Alternative to fish?

[Casserole Dish]

My son is a bit of a fussy eater and one of the things he really dosen't like is fish. I'm not a huge fish eater but I do enjoy it when it's cooked well and I try to have it fairly regularly for the health benefits. My boy dosen't like tuna, or salmon or even a nice battered flake from the Fish n Greaso's! (yes, I know that's technically not fish, but shows how fussy he is).

So what else is as good as fish for Omega 3s etc?

 

[Bon]

Fish oil capsules

 

[Amadio]

I'm not into pandering to kids and their dislikes when half the worlds' children can't even get enough to eat every day. I cooked dinner and put it on the table. If they didn't like it they got themselves bread and butter.

Edit: Sorry - that sounded snappy. Just don't worry too much about food and kids. Fussy eaters are just reflecting their parents' anxieties about food.

 

[tgarthe]

what about prawns, bugs, scallops etc???

But agree, fish oil tabs go well.

 

[Casserole Dish]

I'm not into pandering to kids and their dislikes when half the worlds' children can't even get enough to eat every day. I cooked dinner and put it on the table. If they didn't like it they got themselves bread and butter.

Edit: Sorry - that sounded snappy. Just don't worry too much about food and kids. Fussy eaters are just reflecting their parents' anxieties about food.

I know where your coming from with this but in my defence I have to say I'm not 'pandering to his dislikes'. And you have described exactly what has been happening - I put the dinner on the table after spending ages in planning, purchasing, cooking only for him to try a nibble (he does try things) then just end up with bread. Then the dog gets the good stuff. Best fed pug in Victoria. So thats not helping the starving kids of the world either and I hate the waste (no offence to the dog). Mothers always feel guilty no matter what we do.

I'm really only concerned about when he dosen't like his fish as it is a good food that his body could really do with. Mealtime is pretty relaxed, all the rest of us do eat fish happily when we have it. He just dosen't like fish, I don't think theres anything much deeper to it.

Just wondered if there was another food that had similar good stuff in it. I appreciate the replies and I'll see if there is a capsule or similar designed for kids.

 

[Macca]

Flaxseed oil has similar Omega 3 as fish, you can put it on salads or into shakes but not in cooking as the heat kills the good bits.

Have you tried fish fingers, not very nutritional but at least he is eating with the family.

 

[pennyk]

my kids dont like fish, but will eat calamari. so, maybe try some alternative seafood and see what he'll eat.
My son has started eating frozen fish fillets and my daughter eats fish fingers.
Pen

 

[Jase H]

What about getting a bit of Tuna into his diet via either Tuna Pasta or Tuna mornay etc. When I was a kid you would not of caught me dead eating a Tuna steak etc but I loved Tuna pasta and Tuna Mornay. Salmon Patties is another old favorite mum used to sneak into our diet as kids.

Then of course once my palate gradually aquired a taste for more exotic flavors I loved all seafood

 

[joanmc]

do you cook it just as a fillet?
maybe try fish cakes (thai style) but just call them thai patties - don't mention the fish.
Chop it up finely and put it in spring rolls.
Make it mornay style and add curry powder and just call it curry.
Mainly- don't tell him it's fish!

I have a niece who won't eat all sorts of things but when here she does beccause she doesn't know what's in it. Always comes back for seconds too.
Then the next time she says "I don't like..." I tell her she ate it last time.

I also make a fritter with flour, egg, milk , can of tuna, corn onion, shallots, left overs. fry them up and have with tomato sauce -have yet to meet a kid that won't eat them.

For the record, in our house, it was eat dinner or starve

 

[Nathan]

What about a Caserole Dish?

Sorry I had to!

What about just vegtables/salad etc...??? I dont like seafood that much, but I tell you what... Nice fish cocktails on bread rolls and lemon are the best!

 

[RumpledElf]

I never eat seafood, not sure what the fuss is about. Partner won't either, so only Miss 10 eats it as her dad feeds her nothing but fish when she visits him. Visiting weekends always involved her going away, not having a bath, and coming back reeking of strong-smelling fish. I have thrown out maybe 30kg of enormous hideous stinky fish fillets he gave me for her, amazing how it takes someone over a year of telling them "I don't eat fish and I always throw these in the bin, please don't give them to me" for them to listen. Obviously I was being a bit too subtle, but I digress.

Omega 3 is also in grass fed lamb and beef. You don't want the flaxseed oil ones, the plant-derived stuff isn't in a format that you can easily use.

