Inclusive eating

I have recently become a prescatarian (a semi-vegetarian who eats fish, but no meat or poultry). It's something that I had been meaning to do for a while and after an initial adjustment period where I felt hungry all the time I am not finding it too difficult. I’ve even improved my cooking skills, as it is not so easy to just grab something quick on the way home from work!

The main difficulty that I have had has been eating in restaurants. If I don’t want fish ‘n’ chips (albeit a gourmet version) the menu often contains two or three vegetarian choices at the most, generally pasta and risotto.

This has made me much more aware of the struggles of people who have food allergies or non-mainstream diets. To be honest I was never very aware of this before, despite previously working in an OSCAR programme that included several children with allergies.

Allergies to peanuts seem to be increasingly common, as does intolerance to gluten. Our multi-cultural society has also seen an increase in the number of children who do not eat certain foods for religious or cultural reasons.

If you have any of these children in your programme, have a think about how to be inclusive to their needs. We had a child who was allergic to dairy and I’m now realising that although we made an effort to offer suitable afternoon tea choices, she often couldn’t try the products that we made during baking activities. It would have been relatively easy to make a few small adjustments to make the activity more fun and inclusive for her.

So as a newly minted fussy eater, I’m asking on behalf of others – please put some thought into how you could include us!

Marnie