What is food chaining? With Emma Shafqat – Food For Kids Podcast episode 75

Joanne Roach (00:13)

Hello and welcome to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. Over the year, we've had quite a few episodes talking about how to encourage your child to branch out a bit with their tastes, how to help picky eaters and how to help kids relax at the table with their safe foods while exposing them to new foods over time.

In this episode we're going to talk about one of the techniques that parents can use when their child is reluctant to try things that look or feel different from their safe foods, which is a technique called food chaining.

For this topic I invited on Emma Shafqat from Dietitian with a Difference because she always posts really brilliant carousels on her Instagram about ideas for food chaining and I wanted someone who would give us practical ideas that we could actually try, not just the theory.

Emma is an NHS and private dietitian with many years of experience and we've already spoken to her way back in episode four about fussy eating because she's got a big focus on helping parents to raise confident eaters. So this is right up her street. So let's get to the interview.

Joanne Roach (01:16)

Emma, before we talk about food chaining, I'd love it if you could please explain why children can sometimes be rigid about things that seem really unproblematic to us. So for a like chicken nuggets, they'll not only not like roast chicken, but they might be upset if you give them a different chicken nugget.

Emma Shafqat (01:33)

Well, this is linked to the fact that with chicken nuggets that there's something called pre-chewed which sounds really disgusting. But if you think about it it doesn't take much effort to actually chew a chicken nugget versus something like roast chicken which involves using our back molars our tongue everything it takes quite a lot of effort. And if you've got a child that's quite unregulated, when we're serving that kind of meal at the end of the day, eating a chicken nugget is far far easier than eating anything like roast Also manufacturers spend millions and millions of pounds making sure that that chicken nugget tastes exactly the same every single time. Which for children again they like familiarity, they like things to be the same and even different brands can be slightly different in terms of the flavouring used. So again, for a child, that is completely different as well.

For young children. up to about five or six, we like to call them like magical thinkers. So they tend to think in quite magical, creative, fun ways. As adults, we're quite big picture thinkers. We think in quite an abstract way. We're also quite boring in comparison to magical thinkers.

But on the plus side of that is that we can look at a different food and say, I know that that's basically the same because it's chicken. Whereas for a young child, that's completely different. So a chicken nugget and a different type of chicken nugget is completely different. Because look at the packaging. It looks completely different. So it must be completely different. So for them, they don't have that ability in the same way that we do as adults.

Joanne Roach (03:11)

Okay, so what might seem like a very small step to us can actually feel like quite a big leap for them.

Emma Shafqat (03:13)

Definitely. And I think one thing to be really careful with as well, especially if you've got a really restrictive eater, that if you start messing with one of their preferred or safe foods, you have to be really, really careful. I often say to parents to rename that food something completely different. So if you're going to start adding like, I don't know, say you had a yogurt and you started adding chia seeds I would call that like superhero yogurt or I would call that magical yogurt so that they then differentiate between the two as well and you're less likely to lose that safe food.

Joanne Roach (03:42)

Okay, so you're not threatening the safe food, you're adding an additional one alongside it, even though it's only a tiny bit different.

Right, okay, so understanding that, what is this idea of food chaining and how can it help children to broaden their tastes?

Emma Shafqat (04:06)

So the idea of food chaining is that basically we're going to make a tiny little difference. I like to call it a just noticeable difference. And what we're going to do is we're going to change the food very slowly. So we might start by changing the shape of the food. We might start by changing the color of the food, the texture of the food. And it's one by one. We're doing little tiny changes really, really slowly. So we're not jumping from chicken nuggets to roast chicken that's far too big a jump we need lots and lots of little steps in between

Joanne Roach (04:39)

Okay, so that makes sense theoretically, but could you give an example of that? So if we take the chicken nuggets or another beige food, you give an example of how you would take your child from that very safe, manufactured food to something that is eating that food but in a different format?

Emma Shafqat (04:46)

So one way you can do this is definitely with something like pasta, because lots of children will obviously eat You could go from they only ate like spaghetti, to trying to get to a different shaped pasta. So you could then try and work on, for example, penne pasta or tagliatelle just trying to get a different shape to start with. So again, very, very tiny changes. Then you might change the colour for example, of the pasta. So obviously with pasta there's loads of different colours. definitely get them involved in this process. there's also things like you've got all the Paw Patrol pastas, you know, Peppa Pig pastas, you've got car shaped pastas.