And please please please don't make your offspring eat those enormous fish oil tablets, my parents tried that on me when I was a kid with these absolutely huge vitamin tablets and I hated them (too hard to swallow) and would palm them into my pocket and bin them. Waste of money for my parents - they stopped buying them when I accidentally left them in my pocket one time and they turned the wash yellow. If you're going to dose the kid, use that liquid stuff they advertise on TV. Miss 10 here is another anti-tablet kid and almost fainted at the size pregnancy/breastfeeding capsules I have here (mostly fish oil of course) and grilled us for 10 minutes on how on earth it is possible to swallow something that size

Edit: for anyone horrified at wasting so much fish and why don't I give it to someone else, I live amost a 3 hour drive away from Adelaide, and there's no way I'm going to leave a really smelly slightly leaky plastic bag of partly thawed raw fish fillets in my nice warm car for 3 hours, refreeze them and then attempt to give them away. It was easier to just dump them in the nearest public bin, my go-between never wanted them either and she said she always passed on my messages but ... I still got the fish. I don't know what kind of fish it was, just that it was incredibly strong-smelling. I have no idea what they were thinking with the fish, putting the stuff in an icecream container or anything else that didn't LEAK would have been a better idea.

 

[tom32]

You ever taken the kids fishing?

Take them and let them bring a few in, keep one they catch aside, and tell them it is for them. They will store in the bucket play with it, torment it etc, but importantly at least for mine eat it as well. (As long as it's not a tailor where you have bled it in the bucket, not so keen on touching them then...)

Kids have that natural hunter instinct that if they catch something they want to eat it...

 

[Aaron Sice]

my kids won't eat fish period, but they will eat tuna puttanesca, tuna patties and tuna mornay. although we often substitute tuna for other, more local, fish.

go figure.

flaxseed oil as omega 3 is fine, you just need to be aware that if it's stored incorrectly it will go rancid overnight and be worse for you than margarine. it also has to be consumed uncooked - very fragile structures to this oil.

but yes, grass fed cloven hoofed animal flesh is also high in omega 3.

 

[Nards]

Huh, I have the opposite problem...my two kids are fussy about what species of fish they eat...they have eaten freshly caught fish since they were babies. They love "mackie" (Spanish Mackeral), but wont eat "red fish" (Nannygai). They also love the oily fish like herring and mullet, but only if caught and cooked fresh (yummm, who doesnt!?). Neither of them will touch fish from a box or fish fingers. They do enjoy a tuna, lettuce and mayo sandwich in their lunch box...

I reckon its the old story - kids will eat what they are brought up on..introduce it too late and forget it, until they are old enough to appreciate they might be missing out on something good!

 

[AlmostBob]

Not an answer, just to say I feel better, I wasn't the only one with a kid who wont eat chicken, but will eat drumsticks, Now he is 19, and likes alll the things that were eeeeewwwwwww growing up
resort to trickery, it works

 

[RumpledElf]

I reckon its the old story - kids will eat what they are brought up on..introduce it too late and forget it, until they are old enough to appreciate they might be missing out on something good!

Or worse, parents who can't cook - the only fish I had growing up was so revolting I've been put off it for life (eg, microwaved snapper) I learnt a lot about food as a teenager away from home at uni, in sharehouses with people of different ethnic backgrounds.

Kids are all different too, I have one that loves almost everything (what she doesn't love she slips to the baby who just scoffs it down, its a bit like having a dog) and one who hates almost everything. The one who hates everything can't tell the difference between chicken, beef, lamb and pork by taste or smell, and asks "do I hate this?" and "have we had this before?" just before every meal. Chicken is the one meat she can readily identify but only if it is intact with the bones in, as soon as its in schnitzel, sausages, boned and rolled or even just diced she can't work it out. When we do find something she allegedly loves she'll only eat it a few times before she reverts to hating it with a passion. The policy with her is just sit down, shut up and eat your dinner, there's no point even trying to buy things she 'likes'.

She's only just realised that the food in our house is actually pretty good and Grandma's food isn't. Maybe she'll stop complaining by the time she's 25.

 

[mary&mat]

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but has he tried sardines in tomato sauce? Yum!

 

[Xenia]

There is no rule that says you have to have fish or anything else that you don't like.

When I put dinner out for my children they have a choice to eat or not eat. If they choose not to because they don't like it, we make it okay for them to have that view (it changes the next week anyway). Sometimes they are just trying to stand their ground against something they have control over.

If you have lots of raw fruit and vegetables on offer, they alone would have all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients - you can live a long healthy life just on that with no fish or any other meat.

When my kids don't like what I've cooked, they go for the apples, bananas, celery or whatever else is in the fridge and my view point - great choice guys that's actually healthier than what I just cooked. It empowers children to make a choice without feeling bad about it.

Raw veggies is my alternative to fish or anything.

 

[Nards]

I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but has he tried sardines in tomato sauce? Yum!

Yumm..love sardies in tomato sauce on toast for brekky! Also love anchovy paste. Also love freaking my kids out by offering them a taste of either, and watching their faces when they cop a fishy whiff!

 

[Xenia]

LOL Nards I do the same with chocolate covered ginger. Other chocolate or anything sweet wont last in our house. The ginger will last for days because my kids hate it.

My 7 year old daughter was the only one that was adventurous enough to try it and as she spat it out in the bin she looked at me and screamed out "MUM GO BACK TO THE PLANET WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND WHERE IT IS NORMAL TO EAT THAT ****"

Fantastic - more for me