I explore the challenges and joys of cooking for and with children. We all know it can be messy but I talk more about how we can involve children in the kitchen  plus I share an incredible email from a listener who shares her cooking challenges for her family but offers some sound advice.

Also listen out near the end as I set us all a challenge for the half term break - let me know how you get on. 

 If you have a question or tips to share you can send them through to 

notpastaagain@hotmail.com

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Find out about me and how I work as a Thermomix advisor myfoodforthought.co.uk

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Cooking for Children

02:26 Challenges of Cooking for ‘Fussy Eaters’

08:22 Navigating Dietary Needs and Family Dynamics

14:28 Reclaiming Adult Meal Times

17:53 Involving Children in Cooking

20:54 Conclusion and Future Topics

Hey guys, it's Sam. How are you? I hope you are well. I hope the year is treating you well. And I really hope that feeding your family is being a very good and successful thing at the moment. I would absolutely love to hear of any new recipes that you have got in the mix at the moment, because for the past week and a half, we have all been floored by flu. And my interest in food has, I have to be honest,

gone downhill. So I'm always looking for new things to cook. So if you've got any ideas, then please could you send those through to me on notpastaregainathotmail.com. So cracking on with this episode, what we're to be looking at today is I'm going to be talking about and exploring that whole notion of cooking for children as well as cooking with your children, if you dare, because I think it's such a big part of our world.

trying to ensure that we don't eat the same thing on repeat, but also ensuring that our children are lovers of good food. So that's what we're to be talking about today. But before I do that, I just wanted to talk about a little email I received from Jenny. It's all about food waste, which I think we tackled in episode six, where I listed the top five most wasted food items.

And Jenny got in touch because she found herself using up a couple of those items quite randomly, no planning involved. She actually wrote and said to me,

Hey Sam, I listened to the episode about the top five wasted foods and I actually made a bread and butter pudding recently to use up a lot of eggs and I actually realized it was also a good way to use up two of those top five most wasted foods, bread and milk. It was also very delicious. I'm really enjoying the podcast. I've been trying hard to use up much more of my near end of life food.

So Jenny sent this through to me on email, which is notpastaregain @ hotmail.com. So thank you, Jenny, for taking the time to share that with us. I personally absolutely love bread and butter pudding. So I think it might be something that goes on our list as we try and build ourselves up after that horrid flu that I talked about.

If you'd like to share any recipes with me, then please do so through the notpastaagain@hotmail.com email address and I will look to share those with everyone on future episodes. Okay, so speaking of making the most of our meals, that whole notion of cooking for and with our children, if you dare.

often presents us, I think, with its own set of challenges. I don't know where you sit on this, but it would be great to know how you feel about that whole notion. For me, I think it's really interesting because when I think back to pre-children, I was very determined that having them was not going to have an impact on what I cooked, how I cooked it, when I cooked it, or even have an impact on how I felt about putting food on the table.

But I have to be honest and say I was a little bit wrong because it does have an impact. And I think lots of us will experience this in lots of different ways. But I think also what I've discovered through what I do and in my past role as a researcher is that it's a really subjective matter. So we are all different. We all have different feelings and we all have, I guess, a different experience of putting that notion of food on the table for our children.

So that researcher in me, before we set off on this discussion about the impact of cooking for children, it really needed to find some facts and some figures so that I had a little bit of context. And it was really interesting. I didn't find a huge amount of research in this area, but I've got a couple of things that I really want to share with you. And again, I'd love for you to get in touch with me and tell me if they resonate and if they make sense to you. First off,

One of the things I found, and this was through two surveys, interestingly carried out by two meal kit companies, HelloFresh and Gusto, was that a lot of families are making multiple meals every evening. Now, probably, possibly, this is something that we're all guilty of at one point or another in our world and our life. You know, that notion of wanting or having or feeling like you need to cook different meals to suit different people's tastes in your family.

