Picky kids can be an absolute nightmare, but is that sometimes down to never actually giving them the opportunity to try foods? Deciding on what they will like before they’ve even had the chance to taste something for themselves.

Well the Gourmet Society has set out to see if that is the case or not with a video campaign titled ‘Food Explorers’.

The video showcases a group of Primary school aged children tasting a series of dishes, fruits and vegetables with hilarious results…

Athelstan Community Primary school was the setting for the children, who tried a series of some of the trendiest health foods all on camera for our amusement.

Taking a similar form to the popular ‘React’ videos as seen and made famous by the Fine Brothers YouTube channel, the children were given a range of health foods for the very first time whilst being filmed.

Traditional sushi was washed down with a Kale smoothie, with avocado on toast and passion fruit also cautiously nibbled at by the Yorkshire schoolchildren.

As you can imagine, the reactions ranged from outright disgust, with one girl asking: ‘Do you seriously think I’m going to eat that?’

Stuck out tongues and other exclamations of disgust were uttered by the young group, but not everything went down as others. With sushi proving a hit with many of the young group.

The video was made by the Gourmet Society after they released results of a poll showing that more than a third of parents have to make multiple meals every night to cater for their fussy children.

We're excited to say that our video is in The Sun's snapchat story today. View it here: https://t.co/2joF1MvDGn pic.twitter.com/9LYvlyAbjf

— Gourmet Society (@GourmetSociety) August 11, 2016

Avocado was a surprise hit with the kids, with the fruit actually topping the list of the 10 most disliked by children. A survey of 1200 children found that 38 per cent couldn’t stomach the food.

The 10 foods children dislike the most

1. Avocado (38 per cent)
2. Aubergine (37 per cent)
3. Mushrooms (36 per cent)
4. Sprouts (35 per cent)
5. Olives (34 per cent)
6. Courgette (34 per cent)
7. Onions (33 per cent)
8. Quinoa (32 per cent)
9. Celery (32 per cent)
10. Cabbage (31 per cent)

The poll also found that 84 per cent outright refused to try new food regardless of what it happened to be.

At least we now have evidence that almost all children are picky eaters! It’s not just your kids!

If you are wondering how to cater for your young diners, then we came up with a handy guide to help you cater for families with young children.

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If you want to serve the best food possible, then you need to relocate your restaurant as high up as possible. And we don’t mean up a floor or two, or to move into a snazzy new space in a brand new multi-storey construction: We mean up a mountain.

Yes, that’s a crazy proposition. But so was sending a man to walk on the moon or sending a tiny robotic device to land on a moving comet. Impossible is just a word!

Okay, so we’re going to calm down a bit now but what we’re saying does have its roots in reality. Unfortunately however, it’s probably not going to be feasible for the vast majority of caterers and restaurant owners out there.

Recently, a group of scientists from the Nestle Research Center (NRC) in Lausanne, Switzerland travelled to ThreeSixty in Saas-Fee for some extreme altitude cooking. Located some 3,600 metres above sea level, the eatery boasts one of the highest active commercial kitchens in the world.

Meanwhile, down at base camp, a second team were preparing to do some low altitude cooking. The two parties prepared the same meal using the same ingredients and followed the same methodology. They then converged to check over their handiwork.

Dr. Candice Smarrito, an NRC scientist and the study’s lead author, takes up the tale:

“The results were then analysed in the laboratory using a range of analytical processes, and by a panel of tasting experts to see how the different combinations of pressures and cooking times impacted on the culinary quality and molecular and sensory profile of the preparations.”

After going through everything, the NRC concluded that food cooked at higher altitudes tasted better than it’s ground-level equivalent.

Flicking through the report, it appears that the lower boiling point of water at high altitude, combined with lower pressures, allows food to be cooked more gently. With a subtle, more refined cooking process, the ingredients retain much more of their natural properties; properties which influence their flavour and aroma.

As well as tastier dishes, the Swiss-based research group also found that cooking under low pressure reduces the amount of natural food wastage or shrinkage and therefore increases the yields of vegetables.

Further research is being carried out by the NRC to determine which varieties of cooking might be enhanced – in terms of nutritional value – by this high altitude and low pressure technique.

But considering that it’s proven to taste better, isn’t that all we need to know?

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Are you a meticulous planner or a spontaneous doer? But importantly, what we really want to know is if you’re one who snacks whilst mulling things over. If you are, new research suggests you’re best doing your thinking, evaluating and concluding on an empty stomach.

A study, which has just gone online in the journal PLOS ONE indicates that people predominantly make better decisions if there has been an absence of food.

Sub-titled Hunger is Associated with Advantageous Decision Making, the Dutch-led investigation instructed participants to start a fast at 11pm.

Half of the group were given breakfast when reporting to duty the following morning whilst the other half were kept nil by mouth for the duration of the task.

Everybody then took part in the Iowa Gambling Task – a well-known procedure that is believed to accurately simulate real-life decision making. Once the results were collated the results indicated that it was those who were withheld performed better.

What is interesting is that it has been believed that the adverse was true – and a number of studies have provided supportive evidence.

However the authors of this new study, Denise de Ridder, Floor Kroese, Marieke Adriaanse and Catherine Evers, think that moderate hunger can, in fact, force people to subliminally rely on their intuition more than they normally would.

This would “benefit complex decision making with uncertain outcomes,” they write.

Admittedly it is just one study and it does appear to go somewhat against the grain, but the results do make for interesting reading. And if you’re continuously finding your decision making is better in the morning, you may just have found the science behind it.

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According to the latest figures released by the NHS, cases of gout have doubled within the past five years. And it isn’t just gout that is making a comeback; the amount of people diagnosed with suffering from scurvy – traditionally the bane of sailors – has increased as well.

The reason for these conditions returning is believed to be down to people consuming uniform diets consisting of large quantities of red meats and seafoods and more modern ills such as fast food and cheap alcohol. Just under 90,000 people were admitted to hospital with the disease in the year to April.

Arguably the most famous gout sufferer was Henry VIII and gout received its moniker as a rich person’s disease because it was historically linked to overindulgence and rich, fatty foods.

“In Victorian times gout was much more likely to afflict the aristocracy, hence the typical Gillray cartoon of a port-quaffing squire that persists to this day,” stated Alan Silman, a medical director for Arthritis Research. However as times have changed and food prices have fallen dramatically, more people have easier access to unhealthy lifestyles.

“The recent rise in numbers,” continues Silman, “can be mainly attributed to the general rise in obesity.”

Cases of gout have “jumped quite a lot,” said Dr Weiya Zhang of Nottingham City Hospital. “Diet and weight have become a burden and gout is directly linked to these issues…This is just a disaster.”

The easiest way to prevent gout is by avoiding eating large amounts foods that are high in purines which include offal, oily fish (such as anchovies) as well as food and supplements that contain yeast and meat extracts.

Crash dieting and switching to a high-protein and low-carb regime is also to be avoided according to health officials.

Gillray Temperance 05112 Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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