#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Living In Thailand Forum >  >  > The Family Room >  >  Healthiest dishes your kids eat?

## Goodwill

Simple question. I find it hard to get my daughter to eat anything that is even slightly healthy most of the time. My wife is not much of a cook or concerned with trying to get the kids to eat more vegetables. Most of the time we buy food nearby and have Penang Moo and Kai Palo or some kind of fried or barbecued meat which aren't very healthy.

The healthiest food my daughter will eat is...


Pad KaNah




Are you trying to get your kids to eat healthier foods? What would you say is the healthiest food that your kid eats?

----------


## aging one

I cook 4 nights a week for my kids and have for over 10 years. They are now 15. This week they had barbecued chicken tenders, a green salad and rice pilaf.  A roast pork fillet with mash, gravy and green beans. Spaghetti with my special sauce, green salad and garlic bread. Tonight is meatloaf with roasted potatoes and corn on the cob.

They have missed one day of school each in 10 years, are always healthy and stand at 166 cent but are thin at 42 kilos.
But they eat like their mom, snacking all day.

----------


## Goodwill

Dad the chef. Sounds like they eat well, Aging. I'd love to eat that well myself. Your menu is a lot like what my mom used to cook when I was a kid. Do you ever cook Thai food for them?

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

Both my kids eat healthy foods - or they starve  :Smile:

----------


## aging one

good, the maid or wife cooks the other 3 days a week and its Thai. You are very correct in that the meals are adapted from my mom and dads cooking.

----------


## Goodwill

I don't think a lot of Thai food is really heathy despite what people say about it. A lot of it has too much sugar and too much fat plus its on rice which is basically the same a sugar. Somtam is probably healthy so long as it's not the sweeten Somtam Thai. The real country food is the healthiest in my opinion. The Thai food in Bangkok is mostly modernized with excessive sugar and processed oils.

The kids up here in Esarn just eat what is cooked. Nowadays, people are buying more and more at the local shops and markets rather than cooking things themselves. Very very few country people consider what might be healthy when eating. They tend to just eat what then can get and what they like if they have the money. A big boom in small shops selling all the processed snacks has occurred in the past 10 years. It's easier to find Lays potato chips and other snacks than fruit most of the time at least up here in Esarn. I just saw a documentary on food in America and its the same for the US countryside. Even though there are farmers growing stuff, the people in cities really have the best access to fresh food in supermarkets well at least in the areas with money. Farmers don't always have the best access to fresh vegetables and fruits if they aren't grown in their area. Anyways, it would be nice if the kids were eating more healthy snacks than all the new junk food that's available.

----------


## Bobcock

My kids enjoy most things.

When we are eating out they will always request Japanese over fast food..... more expensive but much better for them.

Both love fish and eat their vegetables.

We use no salt in cooking at home and they eat very little sweets.

Funnily enough one is big and strong for his age, very athletic, the other is very thin, underweight but seemingly very healthy. Haven't had a day off sick in years that I can remember.

All kids have something to frustrate you, eating has never been our problem (other than expensive tastes, parma ham, smoken salmon.......).

Now homework is a different story....

----------


## MeMock

> Both my kids eat healthy foods - or they starve


And there is the answer!

Dish up healthy food and if they don't eat it - then there is nothing else to eat until the next meal. 

My kids never gets meals like Aging Ones do (lucky buggers!) but they do eat healthy 90% of the time. Just the basics like vegetables and fruit accompany every meal. No sugar in any meals apart from special treats. Nothing to drink but water. They are aged 7, 6 and 1 and like AO are almost never sick.

----------


## Goodwill

> Originally Posted by Albert Shagnastier
> 
> 
> Both my kids eat healthy foods - or they starve 
> 
> 
> And there is the answer!
> 
> Dish up healthy food and if they don't eat it - then there is nothing else to eat until the next meal.


In my case, they just eat next door at one of their relative's homes. One of the worst problems of farmer families is there are few true families. Our kids eat next door at least twice a week. One weekends pretty much everyone eats next door. This is one reason country kids have such communal values rather than family values. Just my situation. I would recommend anyone interested in having a true traditional family live in a city away from relatives. Even then, you will have days when the relatives are around and you might not be able to do things your way.

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

> In my case, they just eat next door at one of their relative's homes. One of the worst problems of farmer families is there are few true families. Our kids eat next door at least twice a week. One weekends pretty much everyone eats next door. This is one reason country kids have such communal values rather than family values. Just my situation. I would recommend anyone interested in having a true traditional family live in a city away from relatives. Even then, you will have days when the relatives are around and you might not be able to do things your way.


Good points. If you have no control over the environment then it's much harder to push them in the right direction. I guess that's why you have to try and reach the right environment.

----------


## Rural Surin

Anything local and traditional.

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

> Anything local and traditional.


is what?

I believe a good environment doesn't have to be traditional at all. In fact one of the things I shun most here is the irrelevant outdated and pointless traditions. While there is a great amount of good things here - it's pretty obvious that the old "30 years behind the west" still rings true in many areas.

----------


## Gravesend Dave

My kids eat healthy food most of the time,whats on my plate although usually the same somehow looks better to them!

----------


## Rural Surin

> Originally Posted by Rural Surin
> 
> Anything local and traditional.
> 
> 
> is what?
> 
> I believe a good environment doesn't have to be traditional at all. In fact one of the things I shun most here is the irrelevant outdated and pointless traditions. While there is a great amount of good things here - it's pretty obvious that the old "30 years behind the west" still rings true in many areas.


 
What makes Western cuisines and foodstuffs so fucking developed?

