Biohacking

Seven Foods and a Signed Deal

Two kids, 47 and 37 kilos. One eats everything. The other eats exactly seven foods and zero fruit. The plan for both: our own food pyramid, the four routes that get vegetables and fruit into a child who refuses both, 50 recipes, and the cremas and batidos that do the heavy lifting.

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The deal. Signed, witnessed, and now permanently on the internet.

That is Miranda, 11, Maximiliano, 9, and me, signing an agreement about food. It exists because I expect to need it. When somebody decides that broccoli has personally wronged them, I intend to produce the video.

The rest of this is the plan behind the deal.

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There is a printable Spanish version of everything below.

Every recipe, the daily timetable, ingredients and quantities, in Spanish, black and white, built to print.

It exists because I am not the only person who cooks in this house. Cristina works here daily and my girlfriend Sofía is a chef — and neither of them should have to read eight thousand words of English to make lunch. They get the cookbook; I keep the reasoning.

→ Descargar el recetario en español (PDF, 8 páginas, para imprimir)

It regenerates every time this article changes, so the printed copy in the kitchen and the words here never drift apart.

Why this exists

I built a solver-checked meal plan for myself — 2,455 calories, 225 g of protein, 25 recipes — and the obvious next move was to build the same thing for the children.

They are 9 and 11. They are building the skeleton and the brain they will use for the next seventy years, and the window for that is now. It deserves the same level of planning as anything else in this house.

Same discipline, one enormous difference: I control every variable in my own diet and almost none of theirs. I can decide to eat 225 g of protein. I cannot decide that a nine-year-old likes fruit — I can only build the conditions where it becomes likely.

The two children

	Miranda	Maximiliano
Age	11	9
Weight	47 kg	37 kg
The situation	Eats almost everything. Actively likes trying new things. Genuinely easy	Eats seven foods

Maxi's complete accepted list, with nothing left out:

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Chicken · eggs · salmon · broccoli · ripe plantain (tajadas) · rice · pasta

No cheese. No sauce of any kind. Zero fruit. Almost no vegetables beyond the broccoli.

That is the whole repertoire, and the plan has to work with it rather than around it.

Here is the thing though. Read that list again as a nutritionist rather than as a frustrated parent. It is a genuinely good seven. Complete protein three ways, one of them oily fish. A cruciferous vegetable. Two starches and a potassium-rich fruit-vegetable. A child who ate only white bread and chicken nuggets would be a real problem. This is not that.

The gaps are specific and short: calcium, vitamin D, iron, zinc, dietary fibre and plant variety. That is a list you can actually attack.

The goals

Goal	What it means in practice
Enough protein, correctly spread	Not a maximum. An amount that supports growth and activity, arriving across the day rather than in one lump at lunch
Close the six gaps	Calcium, vitamin D, iron, zinc, fibre, plant variety — the six things Maxi's seven foods do not cover
Expand Maxi's list — actively	The single most important line in this document. He has to start eating new food or nothing else here matters. Eight tools, below
Keep Miranda's range wide	She already eats everything. The job is to not accidentally narrow her by cooking to the lowest common denominator
Make it cookable by three people	Me, Cristina, Sofía. Same recipes, same weights, no interpretation required
Take the local advantage	Medellín has extraordinary fruit and produce. Use it where it earns its place, not because it is local

1 · The numbers

Protein first, because it is the one that gets guessed. The official RDA for 4–13 year olds is 0.95 g per kg — but that number is the amount that prevents deficiency in an average sedentary child, not the amount that supports an active one who is growing and training. For active children the well-supported working range is 1.2 to 1.6 g/kg, and the middle of that is where I am aiming.

	Miranda · 47 kg	Maximiliano · 37 kg
RDA minimum (0.95 g/kg)	45 g	35 g
Active low (1.2 g/kg)	56 g	44 g
TARGET (1.4 g/kg)	66 g	52 g
Active high (1.6 g/kg)	75 g	59 g
Energy, active day	~2,000–2,200 kcal	~1,800–2,000 kcal

Two things about that table. First, weigh them again in three months — these are per-kilo numbers and both are growing, so the target moves. Second, calories are a range on purpose. Children are far better than adults at self-regulating intake when nobody interferes, and the fastest way to break that is to make them finish a plate.

