Kids, Religion and Food!

Kids, Religion and Food, three words that should strike the fear of god into any adult!

What the F... is he on about now, yep, I can hear you muttering away out there...

'Here we go again, another nutty post that has absolutely no mind expanding nutritional value, bit like one of my favourite Twitter aunts, Penny Watson says in a recent recent post on a 'salad' she likes, see that one here.

But think about what have Kids, Religion and Food all got in common, no, well let me tell you.

All three can cause nothing but problems and in some cases, war.

Don't get me wrong here, I have three kids, all grown up now and I love them dearly, but I am sure they will be the first to admit that they were , AS I AM, I WAS AND STILL CAN BE, a pain in the ass from time to time and they do things that drive you to distraction.

The stories I could tell, as all parents could I am sure, about when my little darlings were young and innocent... Well innocent in name only.


Anyway RELIGION, I have an issue with adults ramming their religion down the throats of their kids, sure if you are a practising Christian, whether it be a Catholic, Protestant, Baptist, Seventh Day Adventist or whatever, or a  Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Jedi, whatever, practice it and inform your children, but don't ram it down their throats, let them choose and decide as they get older and are better able to understand what they are being told is right or wrong for them to follow. Argumentative and puerile argument, yeah I can hear the retorts now as you are reading this, but as I have pointed out before, this is my forum and if you want to say something pop a comment in the box below, no censorship here, unless I change my mind of course.

Get rid of faith schools and have everyone taught about, life, sciences, grammar, mathematics, etc, subjects that will be useful to them in life. Teach them that there are different faiths and religions and when they move on and up in their educational learning process, they will learn more of these and will be able to decide for themselves, whether they want to become a Christian, or Muslim or Jew or Jedi or whatever; when they are capable of deciding for themselves and not as a result of birth.

If we stopped telling our kids that our Faith was the most important one in the world, and that all other faiths and religions are false and therefore heresy, then maybe, just maybe, worldwide society might be just a bit more tolerant, do you think, or am I just being a complete simpleton....



On the other hand when it comes to FOOD I am of the opinion that guerilla and indeed open warfare should be practised on our offspring, from the moment they are off the tit or the teat.

Yes, I know children, like us, have a palate, but it is an under developed palate, especially today when so many child bearing Moms out there today are barely out of their ankle socks as well and are still addicted to fast food and gummi bears themselves! And in the latter, if they are to be convinced of the benefits of breast feeding, their child has already missed out in its development in the womb by being subjected to fat filled burger, fries and shakes followed by the ubiquitous candy bar, so they weren't getting a lot of good nutritional intake even before they saw the light of day......

That's why it is important that sensible parents and grand parents make more of an effort to 'educate' their children and grandchildren when it comes to food, food that is good for them and nutritious to boot. Again don't get me wrong here, there is nothing wrong, As Penelope Watson points out in her post mentioned earlier about the iceberg salad dripping in blue cheese and even one of my other favourite Twitter Aunties, Julia R Barrett, has much to say about it in a recent post, here .  She starts of by saying,

You are not taking away my ketchup.  Has anyone else been paying attention to the overtly schizophrenic nutrition advice flooding the media?

And then goes into the clearly confusing advice that we are all given today, as we are told one week that chocolate is bad for us, but the next week, don't worry, it's not actually that bad.  Is it any wonder that people get confused?

But what confuses me, is that the the simplest message of all, that simple, tasty food is always going to be better for you and your children and it doesn't cost the earth to buy and it needn't take 4 hours to prepare and cook....  It always amazes me when I hear folk saying they don't have the time to buy fresh ingredients, prepare and then cook it, give me a break will you.

There is a tasty recipe here for fresh tuna and stir fry vegetables.  Now if you were going to buy all your veg whole and unshredded, it may well take you a whole lotta time to prepare, but even I wont always do that and there is nothing wrong with popping into the local supermarket picking up a family size bag of stir fry veg, washed and shredded already, and all you need to do is throw it into a wok and stir with some oil. That along with the Tuna well done or rare, will take about 6 or 7 minutes in total to prepare.  Add some tasty shop bought sauce and bob's your uncle.

But one of the tricks to getting kids to like food is by getting them involved early on in the process of 'cooking and baking', and I know my daughters do this all the time with their children and when they are visiting Grandma and Granddad, they are always involved, whether it is crushing and mixing herbs and rubbing it into a leg of lamb or preparing a fish pie, they get involved.  One of the best meals my grand kids like is a home made Tapas, fish, meat, chicken tomatoes, potatoes, squid, everything that you'll get in the restaurant, we prepare at home and they devour it.

AND THE ONE RULE EVERYONE MUST ABIDE BY, FROM THE MOMENT THEY ARE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND IT IS.......

WE TOOK THE TIME TO PREPARE AND COOK IT  AND SERVE IT TO YOU, SO, YOU MUST EAT IT

and do you know what, it works even if it is something new we have introduced to them, they sit there and eat it.  There have been a couple of exceptions to the rule, but these are so rare that I cannot think of one of the top of my head, as I write this piece...

So, try it.  if you have young kids, and I am talking three or four years of age, get them into the kitchen with you, get their hands into a bowl, even if it's just a bowl of salad, with a spoon to turn it over with the dressing.  Give them a pinch of salt on a saucer and tell them to add it to the dish, get them to put the butter into the pan so you can mash the tatties, it works, they 'cooked it' so they will want to eat it.

Add different tastes, fresh ginger, fresh garlic all in moderation, and you will build their palates up and be amazed at how much more they will eat when it is dished up on the plate.

Last week 5 year old Holly and Charlie made home made meatballs with breadcrumbs, parmesan, and herbs, (all I did was put in and take out of the oven),  to add to home made Italian Wedding soup, with celery, carrots, onion, spinach and pasta and they loved it asking for extra's and making sure the meatballs were getting divided evenly when it was being served up....

As for sweets and candy, nothing wrong with that, or even popcorn, I always have sweets and candy and popcorn in the cupboard and we have those as treats, after we eat our meal .


I haven't posted many recipes, as I get so engrossed in what I am doing and tend to forget, but there are a couple over here, if you are interested