I was thinking about this as I was pouring some juice for Alex today. :)

Remember when our kids were new eaters and so many of us were SO careful about what we gave them - organic whole grains and fresh produce, no/little sugar, etc. Of course, this was the goal and we followed it as much as was realistic. :awink:

So.....now that our kids are older and are around other kids who are eating whatever is edible, are you just as careful about what they consume? Are there still any foods/whatever that are off limits? If so, what are your reasons? When do you plan to have it be anything goes?

As for me, the two things that are absolutely off limits - for now - are chewing gum and soda. My 2yo is SO not ready for gum, and I'm going to dig in my heels on soda for as long as possible. :)
For other stuff, I buy organic produce as much as possible.....but not always. Alex still gets limited amounts of juice - organic 100% almost every time, about 4oz a day....watered down. Once that juice is gone, it's water all the way for the rest of the day (or milk).
99% of the time, he's still drinking organic whole milk, and I plan on continuing doing this until he's about 4yo. He's a peanut, and the fat is still good for him right now. :) I also do organic (when on sale) or cruelty-free plain yogurt with fresh fruit or made into a smoothie. I've quit buying Yo-Baby and I will NOT buy the Dannon kid's yogurt ever.

As for other food, it's anything goes. He loves chicken nuggets (dipped in hummus :lol: ) and mac & cheese (Annie's, when it's on sale). We eat fast food a couple of times a month and he LOVES fries. Alex eats what we eat almost all the time - Hamburger Helper on occasion, white bread, donuts, you name it! :)

Alex is also a sugar FIEND!!! We have bribed him to finish his dinner many, many times with the promise of a scoop of ice cream, a cookie, or some chocolate. He gets something sweet just about every day. :heee: We don't want sugar to be forbidden.....but we also don't want to sacrifice good nutrition for the day because he wants to eat crap instead.

I think that's about it! :) We're pretty proud of the fact that he sees some stuff as treats - bell peppers, cukes, seaweed, fruit, etc - and will eat a good variety of food. On the other hand, we've loosened up quite a bit and are very willling to let him eat what the other kids are eating.

I am still pretty picky about what Julia gets. VERY little sugar (ie candy), no juice, NO SODA, no tea, no sugary cereal, only whole-grain bread. I don't let her have popcorn, nuts or gum yet.

Julia does eat just about every veggie known to man and likes most of them (she is NOT a potato gal). She eats fruit with every meal and drinks milk with every meal - otherwise it's water. She has a treat here and there, sometimes ice cream after dinner (maybe only once or twice a month). She eats yogurt but I do not buy anything but simple vanilla low-fat yogurt.

In all, she is an excellent eater, I am VERY proud of her eating habits! :aok:

I am also still pretty picky about what all 3 of my kids eat (ages 4 and 2.5), but naturally, I've loosened up some.

In general, we (that includes my husband and I) eat very healthy, so we don't have things like white bread and hot dogs and sugary cereals in the house. I am a vegetarian and while my kids aren't, they eat a primarily meat-free diet, with some occasional poultry thrown in maybe 2x/mo. So I have to make sure that they get all their vitamins and nutrients and whatnot and aren't filling up on empty calories.

ANYWAY...I do let them eat things like pretzels, tortilla chips when we go out for mexican, occasionally ice cream, MnMs once in awhile (they love their chocolate!), and donuts if we happen to go to the local place for coffee & pastries on the weekend. I let them have b-day cake/cupcakes at parties and whatnot, as well. And I let my boys have watered down apple juice (Norah doesn't like juice). So its not like they're deprived. The only things that are 100% off limits are soda, gum, and many types of candy (basically anything aside from chocolate).

ETA - I had to just giggle as I thought about this. My MOMS Club friends laugh that of all people, my daughter can spot the golden arches a mile away and will scream, "fries!" :lol: So yes, I've treated them all to that crap a few times, even though I don't eat it :)

I was not as restrictive as a lot of people here but I think I still keep the main things away including with Tylor. I am still a NO POP kind of person. yes Tylor has had some and yes even Alyssa has had a few sips but I don't give it to them and they don't ask. When we are out to eat they ask for lemonade or milk. Both of them and I am pretty proud of that. Alyssa does drink Hi-C juice boxes and so does Tylor but when it comes to juice really she gets it mixed with water. She doesn't even like it at it's full strength. We do eat fast food and we do let them have chocolate. They also like smarties but they don't eat much other candy.

The one thing they both love are poptarts and that is my down fall. When I am just sluggish they eat poptarts for breakfast.

As for me, the two things that are absolutely off limits - for now - are chewing gum and soda.

Rebekah just discovered gum at 4 years old and she loves it. And as for soda...well, she probably has it once a day. :rolleyes: She asks for it and then doesn't drink much of it. The only other thing she drinks is milk.

Rebekah is a horrible eater so I just let her eat whatever she will eat. Sometimes she eats broccoli only all day long. The other day it was corn. Sometimes it's hot dogs. :dunno: She gets vegetables and she likes them so I don't worry too much.

i was never the organic/natural type with the kids but i do have my 'no' list.

no:
soda
juice (they do get it at daycare. but have never bought it for my home)
candy

i give the other stuff in moderation, like chips (the light kind), sugary cereal, ice cream etc. i'm the mean mom who gave them easter baskets, then hid them the next day (and proceeded to eat all their chocolate :blush1: ). ok, mean fat mom!

marc and i are fatties and i will not have fat kids! so far so good :aok:

gianna eats anything you give her but tony is on the 'kid's menu' diet (mac and cheese, nuggets, etc) and i struggle with that. he eats a lot of grilled chicken because he won't eat anything else.