This is a rhetorical inquiry.....as it isn't all that.
Sucking comes to mind.

----------


## Rural Surin

> My kids eat healthy food most of the time,whats on my plate although usually the same somehow looks better to them!


Big Mac or Whopper, Gravy?

----------


## nidhogg

> Anything local and traditional.


As has been said, much local traditional fare is NOT healthy.  Especially in regards to sugar and oils.

BUT - that being said, I would still have to argue that a plate of fried noodles is better than a local 7/11 hot dog.

Its been said elsewhere that diabetes is set to go through the roof here.  Its already at about 10% of the adult population, and projected to go higher.

Seeing my kids school mates (he is 11) - some of whom nearly outweight ME  -  I can well beleive that Thailand is in for a bad time over the coming decades unless serious remediation is started soon - and that includes a real assesement of both "western" and local foods.

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

> What makes Western cuisines and foodstuffs so fucking developed?


I was talking about education and knowing what and why you're eating something.

----------


## nidhogg

> We use no salt in cooking at home


make sure they get iodine in their diet from somewhere......

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

> As has been said, much local traditional fare is NOT healthy. Especially in regards to sugar and oils.  BUT - that being said, I would still have to argue that a plate of fried noodles is better than a local 7/11 hot dog.


7/11 stuff is very bad, but so is a lot of the (recent) thai fast food carts - i.e luk chin. Dumplings. That's all that means, and obviously dumplings can be healthy and they can be shit.

Incidentally there's obviously no issue with a bit of fast food now and then, but at the same time if the hoards of massively fat americans had a chance to relive life and change their eating habits with the knowledge they now have .., maybe, just maybe they would choose differently

----------


## DrAndy

> Are you trying to get your kids to eat healthier foods? What would you say is the healthiest food that your kid eats?


my daughter eats vegetables and fruit and loves them

she had them from the beginning; no sweet foods and no fastcrap

she prefers them to that stuff. Other parents are always asking how we get her to eat them; whilst their kids stuff crisps and biscuits in their mouths, she will eat an apple and love it

----------


## Aberlour

> Both my kids eat healthy foods - or they starve


100% the way to go. Like anything, diet is a habit. Eating healthy food will only be alien to a kid if it has been allowed to get that way. If they were made to eat it from the get go, they would know no other way.

My son eats fruit like it's going out of fashion, and he loves raw carrot and cucumber, which he has on the side of most Thai dishes he eats.

Your kids should not be dictating to you what they are prepared to eat, but to eat what they are given. For example, desert can go out the window until they eat what they're given.

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

> If they were made to eat it from the get go, they would know no other way.


It's the best solution. Give them a cereal, but if you give them a really nice muesli with some fresh fruit instead of the coco pops it obviously does them the world of good - for their entire fucking life time  :Smile: , and like you say it becomes what they know. 

My misses, like most, eats rice, vegetables, fruit and chilli stuff. When I go to macdonalds (now only a few times a year) i certainly never encourage the kids or the misses to eat it too. Wish I'd been bought up on a healthier diet - saying that I was pretty lucky compared to most - if I can improve their diet through my own experience then i'll make that choice and bit of extra effort every time

----------


## Aberlour

Kids diets are a major issue these days. Some people are borderline abusing their children IMO. 

That's why I have huge respect for Jamie Oliver who is genuinely passionate about kids eating more healthily. The amount of time and money that  man has put in to changing people's understanding of how important it is for kids to eat healthily, is unbelievable.

----------


## Albert Shagnastier

Nice to see the guy's putting back all that he's taken out of the business but chanelliing the funds contructively.

----------


## Gravesend Dave

> Originally Posted by Gravesend Dave
> 
> 
> My kids eat healthy food most of the time,whats on my plate although usually the same somehow looks better to them!
> 
> 
> Big Mac or Whopper, Gravy?


Yes my kids eat that now and again!

But on the whole as a family we do eat a healthy diet!

Whats your family live on fucking lentils!!

----------


## nidhogg

^Dave!

Ration yourself on the exclamation marks!

OK!

Cool!

----------


## Gravesend Dave

> ^Dave!
> 
> Ration yourself on the exclamation marks!
> 
> OK!
> 
> Cool!


Yeh sure hogg!!!! :Smile: 

By the way For me it was chicken kebab tonight,fuck knows what that fried pork was she got the kids!
Went down well with their sticky rice and they are full,I'm not!!

----------


## nidhogg

> Originally Posted by nidhogg
> 
> 
> ^Dave!
> 
> Ration yourself on the exclamation marks!
> 
> OK!
> 
> ...


OK!!!!!!!!!!!!

----------


## kmart

^Calm down, ffs.
My lad is only 18 months old, but thankfully seems to enjoy fruit, veggies and other healthy foodstuffs. He may succumb to peer pressure and fast food crap when he's older, but it's a good early indication.

----------


## Goodwill

I wonder what age the snack advertisements actually create a hunger for those foods in kids. Keep your kids away from the TV.

----------


## Marmite the Dog

> Both my kids eat healthy foods - or they starve


Exactly. If the kids don't eat right it's because their parents are lacking.




> Anything local and traditional.


Twigs, bugs and leaves? Not for us - our kids eat human food.

----------


## Goodwill

> Originally Posted by Albert Shagnastier
> 
> Both my kids eat healthy foods - or they starve
> 
> 
> Exactly. If the kids don't eat right it's because their parents are lacking.


Yep. I'm guilty. I'll also admit I probably married the wrong woman from the wrong part of Thailand and probably from the wrong part of the world as well, but life goes on.

----------

