Educating my Daughter

[Moley]

I'm having problems posting and wonder if this board has a ridiculously low character limit, so am splitting this into two posts:

As a family I would say that we eat well. There might be the occasional day when all we want to do is throw a frozen pizza in the oven but as a rule we don't exist on just packets and tins. My wife and I can both cook from scratch, we buy good quality meat and free range birds and we use fresh vegetables most days.

However, darling daughter (age 16) is now rejecting meat if there is any trace of visible fat, blood vessel or connective tissue. Let us consider a chicken Kiev - we might make our own or if we buy them ready prepared we will select those which are made from a whole chicken breast. DD wants hers machine processed and re-formed into something which might look like a chicken breast but any comparison is purely visual.

[Moley]

Last night we had bangers & mash with carrots, peas, cabbage and onion gravy. Wife thought my sausages were good. DD wanted Richmond sausages, which I consider to be made from MRM & sawdust. Ingredients state: pork (42%), water, pork fat (10%), rusk, potato starch, vegetable protein, less than 2% salt, antioxidants E300 & E307, sodium metabisulphite preservative, cochineal colouring.

I seriously doubt that much pork shoulder or belly goes into those things, but what could? What exactly IS mechanically recovered meat? Even if I buy top price, good quality supermarket sausages which might claim to be 90% pork, can that come from absolutely any part of the pig? Just what does go into commercial meat products?

I'd rather scare her into turning vegetarian than feed her the sort of processed garbage she seems to be choosing at the moment.

[BriCan]

For what its worth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN82FwrBi6c

[vagreys]

I'm having problems posting and wonder if this board has a ridiculously low character limit...

No. The post character limit is 60000 characters.

...darling daughter (age 16) is now rejecting meat if there is any trace of visible fat, blood vessel or connective tissue. Let us consider a chicken Kiev...DD wants hers machine processed and re-formed into something which might look like a chicken breast but any comparison is purely visual.

Last night we had bangers & mash with carrots, peas, cabbage and onion gravy. Wife thought my sausages were good. DD wanted Richmond sausages...

So, it sounds like it is a visual hang-up, and possibly a texture one, where the texture is not homogenous. She isn't bothered by the processing or ingredients. What is important is how it looks, and possibly that it have a homogenous bite where it can't be identified as anything in particular. I raised two daughters, and scarily, I understand the illogic. This is a visceral, emotional response, not a rational, logical response. I doubt education matters. Trying to scare her, or force her to a logical position will only make her more resistant. She has to come to the decision herself, on her own terms. All you can do is tell her what she's putting in her body, her way, versus what she is putting in her body, if she eats real food, and most importantly, tell her it is her choice. What you can do is make clear to her that you won't change your diet to accommodate her refusal to eat real food, and that she will have to buy and prepare her own meat choices.

That's my take as a dad of two, newly adult daughters.

[Dogfish]

So you're saying girls are weird

(one daughter, two teenage sisters, one mother, one wife, three sisters-in-law)

[captain wassname]

Try explaining MRM.It is a slurry made by using high pressure water on bones

Jim

[onewheeler]

Girls are weird. I married one and have a teenage daughter. She became a vegetarian, but isn't keen on vegetables other than calabrese. She has a thing about textures: onions and mushrooms are slimy. Given a chance she would live on Pot Noodles (Bombay Bad Boy flavour), jacket potato with cheesey beans, and quornburgers. It makes menu planning easy anyway.

Martin/

[wheels]

I've brought up two daughters, but boy's are as bad. One thing I can tell you that may be some comfort is that you're not alone.

...but you've got to realise, that it's you that must change! My dad certainly did; well he must have done?When I was 16 years old, I know that he was an unreasonable idiot; by the time I was 21, he'd educated himself and was a perfectly reasonable educated man!

She'll hopefully grow out of it: or maybe not. Either way, there is little the average parent can do to affect the outcome, other than offer support and non-judgmental advice.

Phil

[Dogfish]

Candidly, while we were a house full of boys while I was growing up (sisters came after), we got the world's greatest earful for complaining about food. Not sure how that would go over with a teenage daughter, but it ended up boiling down to my house, my rules.

For the record, my dad preferred his ground beef boiled. He preferred his sausages boiled. He mixed it with frozen veggies and ketchup, then...boiled. And he bought a lot of ground beef and mixed veggies. If it wasn't that it was cheap chicken wieners.

[Wunderdave]

Candidly, while we were a house full of boys while I was growing up (sisters came after), we got the world's greatest earful for complaining about food. Not sure how that would go over with a teenage daughter, but it ended up boiling down to my house, my rules.

My son is only 1 year old but it's an interesting dynamic, this. One one hand, you can try only offering what you want him to eat. On the other hand, if he refuses to eat what you offer, you worry that he has insufficient nutrition. Maybe once he's old enough to understand the message of "you don't eat this, you don't eat anything" we can lean on him a little harder. For now, though, we are stuck with things we know he likes to eat.

[Dogfish]

With my daughter, when she's hating on food, we make her "work" for it; ie create enough friction that she'll only persist in the misery for a certain amount of time before eating the food. So far, the only thing she refuses to eat at all is zuchinni and stuff past the point of sriracha.

One thing we did was eliminate sugar from her common diet almost completely because she would stop eating anything and everything else. No jam on toast. Only little fragments of dessert occasionally.

But beware advice from the parent with only one kid!

[GUS]

Ditto the one kid.

However after a really rocky start with her food (from a baby through to a toddler who survived by eating chocolate buttons, doc's recommendation) ..we have her eating sushi, mediterranean cooked squid, whitebait, gutting fish in general, Heart, (ox, osterich, lamb) from the raw & dissected for educational purposes to the plate, snails, a kid with a good palate (prefers hotel chocolat dark stuff) & salted caramel, we don't push her other than to ask her to be a "food explorer", yes we play tricks on her with chilli sauce etc (well you've got to).

Teaching her the difference between good & bad animal husbandry via kill it cook it eat it etc has been very beneficial as is the understanding that one good quality sausage is so much more than a dozen tasteless of uncertain origin..
Can't see it changing (thank goodness) ..she enjoys making vanilla pod sugar (& understands it's way better for you than a slice of nutella on toast, nigh on demands smoked salmon for lunch 3+ times a week, haslet, sausage, bacon ...

After my boiled everything 70's upbringing we ask her to take one bite of everything even if it's something she previously disliked... the saying is "I don't hate everything, it's just I haven't necessarily found the way I could enjoy some things ....YET"!! ..seems to work well & allows room to work around as she gets older (now 9yrs)

I simply explain that the Mcdonalds of this world should be looked at as a once or twice a year treat (if you must) we call it McSh***s & ask her to taste the difference of home cooked like for like, to date it's been a hands down win win scenario.

(though we'll see if that continues as / when she becomes a mardy teen).

[crustyo44]

In the Trade, in certain EU countries, MRM/pressure residue meat is called pink slime and sold in large plastic bags.
Perfecty legal there as it is ALL MEAT, SINEWS, FAT, BLOOD and other crap, a real artery blocker.
but it's cheap for manufacturers to buy.
Cheers,
Jan.

[GUS]

Oh yes, pink slime in uk McD's has only just ceased to be used Jan 2013 as I recall! ..another reason to have a few choice references to pulped muck & put em off for life