Top chefs on how they feed their little ones

Is your fussy eater driving you to distraction? Photo / Getty Images

How and what we feed our kids can lay the foundation for a lifetime of good eating habits or psychic meltdowns requiring years of counselling. So how do chefs, for whom food is more important than it is for most of us, approach the mealtime minefield?

We've all witnessed the mortifying super-market scene as the parent tries to coerce a toddler into making a breakfast food selection. "Well what about these ones? How about these — they look nice. You loved these the last time you had them …" Or worse: "What do you mean you want a Jelly Tip? You know you love tiramisu."

That sort of thing doesn't sit well with Jo Seagar, mother of a grown-up son, Guy, and daughter, Kate.

"Who's the boss here and when did 'shut up and eat' go out of the parenting handbook?" splutters the empress of easy-peasy, who extends her philosophy of simplicity to kids' eating.

"I used to have lots of women come to my cook school who had to cook two or three options for each meal because 'this one doesn't eat this' and 'unless it's got golden breadcrumbs on, that one won't touch it'."

"Just try it," is part of the answer, and probably the most over-used phrase in the parents' food lexicon. What happens next varies from parent to parent.

"I tried to ensure that my daughter, at a very young age, tastes as many different things as possible, whether it be blue cheese or caviar or whatever, because [children] develop their palate between 2 and 3 years old," says Giraffe's Simon Gault, father of Hazel.

"A lot of people think babies like bland food," says Nadia Lim, mother of son Bodhi, 21 months and co-founder of My Food Bag. "But I've found when it's really bland they won't eat it. From early on I added spices and herbs to get [Bodhi] used to it — cinnamon or cardamom in a banana smoothie, paprika in his mash."

Food writer (and now Waiheke Island-based poet) Julie Biuso, mother of adult children Luca, 30, and Ilaria, 26, was more traditional: "I'm not tempted to start ramming things down their throats at 4 months. I started on the usual things — steamed veges and fruit." But then she went to Italy and spent time with her husband's family, who put olive oil and parmesan cheese on food, to her horror and her children's delight. "So their palates developed along savoury lines rather than sweet. I think that's quite important, because it's easy to sweeten things if you think you're making it more palatable."

Nourish Group executive chef Gareth Stewart, who has two boys, Harley, 8 and Freddie, 5, says if at first you don't succeed, get your kids to try it and try it again.

"My eldest doesn't like fish or mushrooms. My youngest doesn't like feta. We reintroduce food to them and get them to retry it and promise them that their palate does change."

How we eat with kids may be almost as important as what we give them to eat. Think: togetherness.

"My biggest thing with my own kids and grandchildren," says Seagar, "is that they have to see you sitting around a table and eating as well."

Adds Allyson Gofton, food writer and broadcaster, and mother of Jean-Luc, 16, and Olive-Rose, 10. "Food is not only nourishment for our bodies, it is what bonds family and friends."

"Home is where the heart is and where the good food is," concurs Biuso. "I always set the table and had napkins with napkin rings. Food was served in the Italian style — no eating on the run."

Eating together also means kids are set an example of enjoying all sorts of food."

"Yesterday Bodhi ate sauerkraut," says Lim, "which I've tried many times before without success. But everyone else was eating it with our tacos and he asked for it."

Sauerkraut — yum, sure. But doesn't everyone get a sweet treat sometimes? They do, although it's unlikely to be a soft drink. Water is the default beverage for today's chef parent, even at birthday parties.

"I always said to them — try to just drink water, or if you want to have a juice, put water in with it," says Mike Van de Elzen of Good from Scratch, father of Hazel, 7, and Ivy, 5.

He's observed that there tend to be plenty more healthy options — and water to drink — at today's kids' birthday parties anyway.

For home treats, "We have a Soda Stream but no mixes and, when the girls have sparkling water, it blows their minds."

To this day I can say I've never served Hazel anything other than water or milk," says Gault "And she's 4 now." He is such an advocate for natural sugar that he's devised and is marketing Gault's Ketchup, sweetened with vegetables, as an alternative that he says kids love.

Stewart is a realist, based on his own experience: "As soon as I was old enough to know about sweets, I'd have broken an arm to get a bag of them. It's part of being a kid. If we go to a restaurant and me and my wife have a wine, they will have a lemonade and icecream as a treat if they're being good."

But if all else fails, relax. "I never fretted about anything unless I couldn't get food into them of some description," says Gofton. "My son had huge periods of eating only one food. He went from mushrooms and only mushrooms to hating them. He liked chicken and duck liver paté, but by the time we went to France to live for a while, he couldn't stand the stuff. And now he'll eat most things."

When it comes to enforcing restrictions, Van de Elzen says his girls will have been taught: "In our family this is what we do. That's all. If they decide they like soft drinks later, then fine. It won't be World War III."

What's for lunch?

When kids are at home, parents can keep an eye on what they're eating. But what do chefs pack in schoolbags to make sure their offspring will have a proper lunch at school? Quite a lot of leftovers and not many sandwiches.

"I'm not a parent who says, 'I'm only making a sandwich,'" says Gofton. "If you're giving them things they won't eat and the food comes back, it's wasteful. My son loves pizza, so I made a pizza every morning. I bought the thin ones with the tomato base and just put cheese on that. My daughter won't eat bread, so she has whatever's leftover in the meat department, turned into kebabs with cucumber or tomatoes."

"Ours had leftover pasta and a fork," says Seagar. "Or sushi. And always home baking, because it was a lot cheaper."

Van de Elzen and his wife Belinda, who is also a chef, take turns tempting their girls' midday taste buds. "My wife will make a wrap and cut up fruit. I'm more experimental. I'll make vege sticks and a dip. I always look at what comes back and generally I lose. Wraps seem to be easier and more fun to eat."

Lim's Bodhi has daycare time with two other children at a nearby home, where parents take turns providing lunch. "I usually send a hot meal like a bolognese or a slow-cooked meat and vege stew. Today I did apricot and thyme chicken with kumara mash. Some parents are not into treats at all, but I think a little piece occasionally is fine. And not a bliss ball, but a real treat. Sometimes he gets an icecream."

Sandwiches also weren't popular with the Biuso offspring but "they loved pita pockets. You could put the hummus in the pita and it wouldn't get soggy, and you could add leftover zucchini. I used to make more dinner in order to provide leftovers for lunch the next day."

But even chefs' kids indulge in the age-old tradition of swapping lunches. Says Biuso: "My son loved Indian food and had a close Indian friend — they used to swap lunches."