Eating

Just a little update on our life with a toddler.

I wrote about sleep several weeks ago and it continues to be great (except for that as I am writing this he is supposed to be napping and I can hear him playing/singing).  Rowan got dinosaur sheets for Valentines Day (which I thought was a lame mom gift) and he freaked out!  He was in LOVE with them.  He carried them around for awhile before we could talk him into letting us put them on his bed.  He still asks us to come lay in his dinosaur bed with him, which is way cute!  Also, about 3 days after I wrote that post he stopped using his pacifier.  The transition was super easy, we just didn't offer it to him and he stopped asking for it.  I was super excited it went so well!  Occasionally he will ask for it in the car or if he is really tired, but for the most part we hear very little about it. 

This time I wanted to write about eating.  We get a lot of comments on our eating habits.  Some people disagree and some agree, and some just go with it and don't say much!  I have been a vegetarian for most of my adult life (not strict by any means).  I stopped eating meat in high school because I just don't like the texture of it.  Some stuff I can handle, but for the most part I don't like it.  I ate chicken and turkey for my teenage years, but have stopped eating those within the last year.  On occasion I will eat meat.  Holidays/vacations are a time when I will eat meat if there is something I really want.  Ryan's mom makes a great turkey casserole that we "cheat" on for holidays and I could never ever pass up Mario's nachos when home in Pontiac.  I also really enjoy deer meet and duck/goose when my dad has that around during the holidays.  So by no means am I super strict on what I eat.  I eat what I want and what I like, I just prefer to not eat meat. Ryan is much more strict with what he eats, but again he will "cheat" if he wants too.

When I was pregnant with Rowan, Ryan decided to try being vegan for a month. I decided I would go along when I cooked at home, but if we ate out then I was still vegetarian.  He really enjoyed the health benefits he saw from eating vegan and I didn't mind it either.  We also did a lot of research on the environmental benifits and that was convincing enough for us to continue eating vegan after the month was over.  For the most part we were vegan up until I got pregnant again.  We fed Rowan this way as well.  The few times he did have to have formula it was soy based and when we started giving him table food it was vegan.  He didn't seem to mind.  This is when the comments really started to come in.  What about protein? He needs calcium!  We heard a lot of stuff and because of the research we had done we knew we could give him those nutrients through other foods.  He does have low growth percentages when he has his check-ups, but the doctors have never been overly concerned.  Ryan was very small up until high school and Rowan is his spitting image so I anticipate him always being somewhat small.  I have never really been concerned.  He eats just about everything you put in front of him!


He didn't like cheese up until a few months ago and still doesn't really like it in solid form.  He loves macaroni and cheese however!  We still only cook vegan meals at home, but will eat dairy when eating out.  People have offered him meat (all but forced it upon him at times) and he usually doesn't take it.  At this point in time he isn't really a fan of it and that is fine with us.  If he liked it then we have no problem with him eating it on occasion.  We just won't cook or order it for him.  Those are the choices we have made as a family for our family.



Rowan absolutley loves fruit and most vegetables.  It is a gurantee he will eat corn, especially if it is on the cob.  He would eat an entire can of corn if I offered it all to him!  Strawberries, blueberries, rasberries, and banana's are high on his list of likes.  He is also really good at eating other vegetables.  He enjoys any color pepper (raw or cooked), mushrooms (raw or cooked), and green beans. Salad is a go if it has thousand island dressing on it (this is an option when we go out).  He will eat raw broccoli if he can dip it in ranch as well (we don't offer this option at home, but at restaurants we let him do it). 


Some other go to foods include pasta, mandarian oranges, vegan boca burgers, sometimes home-made pizza (without cheese), guacamole/avacado, and peanut butter and jelly.  For breakfast we usually have either toast, oatmeal with cinnamon, whole wheat waffles and a banana.  He likes yogurt as well.  We offer him soy, almond, or cocunut based yogurt at home, but at the sitter he has cow's milk yogurt.  He only drinks soy and almond milk, but he has had cow's milk when we were traveling and couldn't find one of the others.  Granola bars are always a good option as well.  He likes most types of nuts, but we don't offer those often just because of the choking hazard.  He likes tofu, especially when in a chinese dish.  He absolutly loves sushi.  We get vegetable rolls and he just eats them up.  His favorite is probably the avacado roll.  Steamed white rice is also a winner.  We are still working on brown rice.  He loves one of the mediterrian restuarants we go too.  His favorites there are hummus pita's and beets.  He is not a huge fan of potatoes, but french fries are growing on him if he can dip them in ketchup.  Usually he just sucks the ketchup off so we don't offer them often.  He has a sweet tooth like his momma and would eat any type of sweet you put in front of him, especially chocolate based treats.

We have gone through phases where we have to "trick" him into eating anything.  Asking him to take a dinosaur or crocodile bite worked for a long time and recently telling him he has to take a certain number of bites before he can get down has worked. Using the colors of the food works on occasion as well.  We went through a phase where we put ketchup on a lot of stuff too.  Typical toddler behaviors!

All in all he eats really well.  We really want to continue to offer him a wide variety of foods from different cultures so he is exposed to many different types of food.  This is probably more important to us than him not eating meat.  Ryan and I love trying new foods and we want to pass this along to our children.