Now that she (and I) are gluten-free and our guts have healed, both my kids are what I’d call reasonable eaters. They will try any new thing presented to them – sometimes only one mouthful, granted, but they WILL try it. They eat a wide range of fruits in season and a pretty good range of vegetables, partly sourced from their aunt’s garden or ours (I still have not had good luck with cabbage, though I will give the ketchup a try!) They eat my bulk storage staples like lentils, rice and various dried beans in lots of different dishes. I am confident that as supermarket / packaged food becomes more prohibitively expensive and less available, they will cope well with eating predominantly home, relative or locally sourced foodstuffs, and will not starve. My husband fishes weekly (successfully, usually) and we could all transition to fish only as animal protein if we had to (as it is we have very little red meat now).

Which is not to say that the store-bought ice-cream, fair-trade chocolate, convenience breakfast cereals and spicy sauces won’t be missed, because they will. But starve we won’t, well at least not from lack of willingess to eat what’s available.

viv in nz

I’ve been thinking about your question, and I’m not sure there is an answer. Does your 60 year old accept that there is going to be a time when M&C isn’t going to be readily available? If he does, and isn’t willing to start adapting now….

Sorry not to have an answer,

MEA

I do understand what you are trying to say, and yes, it is annoying when people insist that you acknowledge the exceptions. And yet, sometimes it is worth doing so. But sorry I didn’t immediately leap the conclusion that when you used the term “extreme psychosis” you were talking about my kid, and the 1 in 200 kids broadly on the autism spectrum (not even remotely related to psychosis or mental illness).

Look, your point is well taken – it just isn’t universal. Appetite fatigue is real, and there is a huge range of responses to shock and disruption even in kids who are kinda typical.

Sharon

Most of use who are raising a child with what I’ll loosely call food issues are also raise other who eat normally — and not just normal in the the run of the mill bad for us US diet. Yes, there are people who creat problems for themselves, but there are also children (and not just mentally ill ones) who have issues food that aren’t solved by anything simple. Some of them could (as I did) benefit from the wisdom of those who gave gone down that path, as we try to increase variety of food our children eat, and others are facing a situtation that one one else here is facing, and are struggling on there own.

There is a theory, btw,that you may be aware off, that toddlers stop trying new foods at an age when, if were still all hunting and gathering, they’d be starting to pick some of there own food. Makes sense, yes?

It’s true, there is no point in panicing if a typically develping child won’t try much variety in the way of food, and there are sensible tried and true methods for dealing with, all of which start, as you say, with don’t panic.

But in order not to panic some of us need more at hand than the knowledge that most children won’t starve themselves to death if they don’t like lima beans.

MEA

Then I got cancer, went to grad school, got a recurrence of cancer, etc. Along the way decided what the hell, let him eat the damn school lunch. He eats home-cooked food with us and his grandmas so he’s eating fine otherwise.

But now he’s at day camp all summer and he still refuses to eat what is in his lunchbox. If the camp counselor makes him a PBJ from her kitchen, he’ll eat it, but he won’t touch the PBJ I make him. He will eat that same pbj at home by the way. It’s situational. I was taking the tack of – feed him a big breakfast, let him eat a huge dinner & bedtime snack, and let him forage at camp for food he likes, even if it’s junky.

I wasn’t worried about any of it until his doc said he had lost weight and was too thin. (He is indeed skinny). Then he lost another two pounds after that, what with camp and everything.

This is all to say that I have succumbed. I buy my kid those packaged granola bars. I am sorry. THat’s what I’m doing. He also gets individual packages of raisins, and a box of juice, and a commercially made cookie.

If the Big Disaster hits I am pretty sure he’ll eat my lentil soup, pasta, hummus – that’s what we eat anyway. However since he is losing weight at the moment, and his doctor is concerned, I am not willing to say “let him starve, he’ll eat sometime.” I used to believe that but now I see that it’s possible for a healthy kid to actually lose weight out of sheer stubbornness. Oh yes and he’s not happy that I’m in chemo either so that adds to the stress. (no I’m not losing weight)

If things get weird around here I am pretty confident my kids will eat all the beans, rice and burghul I have stockpiled. Also the canned corn etc. And they love canned sardines and tuna. For longterm disasters like TEOTWAWKI well they will adapt or not, won’t they? I put my faith in God that all will be well.

These kinds of food issues terrify me, and there is no way I can coax him to change or to hide anything remotely healthy in his food. His not-so-tongue-in-cheek joke is that the only green thing that will ever pass his lips is Diet Mountain Dew.

But- for most parents- the first thing to try, is indeed to relax, really.