What to feed them

When the children were very small, I sometimes felt like I was missing a trick that I didn't really get into the habit of having pouches of baby food and special baby snacks around the house.  I cooked a lot of purees and child-friendly foods, and, having frozen the excess, using that as my convenience food.  I posted on facebook about feeling that perhaps I had "drunk the koolaid" and should just be buying the pouches, but an old friend intervened to say that I was doing the right thing (thanks, Zoe!)

Looks lovely and handmade, right?

 



So I kept on cooking, the kids kept on eating and all was good.  And then I had envy of the people who had little, individually wrapped snacks in their bags.  I tended to have a banana (individually wrapped, right?) or a tub of grapes or something, but my kids seemed to gravitate towards the little fruity bars of delight that I never remembered to buy.  But then, Hattie Garlick came along and made me feel like I was doing a good thing by eschewing mini-rice cakes and kiddie crisps.  And, to be perfectly honest, when I did buy perfectly uniform carrot cake snacks, my kids took two bites and fed them to the dog.

Apparently the packaging was more bewitching than its contents

And then, another friend on facebook shared this story and, after being a bit horrified, I allowed myself, very briefly, to feel smug about the kiddiwinks refusal to eat jars of food.  It turns out that my general kiddie-snack forgetfulness was actually the instinct of a great mum (cue ironic laughter).

Of course, an article like that makes you think (too much?).  The vet had suggested some changes to Coco's diet, and I started thinking that cheap fillers and inappropriate ingredients may not be limited to prepared food for children, so I settled in for a lengthy Google session on dog food.  Now, as much as we love her, I have neither the time, nor the inclination to feed Coco a raw diet, but it also seemed that even a lot of expensive, premium pet foods contained a lot of questionable ingredients.  I stumbled upon the Dog Food Analysis site, which answered a lot of questions and at least gave me some brands to look for.  I'm not saying Coco is going to be eating £70/bag Orijen, but at least I feel like I can make some good decisions for her.

Meanwhile, C and I will continue eating value ready meals with a guaranteed level of horse-meat content (just kidding)...