Pureed cheeseburger?????

[Osc]

Michael is rather self-limiting in what he will eat, but everything he eats is home cooked, Miss Osc does batches and freezes them. He already loves to pretend to cook them pasta, sets out a place on the table with a mat and cutlery, and he has his own little play kitchen. Miss Osc grew up seeing us cook and is passing that on, she lets Michael "help" her when she is cooking at the weekends. I do realise it's harder for young mums these days if both parents are working, but it can be done with forward planning and the desire to feed your children properly. I find it horrifying that we are now into a second generation that can't/won't cook and prefer to feed their children processed rubbish. Of course, it's even more horrifying that the food manufacturers are pandering to this by producing more and more of the processed rubbish and it's becoming more and more obvious where that has led........

[JoM]

weka you could melt some chocolate and the kids could help
by adding cornflakes or rice crispes
then put in little heaps to set or in cake cases
mine loved doing that

Little Cornflake cakes are a perfect first thing for children to 'bake'! That's a good idea Saundra.

Weka, if they don't have egg allergies they could prepare some egg mayonnaise for a sandwich. Obviously you boil the egg but they mash it and mix in the mayo? It's nice and soft for little hands to mash, tuna mayo is another.

[Diflower]

Actually Osc, I think part of the problem is that it's easier for young mums now, with all the ready-meals available, that's why a lot of them don't bother cooking. My mum worked, so did a lot of my friends' mums, but they had to cook, didn't they?
And they had to teach us how to look after ourselves in the school holidays too!

[Kaz]

Spot on there Di

I do so agree with the comments on this thread about children out with their mums - the tots being totally ignored as mum is plugged into her gadgets.......it's really sad, and like you Ally I often feel like I want to say something to them

[JoM]

Really it shouldn't be the responsibility of the schools to teach every child to cook, there's enough to be fitted into a normal school week without having another compulsory subject. The responsibility lies with the parents but how can they be educated to make more of an effort?

[Fugitive]

My daughter was four when I married my second husband (Chef) and as I was a full time working single Mum up until then with no time and she was a fussy eater, she'd only eat tinned chicken soup, fishfingers, beefburgers, chips, baked beans, frozen peas and biscuits and chocolate! That was it! Trying any other foods was a waste of time as she refused to eat it. She was like this because I'd fed her jars of baby foods as soon as she was on solids and fresh food was a shock to her palate!

Husband was horrified. He made a fresh chicken soup for her and she spat it out in disgust but he gradually transformed her diet even making her his own fish fingers from fresh fish as she said she didn't like fish so he disguised the real thing to look like her favourites and she was weaned off all the foods I'd been feeding her and is now a good cook herself, as is her youngest son.

I found it impossible to cook fresh meals from scratch while working full time with a young child. Fish fingers and beefburgers and tinned soup were the choice of easy meals and now there's so much choice I can understand why some working mums take this route.

[Workingman]

Really it shouldn't be the responsibility of the schools to teach every child to cook, there's enough to be fitted into a normal school week without having another compulsory subject. The responsibility lies with the parents but how can they be educated to make more of an effort?

Yes and no Jo. Schools should not only be about academic subjects, there should be room in the curriculum for what might be termed 'life skills' - things such as cookery, banking, budgeting, sport - those sorts of things.

Unfortunately schools have become infatuated with testing and grading everything under the sun. The more 'subjects' that are taught the more GCSEs pupils can get.

The things we tend to be talking about on here do not need testing, marking and grading.... they just need to be part of schooling.

[Diflower]

Oh I had things like fish fingers Fugi, and still don't have any objection to them!
What you did is not at all the same as shoving a bag of chips in front of a toddler in a pushchair, or a big sausage roll, or forcing them with Big Macs.
You were still feeding your daughter normal food, even if it was a bit limited. And I bet you made your own sandwiches, gave her breakfast, etc. Also you've hit something else there, with being a single mum you weren't doing a 'family meal' as such, even at weekends when you might have otherwise. And I would say had less time than married ones, but my dad like many others would not have been helping!
I had a very limited diet, hated most things, and yes would sometimes have fish fingers or a beefburger (mind you, they were the little ones, and never came in a bun!). And as a family I'm sure we had fish and chips once a week.
But other meals would be a roast, chops, liver (strangely something I always liked), a piece of plain fish, shepherds pie, the usual, what every other family was probably eating. Not fantastic but not dreadful either.

These children are eating nothing for breakfast, pre-school are then getting chips or similar by 10 in the morning, more for lunch; on a TV programme about (was it fussy eaters? Oh and on Jamie's one about getting people to cook) they showed people every day giving toddlers a kebab for dinner, or kfc - very young children. When first told not to get a takeaway they went to the supermarket and bought sausage rolls and oven chips.
One thing's for sure it's absolutely nothing to do with money!

[debih]

My favourite meal is fish fingers, mashed potato, peas and ketchup.

[Workingman]

I see that Delia is not a big fan of the new cooking curriculum in school or of TV chefs in general.

Oh, how I agree with her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21632578