Food and nutrition are important to us at Monkey Puzzle Streatham Common and we know that a healthy balanced diet is essential to your child’s growth and development. Every day is an opportunity for us to satisfy your child’s appetite with delicious and nutritious meals and snacks, designed with their needs in mind, with a menu planned to broaden their food experiences.
We believe our menu is not only nutritious, fresh and creative but offers balanced meals to fuel the body and mind of all our nursery children. This has been done under the expert guidance of Zita Steyn, a holistic chef and graduate of the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York.
We offer 3 meals, plus snacks through the day. All the nutrition and energy your child will need to be active and engaged throughout their day of learning.
Our ethos around food is to understand where food comes from and to recognise the connection between nature and food, ie ‘pot to plate’ and ‘seed to plate’. With this in mind, our aim is to instil the following:
- Good food and nutrition is important
- Facilitate fine motor development – picking up pasta with pincer grip, learning to use a knife and fork.
- The right habits so that when children are older they can make healthier food choice.
- Eating is enjoyable, sociable and that eating together is a great time to introduce new flavours and textures.
- An awareness of good manners and politeness.
Learning Experiences
Here at Monkey Puzzle Streatham Common nutrition and creating a good food culture is important to us. This is reflected through the use of fresh food and a varied menu. Meal times are a learning experience and with this in mind, we put learning into practice and offer regular cooking classes to all our children. The tiniest of hands can create culinary delights, even if all the ingredients do not make it to the bowl.
Our Aim
Our aim is to provide nutritious, creative, fresh, balanced meals, consisting, wherever possible, of organic and responsibly sourced ingredients. All our meals are cooked on the premises, using fresh and good quality ingredients.
- We use high quality meat that can be traced back to source
- Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables are used
- Only water is served with all our meals
- We cater for specific dietary requirements
- Also we use the produce that the children have planted and grown in the garden to create the link between nature and food
- We have a 4 week rotating menu, twice a year, to reflect the seasonal produce available.
Click below to see an example of our weekly rotating menu:
Fussy Eaters
At Monkey Puzzle Streatham Common, we encourage children to have a varied diet with healthy snacks and meals. Children are fussy eaters and parents will experience periods when they refuse certain foods. This can be a concerning time for Mums and Dads but we’d like to let you know that fussy eating is very common and there are a number of approaches that can ease these phases.
Children are unlikely to cause harm to their health if they don’t eat enough for a short time. If the problem continues, seek advice from a healthcare professional.
We do not fret and fuss if a child refuses to eat but we do encourage a healthy diet and eating habits. Children will always be offered a small portion of pudding, unless parents have asked that their child only have dessert if they have eaten their main meal.
We never offer our children alternatives food. We believe that the children are offered enough healthy food during their day and soon get into the habit of trying new flavours and textures.
Reasons for fussy eating in children:
- Showing a sign of independence
- Demand for attention
- After an illness or infection
Here is some guidance and suggestions of how to improve mealtimes and fussy eating:
- Offer small portions at meal times. If these are finished more can be offered.
- Keep meal time away from television, gadgets, music and toys.
- Eat the same meals with your child. Watching a parent eat and enjoy a wide variety of foods, will encourage them to try new foods.
- Sit at a table for main meals.
- Keep meal times to around 30 minutes.
- Ensure meal time is a period to speak and engage with one another.
- Involve your child in the selection, preparation and cooking of their meals.
- Leave at least 2 hours between snacks and meals.
- Offer a new food with a familiar food or in a different way e.g. chopped, mashed, roasted.
- If your child refuses a food at first, leave it a few days and try again – it may take 17–20 times before new food is accepted.
