Gone to the dogs

Since my son’s sixth birthday earlier this year he has decided that he is no longer a fussy eater. Years of coaxing, tears (from us all) and shouting have gone and now he is happy to eat things like Pizza, pasta, mashed potato and most importantly fruit and vegetables, which at one time would have made him gag at the thought. My wife always insisted that this was passed to him genetically, as I am - i confess - a fussy eater.

Brought up as a vegetarian, I was never exposed to any meats other than the “Three B’s”: Bacon, Burgers and Bangers. At home I seemed to exist solely on Baked Beans on toast or other odd combinations of salad, cheese and dried fruit all mashed together in Pitta bread (which I still enjoy - as does my six year old!). We had our main food groups sorted. We were a happy, well nourished and content, wholemeal bread family.

However, apart from other neurosies too many to mention here, this lead me to develop my theory about the food I had never tried. It goes something like this:

“I have never eaten dog shit… but I know I would’nt like it!”

It makes perfect sense to me. I have never eaten Chicken or Lamb but I know I would not like it if i did. Not just because we used to keep Chickens in the back garden when I was young or anything like that - I just know I would’nt like the taste!

I am better than I used to be. My wife also insists that when we met and I was living on my own I was fuelled on Peanut Butter sandwiches. This is not true, as I was mostly fuelled on overtime pay, sexual urges, cheap beer and cigarettes.

I suppose the moral of this posting is this: If you do have a child who is a fussy eater, unless you want to bind them to a chair and force food down them there is’nt a great deal you can do. Just be calm, patient, understanding and it’ll all come good in the end. They ain’t gonna let themselves starve.

Then again, there was that story about the child who just ate Rice Krispies four times a day for seven years - and lived! What were his parents thinking?