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The rule I am borrowing from my own plan, and the one I am not

Borrowing: every recipe states its own protein number, so meals are interchangeable without recalculating the day.

Not borrowing: gram-weighing children's portions. I weigh my food because I am running a deficit against a body-composition target. They are not on a diet, they are growing. The weights below are what I put on the plate, not what they have to finish.

2 · What actually matters at nine and eleven

Not everything is equally load-bearing. Ranked by what genuinely limits growth, bone and brain at this age — and what Maxi's seven foods already cover:

Nutrient	Why it matters now	Covered by his seven?
Protein	Growth, muscle, immune function, every enzyme they own	YES — chicken, eggs, salmon. Well covered
Omega-3 DHA/EPA	Brain and retina are still developing. This is not a supplement story, it is structural	YES — salmon, if it appears twice a week
Calcium	Peak bone-mass accrual runs through adolescence. Bone built now is bone they keep	NO — refuses all dairy. Biggest single gap
Vitamin D	Without it calcium does not get absorbed. Medellín sun helps, but not reliably	NO — salmon contributes a little, nowhere near enough
Iron	Oxygen transport and cognition. Deficiency shows up as fatigue and poor concentration before anaemia	ADDRESSED — red meat twice a week is the fix. Beef and pork carry haem iron, which absorbs several times better than plant iron
Zinc	Growth, immunity, appetite regulation. Deficiency ironically worsens picky eating	ADDRESSED — beef is the densest practical source
Fibre	Gut, satiety, blood sugar. Also the thing that makes a bathroom pleasant	WEAK — broccoli alone is not enough
Iodine	Thyroid and neurodevelopment	PARTIAL — fish and eggs, salt if iodised
Choline	Brain development, and genuinely under-consumed by most children	YES — eggs are the best source there is
Magnesium	Bone, muscle, sleep quality	PARTIAL

So the attack list is short: calcium, vitamin D, iron, fibre. Four targets, not twenty. And three of them have Colombian answers that do not require him to eat a salad.

3 · Our pyramid

The government pyramid I grew up with put bread, cereal, rice and pasta at the base — six to eleven servings a day of the cheapest calories available. That is an agricultural-policy document wearing a nutrition costume.

Here is ours. Width means how much and how often, not moral rank:

Children's food pyramid — water, vegetables and whole fruit at the base — Our pyramid. Width is volume and frequency, not virtue.

Tier	What is in it	Why there
BASE — Water, vegetables, whole fruit	Broccoli, cauliflower, carrot, auyama, calabacín, spinach, acelga, green beans, peas, corn, tomato, beetroot, pepper, cucumber, lettuce, cabbage · mango, banana, papaya, guava, mora, strawberry, pineapple, melon, orange, maracuyá, lulo, curuba, granadilla, apple, grapes · water as the default drink	Fibre, potassium, folate, vitamin C, carotenoids and food volume, without making refined starch the foundation. Whole fruit lives here. Juice does not
PROTEIN ANCHORS	Eggs, fish, chicken, unprocessed meat, beans, lentils, plain yoghurt and milk	Children have small stomachs and large requirements for protein, iron, zinc, calcium, iodine and B12. That earns a place below grains, not above them
STARCH = FUEL	Plantain, potato, yuca, arracacha, ñame, rice, pasta, oats, arepa	Demoted from automatic base to adjustable energy. More on a training day, less on a lazy one. One main starch per meal — rice AND arepa AND plantain is stacking, not a meal
GOOD FATS	Avocado, nuts, seeds, olive oil, the fat in oily fish	Narrow because small amounts do the job, not because it is optional. Children need fat for brain, hormones and vitamins A, D, E and K
SOMETIMES	Sweets, bakery, juice, gaseosa, aguapanela, chorizo, chicharrón, fried snacks	Not poison, not forbidden, not a reward. They sit at the top because they crowd out better food, and because making them special is exactly how you make a child obsessed with them

The single biggest change from the pyramid I was raised on: starch moved from the base to the middle, and protein moved up to meet it. Everything else follows from that.

4 · Getting Maxi to eat new food

The goal is not to work around seven foods. It is that the list grows. Two rules and a method — that is the whole section.

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Rule 1 — Push, but push with the right tool.

