Food/Groceries help and suggestions - vegetarian/pescatarian child

[TrMama]

Lots of good suggestions so far. A couple others that may help:

- Check the kid's non-fiction section of the library for books on healthy vegetarian eating. There are enough vegetarian kids that our library has a whole shelf of these targeted to teens.

- Get her interested in cooking and meal planning. Again, the kid's section of the library is your friend. My 9yo is also really into the Rachel Ray kids cooking show. She even wants to go on the show. So DH and I have told her if she wants to put in an application, she needs to learn to like more foods and learn more cooking techniques. My kids get to watch as much cooking channel as they want.

- Frame things positively. Try not to say, you shouldn't eat X. Tell her, you can have all you want of A, B, C and D. Put a list of "Anytime" foods on the fridge/pantry to help jog her memory. We're doing this with my 7yo who has a suspected dairy intolerance. Instead of telling her what she can't eat, we labelled all the foods she can eat in the fridge and pantry with green painter's tape. Makes it super easy to pick out the good stuff. Over time the dairy foods that she likes will just disappear from our house.

- Don't worry about restricting your other daughter. This is a family issue and the family's diet needs to change. Yes, it will suck that she can't eat much sugar cereal anymore. She will live.

[beberly37]

Another thing that might help is if she like spaghetti, shred up carrots and zucchini and it will pretty much disintegrate in the sauce as you cook it.  At least get some nutrition.

I don't hide veggies, but I can add more veggies to carby base like pasta or rice.

But what about after school snacks?  That's my main issue.

I understand you don't.  Maybe you should.

+1 Are you ethically opposed to hiding nutrition?  We make "monster pancakes", which is basically pancakes made with pureed (or juiced if I'm feeling like cleaning the juicer) kale.  Its not as good as eating kale, but better than nothing.  Don't lie about why its green, but don't offer up the info if not asked. 

Dave's Killer Bread (it might be Mike's killer bread, I always forget, google said it was david's when I searched for Mike's) makes "white" bread with a millet and quinoa in it.  It tastes like wonderbread but has fiber and protein.  Costco carries this now.

Consider learning how to do gluten free baking.  My wife makes chocolate chip cookies that are made with chick pea flour and rice flour...its beans and rice in cookie form and no one ever suspects they are gluten free.  As a rule, when baking, my wife cuts sugar by at least half, they are still yummy.

What about nuts as a snack food?

[MrsPete]

+1 Are you ethically opposed to hiding nutrition?  We make "monster pancakes", which is basically pancakes made with pureed (or juiced if I'm feeling like cleaning the juicer) kale.  Its not as good as eating kale, but better than nothing.  Don't lie about why its green, but don't offer up the info if not asked. 

The question wasn't directed at me, but I have no problem with "hiding" things for a toddler ... but the 11-year old in question is interested in changing her eating habits, and that must include learning about nutrition; thus, I don't think "hiding" is appropriate in this case.