Some children are used to eating everything, they appreciate all kinds of food; other kids struggle to taste new things, and some they already know they don’t like it. Others can go to restaurants and they will enjoy the dinner, while other children do not touch the plate if they are not in front of a dish cooked by mom or dad. What matters is that we always provide our kids with a variety of nutrition.
We should encourage all children to try everything, even with a few tricks! (does the word “meatballs” mean anything to you?)
My children happen to be very good eaters. They are interested in food, they try new things, and are not overly picky or fussy. Probably my husband and I have partly been lucky, and we’ve partly been doing some things right.
I wrote about the relationship with food in our family and about children who are difficult or picky eaters, HERE.
However, eating everything does not mean eating everything, because there are foods that children should wait to eat. Like those cooked with alcohol, or sushi.
Recently, I’ve posted a few photos of my children from the Sushi restaurant and I got many questions about this. David is almost 11 years old and he literally loves sushi and all row fish as well as seafood. He could eat “spaghetti Frutti di mare” every day for the whole year long!
SO give Sushi to children – yes or no? In general, better wait until they’re a bit bigger.
You already know how important is fish in nutrition: it is essential to consume at least twice a week to ensure the right dose of Omega3 fatty acids. Said that fish for kids (like meat) should always be served cooked.
In other words: sushi and raw fish is better not to give to children. And if we have to give an age from which it is possible to start, we can say from 3 years, always sparingly and always with the certainty of the origin of the fish. The ideal would be to wait up to 5-6 years anyway. But let’s see better why.
Fish is a food of animal origin and as such should always be eaten carefully. Not so much for the nutritional properties, but the safety of its cleaning. If the fish is not properly stored following the law, it could still contain bacteria, parasites, and germs which, by cooking, on the other hand, are safely eliminated.
These germs, bacteria, and parasites can cause food infections and intoxications, which are accompanied by diarrhea, severe abdominal pain, vomiting, or fever, in some cases going on for a long time and in other cases still leading to important ulcers and allergies.
In children, above all, this situation is more serious since it is easier for them to incur these infections and intoxications due to their immune system still in the making. Besides, in the first years of age when children incur an infection of the gastrointestinal tract, they dehydrate much more than we do and healing can be much longer than for an adult.
Children are more vulnerable than us, and most pediatricians, therefore, recommend avoiding giving them raw fish before the age of six, when children have developed a stronger immune system.
Going back to raw fish and sushi in general, we can still be calm. It is not the only cooking that kills germs, but also the cold, and in the best sushi restaurants, there should be no problem if the fish is preserved properly. As long as it was frozen before being served at -20 degrees for at least 24 hours (and at home, we can keep it at -15 degrees for three days), to kill the larvae of the parasites.
The solution? No, we don’t have to stop going to Japanese restaurants. Simply, for the little ones we choose all the delights of the menu that we find cooked or the vegetarian ones such as the rolls with vegetables. For Victoria, for example, we always ordered vegetarian Maki with cucumbers, Philadelphia, and avocado. She loves it!
