Monday 30 November 2009

My little princess' favourite foods

One can sometimes tell what kind of food my princess likes.. Generally she eats quite slowly but we can see that she speeds up when we place her favourite foods in front of her.

Children need to be trained from young to eat healthy food. My little princess was not allowed to have french fries, soft drinks and junk food (chips, chocolate, ice cream, sweets, lollies, etc) until she was about 3 years old. She had her first french fry during her friend's birthday party held in McDonald's. Each kid had a Happy Meal which consisted of a cheeseburger/chicken nuggets, french fries and juice/soft drink. We didn't really want to make a special request to replace the french fries with apple slices as we usually do when we bring her to McD's. We also let her have an apple juice instead of the milk we normally order with her meal.

Up till today, she doesn't like soft drinks as she doesn't like the burning sensation down her throat but like every other normal kid she loves most types of junk food like chocolate and ice cream. She loves potato chips and popcorn too but we try to control her intake of all unhealthy snacks. Not letting her take them at all might cause her to crave for and binge on them when she has the chance so we figured the right way would be to let her have them but in limited portions. Recently I found out her love for fairy bread which is somewhat unhealthy due to the sprinkles which are made of sugar but I reckon her having them once in a while is acceptable.

During dinner, she also has her favourites like white creamy pasta with cheese, koay teow, wantan noodles, and certain types of vegetables like corn, broccoli, cauliflower, cucumber and lettuce, although we insist she takes all types of vegies which are available for the meal. She had also developed a strange liking to spring onions and doesn't mind having lots of them on her rice or noodles. Eggs in all forms are also one of her favourites and she often asked me if we were having them for dinner. She also loves to have soup with her meals, like ABC soup and even takes most of the Chinese herbal soups which we cook, including ginseng (if it's not too bitter) and also bah kut teh. I also found that she likes sushi, which pleases me because her dad and I love them too..

Nowadays I try to include dishes which she likes in a meal to increase her appetite and also to try and train her to eat faster as I don't think she will have meal breaks in school in future as long as the ones she takes at home. I'm not even sure she finishes her food in preschool at the moment. Just a few days ago, hubby was working late so little princess and I had a quiet dinner at home. I cooked rice for her with a hard boiled egg, and stir fried some chicken pieces with garlic, thickened up the sauce with a little bit of cornflour and stirred in some fresh cucumber after switching off the stove. This proved to be a dish she liked.. and she did finish up her bowl of food in a reasonable amount of time. She went for the hard boiled egg first and finished it up so quickly before I remembered to take a pic with the egg..