So when I read that, I was like, wow, that's quite crazy. And I would love to know, where do you sit on this? Do you do it or have you done it in the past? Or do you just have a one meal for all policy? I think we again, are gonna be all different in this area. And for me, I've managed to change this over time. And if I'm honest, the only time when I serve up different meals for my kids is if I have pre-made food in the kitchen.

So maybe a leftover curry, maybe some leftover bolognese, and I can just reheat it. But I will never, not anymore, prepare two separate meals from scratch on any given night. They will just get what they are given. So let me know where you sit on that. That would be amazing. That's the first thing I found out. Secondly, I found a really interesting Market Insight report by Vegpower. I've never come across them before.

And I think the things that stood out for me were 59 % of people that they surveyed would like the whole family to sit down together for meals. However, 31 % of those people also said that sometimes they dread meal times because they find them stressful. I resonate with this. I wonder if you guys do as well. But what were the sources of stress that they found? And this is where I think it gets really, really fascinating.

56 % struggle to get their child to eat a healthy balance of fruit, veg, protein and carbohydrates. That's such a large proportion experiencing that stressful situation. 41 % consider that they have a child who is a fussy eater and 37 % hear complaints about the food that they put on the table for their children.

Again, I think those three stats and those three facts really resonate with me because I've been there. I probably still hear complaints about some of the food I serve. I've definitely had a fussy eater. He's way better than he used to be. And I can 100 % relate to the fact that I've often felt like I am not getting a balanced meal in front of them. So again,

The report will be dropped into the show notes. Have a look if you're interested to know a little bit more, but also let me know how you feel about those different stats that I've just shared with you, because I think it's really quite enlightening. We're not alone, okay? So regardless of the research that I needed, as the researcher in me was crying out for it, anecdotally, I think we know as parents that feeding our children isn't often easy.

And it's not necessarily a pleasant thing to do. It doesn't necessarily bring us joy. So even if I just think of a few friends or colleagues that I've spoken to recently, I can see and I hear them tell me about the negative impact children can have on how they feel about cooking. I don't know if you can remember Ellie. She was my first guest on this podcast and she just generally spoke about losing confidence when she had children in the sense that...

she had to cook differently so that they would eat. And she was cooking a separate meal for her and her partner later in the evening. And it just took away that joy that she used to have when she was preparing food. I've had another friend get in touch with me recently and she is considering getting a Thermomix, if I'm honest, because she just doesn't feel good enough about the food that she's putting on the table for her son. She actually doesn't consider herself to be a particularly good cook and

actually she's very conscious of that and she wants him to be able to eat lots more different things than he's currently eating. And then I've got another friend who is so busy, she works and she's got two boys and mealtimes just stress her out for that reason. She desperately wants to always cook from scratch to put really decent food on the table and she'll talk to me and say that that's what she chooses to do. But the outcome of that is similar to what we heard in the surveys earlier.

She spends a lot more time in the kitchen, chopping, cooking, stirring, cleaning up. And what she'd rather be doing is hanging out with the children. So again, I can see and I can hear from lots of different people around me that, you know, cooking for children puts this level of stress on to the evening. And then I just got this email, okay, from a listener in Lincolnshire. And it just resonated massively with me because I just think it sums up

kinds of struggles that we all have as parents when it comes to mealtimes and at the end of it the listener also shares some absolutely brilliant advice that I think we can all take something from. So here's what she said. I've been enjoying your podcast and just wanted to share how the Thermomix has helped with the exhausting challenge of accommodating all my family's needs.

My teenage son has ARFID which is essentially a food phobia that makes him fearful of going anywhere near anything other than a handful of safe foods. Foods that are reliably the same every single time, where the sharpness, texture, consistency never changes. He will typically eat the exact same dinner night after night for weeks and is incredibly reluctant to try anything new. His brother, when younger, had allergies to milk, soya and oats.

So he was also on a restricted diet, but one which looked very different. Thankfully he can eat those things now, but there is still a legacy issue as his tastes were formed in the years that he couldn't. And it's a long process to turn that around. So what this all means for me is that I've been making three meals a day, every day, one for each of them and one for us, their parents. They can't eat what we eat and we don't want to eat what they're eating.

