Omnivore versus carnivore

I can clearly remember two particular primary school outings trips I made to museums. One was at Horniman’s museum to study the anatomy and behaviour of bee’s and the other to the Natural History museum to learn about dinosaurs.

I know I enjoyed these two trips because I can still recall lots of what I learned on them; probably the bee trip more than the dinosaurs to be honest but one thing which sticks out about the dinosaurs is that, even after millions of years of evolution, there are still 100’s of animals which eat grass and are hunted by other animals who eat …. the animals eating the grass; in other words, meat.

Unfair if you ask me.

Anyway, I digress from what I’m actually thinking about.

The eating habits of my children.

Having returned to work for one day on Tuesday, I had the pleasure of being off again yesterday to spend with Joseph and Annabel. I cooked us rice, vegetables and chicken for lunch and watched them tuck in.

Joseph, unsurprisingly, slowly ate his way through his entire serving, pushed the empty bowl away from him and announced “finished” in a voice slightly louder than necessary considering I was sat opposite him.

Annabel, again, not unsurprisingly, wasn’t what you might call “wolfing” it down. She was methodically sifting through her bowl, picking out all the chicken; nothing else. The closest image I can come up with is watching apes preen each other for nits, adopting a ‘seek and destroy’ attitude, in her case, ‘seek and eat’. To give her credit, she did eat all of the chicken and was just able to ask for more through a mouthful of semi-chewed poultry.

This request I duly carried out and sat down to try and fool her into eating something other than just chicken.

Who was I kidding!

I took her spoon (which she would not normally let me do) and on it placed a piece of chicken, a garden pea and two grains of rice; I swear that’s all there was.

I admit to being more than a little surprised when she opened her mouth and ate what was on the spoon having watched me. I admit to being far less surprised when she scrunched up her face and set about moving the foreign objects (the rice and the pea) to the front of her mouth with her tongue, to spit into my waiting hand.

How is it possible that their eating habits can be so different? I have always applauded M for the great job she did with introducing a huge variety of foods into Joseph’s diet, which shows not only in what he currently eats, but also new things he is willing to try.

Annabel could not be more different. She does eat meat which is good and she has started eating fruit lately, but it stops there.

I only think she tries new things because she see’s Joseph eating them. She is fairly typical in that she wants to copy her older sibling.

Which is very, very handy.

If it weren’t for her copying Joseph, she would have a lifetime of dry rusks, Hula Hoops and picking the meat content out of her meals.

Poor lamb!