Then I would work towards potentially changing like the texture. So it might be that you go from dry pasta to fresh pasta. So again, I would stick with maybe the same shape that they're already having, but just change the texture very, slightly. Then something that parents are always trying to get is to get them to have some kind of on the pasta. So how I would do this is I would have the sauce in a tiny little dish, and I start by playing fun dipping games with the pasta sauce. So again, for example, if they like spaghetti, could you rescue the spaghetti snakes from the pasta and dry them off.

Joanne Roach (06:05)

So not necessarily expecting them to eat that dipped pasta, but just getting them to get the hang of dipping pasta into sauce, even if that's not what they then eat.

Emma Shafqat (06:08)

Yep, all about play, all about having fun with that food as well. Then what I would do is about maybe getting the sauce into the pasta and mixing it together. And you might start with, quarter of a teaspoon and then work up to like half a teaspoon, a teaspoon, like really, really slowly, depending on the child and slowly integrating that sauce bit by bit by bit. And then you might introduce other toppings as well. So you might already have the pasta because a lot of children will sometimes have butter anyway. if they're not even having butter or they're not even having cheese. I'd probably start with something like butter and cheese rather than going to something like a sauce as well.

But you can see how really, really slowly you're building up and it's never linear. They will go backwards and they will go forwards as well. And that's totally normal and okay as well But it's just about trying to make the smallest little change. change at I've got a really good example of this amazing mom I'm working with in the moment and they're doing chicken nuggets and she's got to the point now where she's slowly taking all the skin off the chicken nuggets and last night was the first time he ate just the plain chicken nugget without any of the skin around.

Joanne Roach (07:22)

Okay, so that's the same chicken texture because it's the inside of the same nugget. But that child has recognised that there's two components to that nugget. There's the coating and then there's the inside and they're prepared to eat the inside without the coating, which then enables you to look at those two components separately when you do in the chain.

Emma Shafqat (07:39)

Yeah, so then the next thing would be you could try and go to more just grilled chicken on its own and seeing if that would be your next step.

Joanne Roach (07:47)

We can picture that then with food and, the more predictable beige foods that children cling to. But fruits and vegetables are never the same twice? So how would you go about trying to introduce fruits and vegetables to children with food chaining?

Emma Shafqat (08:00)

So I've done a really good one with broccoli and cauliflower. So again, you could work with the pasta. something like cauliflower rice works really well, which you can obviously buy frozen. and it's consistent. It's also beige as well. So again, starting by slowly adding that into the macaroni, if they have a macaroni cheese, and slowly building up the texture bit by bit by bit. and then you could also then add things like broccoli, because again, obviously broccoli is a different colour. So again, I've done things like grated broccoli where you just grate the tiniest little bits. And again, just slowly increasing the amount bit by bit by bit as well. And you could get to the point where you then switch out the pasta and you get to like cauliflower cheese or broccoli with cheese. You can kind of switch out things that way as well. You're just slowly making tiny little changes as you go.

Joanne Roach (08:20)

Okay. But if it's like one piece of broccoli that's then grated across a whole meal, there's only going to be a few flecks. If they still don't want to eat it, they can still accept it on their plate, but not eat those flecks if they want to, right?

Emma Shafqat (08:55)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you start really small.

Joanne Roach (08:59)

If your child is very reticent on any of these steps, should you still have half the plate be the way they like it and half the plate next to it be altered?

Emma Shafqat (09:08)

Yes, you can definitely do that. So again, if you were making something like a macaroni cheese, you could easily have half of it with like the broccoli specks and half without as well. And if you're doing family style meals, they can serve themselves. I wouldn't be encouraged to put a lot of that different food straight onto their plate because sometimes that can then increase the anxiety. And then once you increase anxiety in child, they're less likely to eat as well You know that it suppresses your appetite.

Emma Shafqat (09:31)

And definitely get your child involved in the process.

Joanne Roach (09:31)

Okay. yeah, that was one of my questions was going to be, should we tell our children what we're doing when we're food chaining a them? So it seems like we should get our children involved and tell them what we're doing.