Forcing, punishing and bribing with dessert reduce acceptance of the food you are pushing. Active encouragement — an expected bite, a non-food reward, letting him cook it — increases it, and beats passive exposure. Same effort, opposite result.

Rule 2 — I decide what is served and that a bite is expected. He decides whether he swallows it and how much.

That is the line. Everything below is method.

The eight tools

Tool	How it works
1 · The One Taste rule	Everyone at this table tries one bite of everything. Routine, calm, expected. He can spit it out — the bite is what counts
2 · Points, not pudding	Chart on the fridge. One point per new food tasted. Points buy screen time, a trip, a game — never food. Dessert-as-payment is the one reward that backfires
3 · He cooks it	The child who chopped the cauliflower eats the cauliflower. Give him the air fryer, the timer, a job
4 · Miranda is the model	Sibling modelling is powerful and she does it naturally. Never separate them at meals
5 · Choice inside the frame	Cauliflower or green beans tonight? — real agency, decision still mine
6 · Make it a game	The deal. A chart. A tasting scoreboard against his sister
7 · Food chaining	Bridge from a food he accepts to one 80–90% identical. Map below
8 · Praise the act	You tried it lands. Good boy, now finish it turns a win into a demand

Never: forcing, punishing, dessert-for-vegetables, secretly hiding vegetables in his food (blending them openly is a different thing, and it is in the next section), or cooking him a separate menu. And there is always something on his plate he already eats — a child anxious at the table tries nothing.

Timeline: 10 to 20 actual tastes per new food. Looking, touching and smelling are real steps too. Months, not weeks.

Food chaining — his exact seven

A bridge is 80–90% identical to something he accepts, with exactly one sensory change — texture, colour, shape, temperature or flavour. Never two at once.

He eats	→ Bridge	→ Then	→ Then
Chicken breast	Chicken thigh — softer	Meatballs — ground, no sauce, familiar shape	Beef · turkey · pork loin
Salmon	Trout — near identical	Any pink fish	White fish, same method
Eggs	Scrambled with parmesan dust	Tortilla with potato	Egg folded through rice
Broccoli	Cauliflower — same shape, no colour	Green beans	Asparagus tips · romanesco
Plátano maduro	Mango cut in the same strips	Sweet potato in tajada shape	Papaya · squash
Rice	Rice with a spoon of lentils	More lentils	Arroz con frijoles
Pasta	Different shape, still dry	Pasta with oil and parmesan	Pasta with a little tomato

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The three I would bet on

Mango cut like tajadas. Same colour, sweetness, texture and way of eating as the plantain he already loves. The shortest route from zero fruit to one fruit.

Cauliflower. Same florets, same bite, colour removed. He already eats the harder one.

Meatballs. Ground beef is soft, uniform and shaped like something he recognises — a far easier first red meat than a piece of steak. This is how meat gets in.

5 · Vegetables and fruit — four ways in

Here is the actual starting position, stated without decoration. The vegetable that reliably gets eaten in this house is broccoli. The fruit that reliably gets eaten is mango and banana. Miranda's range is much wider than that, but ranges drift, and hers drifts toward her brother's if nothing pushes the other way. Sibling modelling runs in both directions.

Waiting for a nine-year-old to voluntarily choose acelga is not a plan. So there are four routes, and they run at the same time rather than in sequence. Two of them build acceptance slowly. Two of them deliver the nutrients today. A plan that only does one half fails — either he eats vegetables for years without ever learning to eat one, or he learns nothing because there is nothing on the plate.

Route	How it works	What it is actually for
1 · WHOLE AND VISIBLE	A recognisable piece of vegetable or fruit on the plate. Its own shape, its own name, not disguised as anything.	The only route that changes what he will eat at somebody else's house. This is real acceptance. It is also slow — months, not weeks.
2 · BLENDED	Crema, sopa, purée, batido. The vegetable is unrecognisable in texture but named out loud.	The intake, today. A crema de auyama is 300 g of vegetable that a child finishes in four minutes without an argument.
3 · SWEET	Fruit as the dessert — frozen, baked, blended, dipped, on a stick.	Fruit stops competing with sweets and becomes one. Cold and frozen textures work on children who refuse the fresh version of the exact same fruit.
4 · CARRIED	Grated, minced or folded into a food already accepted: meatballs, tortilla, sauce, arepa dough, muffins, rice.	Volume with zero negotiation. The vehicle is a safe food and the vegetable rides along inside it.

