathy,
The Clementines (which I also love) that I have been purchasing lately have been bad, so I stopped buying them. My four year old grabbed one and it was totally green. I was so grossed out.
It may also just be a stage of growth . . . all of my children have gone through phases where they are "eating machines." A couple months of bingeing and then they decide that they aren't going to eat enough to keep mice alive for a couple months. Right now, the teenager is eating everything in sight-- his afterschool snack is an entire box of macaroni and cheese, washed down with two glasses of chocolate milk. The little guy, however, is subsisting entirely on tortillas and Sunny Delight. A month ago, he was gorging on everything. So who knows.
I personally don't put a limit on fruit or raw vegetables. Yes, it is a mighty pain to buy a sack of plums or a bag of mini carrots and to find them all eaten within 2 hours, but they're much cheaper and more nutritious than cookies or chips. And, honestly, a child can eat their weight in fruit and veggies without gaining much weight . . . bananas are the only real fattening fruit (and my Tribe dislikes them anyway.) Buy a bag of apples, some carrots, and some broccoli and let the boy go wild. All the chewing is bound to wear him down before he gains any weight. :) Just don't let him have the fattening dips, chips, breads, and cookies that are the real big fat sources.
This un-asked-for advice brought to you by the vegetable famers of America! Oh, and Chile . . ..
Adults don't like French fries?!? Then what is that mound of golden goodness that I like next to my New York steak with buerre rouge? If they were not such a hassle to make, I would eat French fries five times a week, but to peel them, cut them, par-fry them, cool them, then final fry them is just too lengthy a process. Too bad, because I love fries.
Last night I was in this 10-wks. pregnant "hating the thought of most food, craving something bad and weak from it all" state. I couldn't get French fries off my mind, but really couldn't justify McDonald's. I even asked my husband if he could maybe make some at home that might be a little better for me, but he said it would be too hard. I'd love a good recipe for homemade French fries just to see how much work they are.
(In the end, I ate some Cranberry Almond Clusters, a cereal from Trader Joe's with 14g sugar per serving, in whole milk, and didn't want French fries anymore.)
Use baking potatoes. Peel them. Cut them into fries (I think the guage that McDonald's uses is about the perfect size, although that might be a local thing, as all the traditional San Francisco restaurants serve this size). Fry them gently in peanut oil and drain when they are about half done. Let them cool and then fry them to done in peanut oil. If you have tons of it around, goose fat works nicely, but you have to fry at high temperature (or else they are greasy), so you cannot reuse it, and I prize my goose fat too much to use so much of it for one thing like that. Salt them and serve them piping hot.
Oh no Erik, I love french fries, but they go straight to the hips in ways that they never did when I was small.
M'Lynn, raw broccoli is a great snack. I'll add bunches of that to the snack roster.
I have a 4-yr-old boy, too, and sometimes he gets this way, and it's a growth spurt. Boy, he will shoot up like 2 inches in a month & he complains of constant hunger & bone pains, too. If I think he's bored, I'll try to delay him by offering play-doh or connect-the-dot pages or something like that -- an activity that he doesn't get to do very often. If he jumps at the activity, I know he's just bored. If he tries it but continually complains that he wants food, then I know it's a growth spurt.
I just posted a recipe for oven fries, which are considerably less hassle than fried fries, and in my opinion, much tastier. You can find it here.
http://caritatedei.stblogs.org/archives/012493.html
When the child starts eating the playdough, you know that he is either really hungry or really bored!
Cabbage is pretty inexpensive right now, and simple coleslaw might also be a good snack - especially if the child can help make it by tearing the cabbage leaves one by one into little bits - I like to dress my shredded cabbage with a homey vinaigrette rather than the creamy mayo stuff. Oh, another idea. Encourage the children to learn to eat with chopsticks - it slows down the eating so that the stomach and brain can catch up with each other. And it can be lots of fun. Cheerios with chopsticks is one way to start (dry, not with milk at least at first!).
I make oven fries often; I couldn't imagine frying them!
Just take potatoes (1 and a half per person), wash them (leave the skins on and they're better for you) cut into your favourite fry length and thickness. Put them in a bowl. Add olive oil, pepper, salt (or Mrs. Dash), and any other spice you like (I use oregano, italian seasoning, rosemary, dill and parsley in small amounts). Then stir the mixture until the potatoes are well-coated. Stick on a cookie sheet in a pre-heated 400F oven for 35 minutes, or until brown and crispy. Turn after 20 minutes.
My 2-year-old eats these at the same galloping rate as McDonald's fries. And I'm in control of the fat and salt content.
PS. You can use a low-fat cooking spray like Pam if olive oil is too fatty for you.