Emma Shafqat (09:42)

Yeah, definitely get them involved. I know lots of parents, you know, sneak in different vegetables and you're desperately trying to get your child to get vegetables, which I completely understand. But in the long term, if we want our child to eat a different food, they have to get used to that food. They have to see that food. We have to be able to interact with the food. We have to touch the food. You know, I'll often say to parents, it's a bit like if you were in somewhere like Cambodia and given a spider to eat, you probably wouldn't pick it up and just put it straight in your mouth. And again, you could grate a spider in and hide it for months and months and months. It doesn't mean when you actually see the spider, you're probably going to eat the spider. And it's kind of the same thing. So long term, if you want your child to eat that food and understand that food, you have to be honest and give them a chance to play with that food and interact with that food as well.

Joanne Roach (10:09)

So that's where maybe sometimes if they're not up for a change immediately, that's where the old way and the new way alongside each other for them to accept might be part of that open communication.

Emma Shafqat (10:37)

And I think if you can get them involved in the cooking or helping with the food or even if it's just grating, you know, or even if you're at the stage where they can just plonk the cauliflower rice into the pasta, you know, like really tiny stages, even if they're not quite ready to eat that yet, it's still part of the process.

And again, the more you can do away from meal times, the better as well. think, I think dinner time is such high expectations for children to eat and they're often so tired and unregulated. It's not often the time to introduce new foods at all.  For me with my little girl, in terms of introducing new foods, I'm not sure I've introduced many when it's been at dinnertime. Most new foods that she's tried has been away from meal time when we've cooked the food or we've done like food challenges or we've had fun with the food when she's been in a relaxed state around that food.

Joanne Roach (11:13)

Fair enough. And then maybe if it has to be around some kind of meal event, then maybe more like snacks or lunches where it's earlier in the day, there's less going on. It's with snack times, it's more of a joyful event, isn't it, a snack? It's a pep me up rather than a family meal where there's expectations.

Emma Shafqat (11:40)

Yeah, and I think that's the thing, it's the expectations that we want our child to eat, that we're desperate for them to eat, we're worried about what they're getting, and then that dinner time pressure really starts to build up.

Joanne Roach (11:51)

And so how long can, you know, with an individual ingredient, how long can food chaining from one end to the other take? And if a to be getting long way down and then goes back, has something gone wrong?

Emma Shafqat (12:01)

First of all, nothing's gone wrong. is never linear. You have good days and you have bad days. And I would say, you know, if your child's ill or there's a lot going on in their lives, or you have changes and often they will drop foods. It's never ever your fault. So I think parents should always take that blame away from themselves. In terms of timelines, it really does depend on the child. The lady who wrote the food chaining book, Cheryl Fraker, I think her name is, I'm not sure if I pronounced her name correctly, in the book, she talks about a three months sort of period. So I think it can work really well. And I have found with a lot of clients, it does work well, but it is very dependent on the child.

Joanne Roach (12:39)

Okay, so if you've been trying with a particular food once a week for several weeks and you're only making tiny that's actually normal for it to take some weeks

Emma Shafqat (12:43)

Completely. And some children might be in a really that week and they're in a really engaged way and they move quickly. But other times, yeah, I think with feeding, I always say it's a marathon, it's not a sprint.

Joanne Roach (13:05)

So you may be thinking that you've accidentally done some food chaining when you were just trying to change your child's food the teeniest bit, and if so then congratulations, you were using a good evidence-based strategy to help your child. The key is to keep changes small, be super patient about the timeline, and like Emma says, don't worry if progress isn't linear or if evening meals don't have the same success rate as when you play with changes in foods away from meal times. It's all totally normal and the marathon not a sprint message really is key here.

Emma posts regular food chaining examples on carousels on her grid. So I'll link to her Instagram feed in the show notes, but she also has a really helpful blog post and a food chaining masterclass for more detail on her website. So I'll link to those too. Do go check them out.

Coming up, have an episode about whether we ever need supplements for our children, as well as the usual monthly seasonal tips. So I hope to see you on the next episode. And in the meantime, happy eating.

00:00 Introduction

01:16 Why do kids need food to stay the same?

03:59 What is food chaining?

04:53 Food chaining with beige foods

07:47 Food chaining with vegetables

09:31 Involving kids in food chaining

11:51 How long does food chaining take?

13:04 Summary and outro