'Disguising' food for fussy eaters

[Bluerose]

Hi, would anyone like to share their tips for disguising foods that they give their children in order to get more vitamins etc.?

I have three;

1. pureeing cooked lentils and adding the mixture (when cool) to yorkshire pudding batter. You can't taste the lentils in the finished puddings nor can you see them.

2. Mixing 2/3's orange juice with 1/3 carrot juice.

3. Pureeing peaches and adding them to angel delight
mix, add about 1/2 pint of milk, and just whizz it up as normal.

[OBonio]

I don't have any yet, but my mum used to put grated carrot in my bolognaise sauce. She also tried to mash cauliflower in with mash potatoe! Problem being I could smell the damn cauliflower a mile off so wouldn't eat it. The carrot in bolognaise was fine though.

[lady_p_gold]

My mum used to put an egg in my milk (yuk) but that was before the days of salmonella

[noxlumos]

don't worry about adding anything to fussy eater's food, they really won't die without their daily intake of pureed carrott. Unless your child hs a massively unbalanced diet for some reason just leave them to eat what the like and leave what they don't. All of our kids have had this option and they have all grown up strong and healthy with no vitamin or mineral deficiencies and a good diet by choice, so relax because like OBonio most kids will rumble you then take a dislike to foods they might otherwise have eaten because they think everything tastes like cauliflower or whatever it is your trying to force them to eat :)

[Eejit]

Try making your own pizza's. I put pureed carrot and courgette in the tomato sauce. Nobody knows!

[Vics128]

an egg in your mash, not many vits i dont think, but plenty of protein!

[freak_unique]

my mum used to mash my veggies into my mash potato - id ate them aslong as they wasnt sprouts hah

[miffy63]

My son would eat anything if you called it a biscuit or told him that his favourite football team, Spurs, eats whatever I was trying to get down him.

[curiosity]

Not sure how old your kids are, but when my youngest daughter (5) is wanting to be awkward about something be it food (which she knows presses the right buttons) or getting dressed, going to bed etc I go into TV presenter mode and talk as if she is my co presenter, and say "hello & welcome, today we are going to show you how a princess washes her hair etc" and include the negative bits humourously in the "text" e.g "some princesses may scream their heads off, but we know that isn't really needed" we have a laugh, the task is done and no-one gets stressed. Even though she really enjoys it it hasn't reinforced being awkward so she gets to play the game, as usually she's awkward when tired. She has suggested on the odd occasion that we play the game when she's in a perfectly good mood and baking cakes or something, but it works for us, and stops both of us feeling tense & exhausted! The swimming baths work well before any meal! The Princess who doesn't like onions,spices etc wolfed down a homemade curry, rice & paratha on her return. Then asked for the leftovers for yesterdays lunch.

[Llamatron]

As a kid I was a chronic fussy eater. I pretty much grew up on Marmite on toast and chips.
I had an aunt who once tried slicing open a chip and putting chicken inside to try to get me to eat it. It didn't work.
20 years later and I still hate the taste of chicken.
I'll only touch it if it's in a curry.

Now I'm older I've realised I never was fussy I just didn't like the foods that my parents did. My parents never tried anything other than traditional English cuisine which even now I hate with a passion. So they left me with a massive hang up about food which wasn't at all necessary.

So rather than trying to disguise food why not try different types? Stir fries, Italian, Thai, Chinese etc.. But please don't make a big deal out of it.

[smitch]

I made my kids a 'food rating slider'. There was a 'yuck' face at one end, and a slider all the way over to a 'yum' face at the other end. It made trying new foods much more fun, and they could take a bite, then give the food a rating between yuck and yum. I also found that if I got a yuck rating first time round, if I kept trying them with the same food (just a bite) at regular intervals over a couple of months, the rating usually moved further over to 'yum'. This also taught the kids that their tastes can and will change, and just because you don't like something at first, it doesn't mean you won't ever like it.