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Blended is not hidden. Say what is in it.

The entire difference between the two is one sentence at the table: this soup is orange because it has auyama and zanahoria in it.

Two reasons that sentence is not optional. First, trust — a child who discovers a secret purée gets harder to feed, not easier, and he will discover it. Second, naming it is itself an exposure: he has now knowingly eaten auyama, which is a rung on the ladder. Secret purée has to stay secret forever and leads nowhere. An openly blended soup eventually leads to a piece of squash on a plate.

So blend as much as you like, announce it every time, and keep one visible piece of the same vegetable somewhere on the table.

Every vegetable, and how it gets in

Not a shopping aspiration — a working list, all of it available in any Medellín market, each one assigned to the route most likely to work.

Vegetable	Best route	What it brings
Brócoli	Whole — already accepted	Vitamin C, K, folate, sulforaphane. Steam or air-fry, never more than 8 minutes — overcooked broccoli is what makes children hate broccoli
Coliflor	Whole (the bridge) · crema	Same family, same shape, no colour. The first chaining target from broccoli
Auyama / zapallo	Crema	Beta-carotene, potassium, naturally sweet. The best first crema in Colombia — it tastes like dessert and costs nothing
Zanahoria	Crema · grated into meatballs	Beta-carotene. Raw sticks with lunch is the visible version; grated into albóndigas is the volume version
Espinaca	Folded into tortilla · batido	Iron, folate, magnesium, vitamin K. Vanishes completely into a mango batido and wilts to nothing inside eggs
Acelga	Sopa	Cheap, enormous in folate and vitamin A. Chopped fine into any soup, it disappears
Habichuela	Whole	Fibre and folate. The second bridge from broccoli — same green, same length, softer bite
Arveja	Sopa · beside rice	Plant protein and fibre in one. Sweet enough that most children accept it whole
Mazorca / choclo	Whole — in ajiaco, sancocho	Already inside Colombian food, already accepted, and eating it off the cob is a game
Calabacín	Crema · grated into meatballs	Almost flavourless and very high water — the most invisible vegetable there is. Name it anyway
Tomate	Salad · sauce	Lycopene, potassium, vitamin C. The sauce version is the one Maxi will take first
Cebolla y ajo	Sofrito — base of everything	The flavour that makes every other vegetable edible. Not a garnish, the foundation
Pimentón	Roasted into sauce · crema	More vitamin C per gram than orange. Roasting removes the bitterness children object to
Remolacha	Batido with strawberry and banana	Nitrates, folate, iron. Turns the batido pink, which is either the best or the worst thing about it depending on the child
Apio	Crema base	Potassium and flavour. Goes into the base of a crema rather than onto a plate
Pepino y lechuga	Raw, with lunch	Water, crunch, and the easiest raw vegetables to accept because they taste of almost nothing
Repollo	Shredded fine in salad · sancocho	Vitamin C and fibre, keeps for two weeks, costs nothing
Berenjena	Roasted and blended into sauce	Fibre and polyphenols. Only works blended at this age — the texture whole is a hard no
Espárragos	Whole — a later bridge	Folate. Tips only, and only after green beans have landed

One clarification, because it is the most common mistake in Colombian home cooking: papa, yuca, arracacha, ñame and plátano are not vegetables. They are starch. They are useful, they are in the plan, and they belong in the fuel tier of the pyramid — but a plate of chicken with yuca and papa has no vegetable on it.

Every fruit, and how it gets in

Colombia's actual competitive advantage. Miranda should be rotating through this list constantly — variety is the whole point of the fruit tier, not quantity. For Maxi, every one of these is a candidate and most will fail; the three or four that land are what matter.