But by the time I've prepared and served theirs, I've lost the will to live. I don't much enjoy cooking as it is, and by the end of the day, I just don't want to. Enter the Thermomix. The ability to choose a meal in advance, buy the specific ingredients, and just follow the instructions, whilst doing minimal actual food prep myself, means that we adults are enjoying interesting, tasty, and varied evening meals, in the full knowledge that the needs of our children have already been met.

My husband cooks our dinner at least as often as I do because he just has to point and shoot. And it doesn't matter if he gets distracted because there's no risk of it burning. And I don't have to nag him with shouts of that risotto won't stir itself, you know, because well, it does stir itself. The thermomix has brought the joy back to our dinners and I no longer say, I'll stuff it. I'll just have a fish finger sandwich too. Really, I wanted to say.

My tip to anyone experiencing similar struggles is to go easy on yourself. Don't beat yourself up about what your kids are or aren't eating, or if you're not all eating together. This is your journey with your kids. Do right by them where they are now. That approach alleviated so much stress for me and meant I was able to start enjoying grown-up meal times again with more than a little help from my Thermo.

like wow, when I read that I was just, I guess moved in many ways because I haven't had any extreme experiences like this listener has had, but I have definitely had a need in a family for a fussy eater to have to constantly be thinking about what I needed to be doing and whether they were going to eat it. And I just think it would resonate with lots of you as well. You you're trying to juggle so many people's needs, keep everyone fed.

and somehow trying to stay sane at the same time. And I guess for me, when I read that email, there are a few things that really, really stood out for me. And I'll just sum those up. And again, if you've got any other outtakes, then do get in touch and let me know. I think first and foremost, when there's a dietary need, no matter how special it is, it's just hard to navigate it. It's a constant. It's about consistently having to ensure that somebody is going to eat food.

that you want them to eat as varied a diet as possible. It's a juggling act. And actually, you're not just dealing with feeding someone, you're actually dealing with expectations, worries, and in this instance, it was somebody's fears as well. So I think it's okay to admit that it's hard when there's a special requirement in the household. And you just need to accept that and make it work for you in whatever way you can. I love, the second thing I love about this is that adult meal times were reclaimed.

the listener and her husband, woo I love that as well, are sharing that requirement to put good food on the table for both of them. I love the fact that they've managed to prioritize themselves because let's face it, if you can't look after yourself and feel good about what you're doing and what you're eating, then it's gonna make it even more difficult to do that for any of your children. They just decided that they weren't gonna settle for what was left over. There was a conscious effort to break that cycle.

and reclaim that part of their lives for themselves. And like I said, I just love the fact that it's a dual scenario that the husband and the wife are involved in this. So just remember, you need to look after yourself as well as look after your kids. Finally, I need to listen to this one a little bit more, letting go of perfection. You know, I think this was a massive takeaway for me just to ease up on myself about what

the food is that I'm giving to my children. We can fall into a trap of being overly critical. We can compare ourselves to what we think other people are doing. And it's just not useful for anyone, you know, mainly for us trying to get that food onto the table. So I think it's just about working out what works for you as your family. Yeah. And just ensuring that you're feeling comfortable with what you're doing. And that will take the pressure off. Finally,

The game changer for this listener was that she found a thermomix and she invested in getting a thermomix. And it has just, and you heard her say, it's reduced stress, it's simplified cooking, and it's about enjoyment at meal times again. I'm not saying everyone needs to rush off and buy a thermomix, but I think there is something that we can take out of this in the sense that there are things out there that can help us.

it might just be sitting down at the weekend and planning three meals that you're going to make so you know you're ready for them. It might be investing in meal kits, whatever it is, whatever that strategy is that's gonna work for you and is going to take that stress away, then I think there's so much power in just going with that. So there you have it, a listener's story that really shows you how you can navigate the challenges of meal times and it's okay to not have everything figured out every day of your life.

What works for one family might not work for another and that's absolutely fine. But the key takeaway is to find what works for you. Reduce your pressure, reduce your stress, let go of perfection and take some small steps to make your meal times more manageable and a whole lot more enjoyable.