I'm kind of opposite (shocked, eh? :lol: ) My kids eat healthier now than they did when they were younger. But, I eat healthier now than I did a year ago as well. When I finally decided that yes, my kids ate crap and they ate crap because *I* fed it to them and I realized that *I* was the one instilling the poor eating habits, I changed them. Jacob will still not go within 10 feet of a green bean, but he loves his yogurt, organic shredded wheat and bananas :dunno: The girls will still eat pretty much anything you put in front of them, though :lol: I'm proud of the changes I've made in their eating habits and my own. On the other hand, I don't withhold all crap. I still let them eat crap on some occasions, birthday parties, weekly family dinner, etc. I'm not as strict with them on those days. They get to drink diet-7-up at family dinner and that is like the BIGGEST treat in the world to them :lol:

I've losened up a as well...

Jackson gets syrup with his pancakes and waffles now, and I do let him have donut holes from time to time, chocolate w/his Easter basket, birthday cake at parties, and I'll get him fast food a couple times a month.

His diet isn't great but he does eat all whole grain bread (and bread products) and loves fruit - a lot of the time he'll chose fruit over cookies or something. He doesn't eat a lot of meat or veggies though. Just chicken nuggets for meat and carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and corn for veggies.

I won't let him have soda or gum, at all, and I don't give him candy or fruit snacks on a regular basis.

He mostly drinks either milk or water, but I have been letting him have watered down 100% juice as well. When he was sick he stopped drinking water and the only way I could get fluid into him was to mix it with juice - so I decided it was more important for him to have fluids (plus I think water tastes nasty when I'm sick).

I'm trying to stick to the 80/20 rule - I figure if he eats healthfully 80% of the time, then it is ok if he has a "treat" 20% of the time.

Mason is 4 and 4 months and he is not allowed gum. At least not from me. :lol: He always asks me if he can have candy/treat/junk food even if Patrick is home. He knows who's boss! :lol:

His latest thing is "I don't like healthy food!" Then I offer him some cantaloupe and he jumps at it! :lol: His other is "I'm hungry for candy." I refer to most junk food as candy so that's why he says that. I will offer him something else and then say "You're not that hungry then."

He eats very well but I do think sometimes he has a bit too much junk food. Of course his Daddy likes too much junk food too. Like father, like son. :)

You know, that's the thing I was thinking of, Bev! We like to eat chips and cookies and ice cream now and then....and we just can't do it in front of Alex and not expect him to come up and want some too!
We've tried having dessert after he goes to bed....but sometimes that's pretty late. :blush: So....our new tactic is to just eat our dessert when we want and then when Alex wants a bite, we say that he needs to finish his dinner and it's amazing how quickly the veggies disappear so he can have a couple bites of ice cream. :lol:

That's our basic thing, too - if we wouldn't eat it willingly, how can we make her eat it? :dunno: So I try to alternate healthy cereals with "fun" cereals (her favorite is Cocoa Puffs); she gags if she eats frozen or fresh green beans (texture issue) so we buy canned. Maybe not the best thing in the world, but better than no green beans at all I would think. I think it's also affected by the idea that out here in the boondocks among the farmers, there are no Trader Joes/Whole Foods type places, so asking for organic this and that or no HFCS stuff would earn you lots of blank looks. I'm more involved with portion control issues, because DH has such problems with the same facet - so it's important to me that Caroline learn a serving of cookies, when it happens, is 2 or 3 cookies, not 12 or 13.

We're pretty proud of the fact that he sees some stuff as treats - bell peppers, cukes, seaweed, fruit, etc - and will eat a good variety of food.

I have no ideas what cukes are, but he sees seaweed and peppers as treats? :scratch: That's one wierd kid! :locolaugh

Cukes = cucumbers. :lol:

Caleb loves seaweed, too. He'll eat about anything except for canteloupe. HE HATES IT!!

We don't really do candy, he's never had gum, but he does eat chips and those dreadful pretzels with cheese sauce things from Mr. Salty. :blush:

We really push fruit, and he could live on it. His favorites are blueberries. :)

Caleb does get "some" juice because Kai is big into juice, but he's never had pop. And by "some" juice I mean on the weekends he'll have a juice box? Or maybe once or twice during the week, but that's about it.

We don't typically keep a lot of cookies or stuff like that. Like Kim's post... we're both too heavy but we DO NOT want fat kids so we're going to do everything possible to avoid that.

Caleb is just such a good eater that keeping "treat" or special foods hasn't been an issue. Given the choice he'd choose an apple. Unless there was ice cream. Then he'd choose the ice cream, I guess! :lol: (But we don't typically have much of that in the house.)

I have no ideas what cukes are, but he sees seaweed and peppers as treats? :scratch: That's one wierd kid! :locolaugh

Yeah....he's pretty weird. :lol2: He will eat sheets of seaweed just as fast as I can put them in front of him!! It's crazy!! His friends just pick it up and and laugh....and then Alex takes it out of their hands and eats it. :lol:

Who knew MY kid would love seaweed? :dunno:

Mason loves peppers! Often, moreso in the summer, we will have cucumbers, assorted peppers, carrots, grape tomatoes, green beans etc. and dip for an afternoon snack. :lick:

Anne, have you tried French style green beans? They are sliced lengthwise.

Yes, we have. It's not the size/shape of the bean, it's the texture. :dunno:

my kids have never had gum or soda. They get chocolate on occassion, but not any other candy (o.k., they each had their first Twizzler in the airport this weekend).

Other than that, I'm pretty much an "everything in moderation" kind of mom. We don't always buy organic, my kids get Danimals instead of organic yogurt, but then again they eat veggie booty and veggie crips as snacks instead of potato chips or something similar. They eat a reasonable amount of fruit and veggies- probably not as much as they should, but not bad, either.

I'm hoping to hold out on soda and gum for quite a while longer.