Well, having my own children subscribe to a no-sugar diet can be as simple as ‘I’m your mum and you’ll eat what I tell you’ but on talking to other parents who are trying to cut out the sweets and juices, there’s a whole big clueless question mark over what we do about entertaining other poeple’s children. One of life’s biggest worries is having a child over for tea who doesnt like what you make and goes home hungry telling their own mum that they’ve not eaten anything … and you get judged as a terrible cook, a big fail as a mother, and everyone might talk about you in the playground at pick up… Well, maybe there are a few worse things going on in the world – but the fear of this occurance has seen me hurridly purchasing fish fingers and oven chips on a number of occasions.
My next door neighbour is taking the hardcore approach, she wont even have a bottle of cordial in the cupboard for emergencies – she says it’s water, milk or don’t have a drink. I was inspired by this and decided to apply the priciple to a get together at my house this week. I fell at the first hurdle as within 5 minutes of the first guest arriving I had mananged to locate 2 bottles of cordial and some juice from some party leftovers to serve to other people’s children. I would be so interested to hear other poeple’s thoughts on this. Is it mean to deny children what they enjoy or are used to or do we stick to our guns and remember that these foods and drinks don’t have to be an option?
Today my children have friends coming to play. I decided to test the waters… (quite literally) There will not be a chicken nugget or a fruit shoot in sight. I’ve too many children to cram in the car to panic buy sweets or pizzas so have to make do with what we have. I’ve even got these children here for both lunch and dinner so the pressure is really on – surely they can’t starve for 2 meals if they dont like it!?
For dinner I’ve gone for a macaroni cheese. Main meals are easier and hopefully they wont notice the wholewheat too much.
For lunch I’ve gone for more of a ‘help yourself to bits’ approach. Partly to see how things go down and to see if they notice the chocolate spread is homemade!
Veggie sticks, Apple and cheese ‘chips’ (chip shape – not deep fried!) homemade hummus/houmous, rye crackers, wholewheat loaf, IQS nutella and RMS popcorn adapted to be made with a tiny spoon of rice malt syrup and without the chilli for these littlies. Water from a dispenser and into bottles with coloured paper straws is JUST as much fun as a can of coke. Yes it really is! 😀
Results? No complaints and all was demolished over the afternoon. Not a single request for anything different either. Aprox 16 requests for more popcorn. (I said no – I had made them a really big bowl! 5 times the size of the one shown here as I was hoping to save some for this evening).
Sugar-free sucess.
This ‘Nutella’ really is amazing. Made with hazelnuts, coconut milk, coconut oil, raw cacoa and a bit of rice malt syrup it really tastes like chocolate spread and sets to a beautiful texture and consistency in the fridge. Puts your blender to work but I tried a batch using hazlenut butter which was equally as good but with the hazelnuts already pre-smushed up for you.
Homemade houmous tastes so much nicer than shop bought. Also super-easy to make and gives your blender a good work out.
Our favorite healthy snack. Coconut oil, a bit of cinnamon and a good DVD
themoneyspendingexpert.com 