I just want to say thank you so much to this particular listener for taking the time to share a really detailed email about what life is like for them. It's exactly what I'm aiming for, that we have a forum where we can share how we feel and we can also show that

we're not alone, because I think that's the really important thing here. We're all parents. We're all maybe having the same struggles to a lesser degree. But actually, by being able to share how we feel and also share how we can make things work better is always going to be useful for other people to hear as well. So thank you again for a heartfelt email. OK, so just to sort of finish up with this episode, I figured that we should also sort of tackle that notion of

getting our children involved with prepping some food because at the end of the day, if we get them involved with things, they're going to get something out of it as well. And I'm going to be honest, this is not something I am brilliant at. And that is very much about the fact that I am a control freak. So for me, I always found it a little bit difficult to invite my children into the kitchen and get cooking with them. However, I did do it and...

I will say that it was a really positive affair. And when I think about it, it was probably more positive for them than it was for me. But that's a really, really good thing because by allowing them into the kitchen, they were able to be creative. They were able to develop some practical skills. They were able to feel pride because when they served up whatever it was they were involved with in making, you could see that in their face, they were really, really chuffed that they had done it.

would encourage you to have a little think about whether you can get your children more involved with what you're making. It might not be that they get involved with every stage of a meal. It might be that they help you choose what you're going to make. And obviously it's going to be aligned to how old they are and their particular skills as well.

and I've actually been sent the most beautiful video from Ellie which I guess there are two things I need to tell you about this video. One is Ellie actually invested in a Thermomix and is loving it.

But the reason she sent me the video was because it was of her two year old son helping her in the kitchen, I think making chocolate cake, chocolate biscuits, and he had the very important role of dropping all of the chocolate in and he was like shaking the wrapper to make sure it all went in. And then he was pressing the button to continue with the recipe. And he was chuffed, you could see that. And I think that's what it's all about as well.

inviting the children into our kitchen, into our space, we can connect with them. Like I said, they will develop different skills and they will feel really proud that they have been involved with that process, whatever that process is. I think also what I've noticed when I think about my youngest being in the kitchen with me more is a sense of curiosity. You know, they ask questions, they're sort of...

presented with things they don't understand necessarily and therefore have to ask questions to make sense of what's going on. So I know also that with my youngest he definitely eats better than he ever has done before because he has been involved so much more with choosing what we make and also being involved in what we're making as well. I've obviously got a very simple process with the Thermomix so it's very very safe but again choose what they can do.

in line with how old they are and what their particular abilities are. So the thing I had to learn was that whole thing that we referenced a little bit earlier. It's not going to be perfect when there are kids in the kitchen. It's going to be messy and you're just going to have to go with it. And I think I've learned to embrace that not too frequently. I'll be completely honest.

so I put a challenge, I'll put a challenge out. Why don't we, considering half term is fast approaching, why don't we look to in the next couple of weeks, get the kids involved in something that we're doing in the kitchen, ask them if there's something that they want to bake or something that they want to make, something they've seen that they're interested in trying. And you know what, it might actually turn out to be a place where you can bond a little bit more with them.

rather than end up fighting with them over food that's being put on the table. Let me know if you do it and how you go. And again, I will share it with future episodes. I think at this point, I'm gonna start wrapping up this episode. I'm really excited because I've got a guest on the next one and she's a good friend, Cheryl. And actually she works with children. She is a professional nanny. She's also a sleep expert.

And I think it's going to offer me a really good opportunity to ask her some questions about children and food and maybe the impact that different foods might have on them. So that is it for this episode.

Been amazing. I hope you've enjoyed it. I would love to hear from you, as I have said throughout the episode. Let me know what you're doing to make life in the kitchen easier, to make your children more involved. You might be simplifying it with some meal planning. You might look to a new gadget, whatever it is, share it with us so that we can share that with everyone that's listening as well.

So thank you so much for tuning in and until next time, take care of yourselves, happy cooking and let's keep flourishing.