Fruit	Best route	What it brings
Mango	Whole, cut in tajada strips · batido · frozen	The single highest-probability fruit for Maxi — cut in the exact shape of the plantain he already eats. Beta-carotene, vitamin C
Banano	Whole · batido · frozen as "nice cream"	Potassium, B6, quick carbohydrate. Frozen and blended alone it becomes ice cream with one ingredient
Papaya	Cold cubes · batido	Vitamin C, folate, papain. Cold and cubed is much better accepted than warm and sliced
Guayaba	Whole — served beside beans	More vitamin C than any other fruit here. Serve it with beans or lentils and it multiplies the iron absorbed from them
Mora	Batido · paletas · with yoghurt	Anthocyanins, vitamin C, fibre. Freezes perfectly, so it is always in the house
Fresa	Whole · frozen, dipped in dark chocolate	Vitamin C, low sugar. Dipped in 70% chocolate it becomes a dessert nobody argues about
Piña	Whole · frozen chunks · grilled	Vitamin C, manganese, bromelain. Grilled on the plancha it caramelises and becomes a different food
Sandía y melón	Frozen cubes · cold, whole	Water first, then lycopene and vitamin A. The hydration fruits — 90% water, and the best thing to hand a child at 3pm
Naranja y mandarina	Segments, in the hand	Vitamin C and fibre. In segments. Not as juice — see the hydration section
Maracuyá	Batido · spooned over yoghurt	Vitamin C and A, and an intensity that makes plain yoghurt worth eating
Lulo	Batido in water	No dairy needed, which makes it the first batido to try on a child who refuses milk
Curuba	Batido in milk	Vitamin A, calcium when made with milk. A local fruit that exists almost nowhere else
Tomate de árbol	Batido	Vitamin A and C. Strong enough that a small amount flavours a large glass
Granadilla	Straight out of the shell	Cracking it open and eating it with a spoon is half the appeal. Children who refuse fruit will often take this one for the mechanics alone
Manzana y pera	Slices · baked with cinnamon	Fibre and quercetin. Baked soft with cinnamon they turn into dessert; sliced with a little peanut butter they turn into onces
Uvas	Frozen	Frozen grapes are a sweet. Halve them for the nine-year-old
Guanábana, zapote, feijoa, níspero	Batidos — seasonal	Rotation for its own sake. New fruit is a free exposure with none of the pressure a new vegetable carries
Aguacate	Sliced beside · blended into chocolate mousse	Counted in fats, not fruit. Blended with cocoa and banana it makes a mousse with no dairy at all

The crema formula — so nobody needs a recipe

This is the highest-leverage thing in the article. A crema is 300 to 400 g of vegetable per child, eaten in four minutes, with no negotiation. Six steps, and then any vegetable in the house becomes dinner.

Step	What to do
1 · BASE	Half an onion, one clove of garlic, 100 g of potato, softened in a little olive oil. Identical every single time — this is what makes a crema taste like food instead of like boiled vegetable
2 · STAR	300–400 g of one vegetable: auyama, brócoli, zanahoria, calabacín, espinaca, arveja, coliflor, apio, pimentón. One star, not four — mixed-everything cremas taste muddy and get refused
3 · LIQUID	Water or chicken stock, to just cover. Not more. A thin crema gets rejected on sight — thickness is what makes it feel like a meal
4 · BLEND	Until completely smooth. Texture is the entire game. One lump is a legitimate reason, in the mind of a nine-year-old, to stop eating forever
5 · PROTEIN	A chopped boiled egg, shredded chicken, or 30 g of cheese stirred in. A crema without protein is a side dish, not a meal — this is the step that gets skipped and it is the one that matters
6 · FINISH	Olive oil, black pepper, and something crunchy on top — toasted arepa cut into croutons, a few nuts, a little parmesan. The crunch makes it a different food every time

Announce the star vegetable when you put it down. Every time. That sentence is what separates this from hiding, and it is what turns three hundred blended grams into an actual exposure.

The batido formula

Same idea for fruit, and the delivery vehicle for spinach, remolacha and any fruit that gets refused whole. Four parts, roughly 350 ml:

Part	Options	Notes
LIQUID	Milk · water · plain yoghurt thinned	Milk carries calcium and vitamin D, so it is the default for Miranda. Water-based lulo or maracuyá is the version to try on a child who refuses dairy
FRUIT	Mango · banana · mora · papaya · fresa · maracuyá · curuba · lulo · tomate de árbol	One or two, not five. Frozen fruit makes it thick and cold, which is most of the appeal
PROTEIN	Yoghurt · milk · a spoon of oats · peanut butter	Otherwise it is a glass of sugar. This is the same rule as the crema
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT	A handful of spinach · half a small remolacha · a piece of raw calabacín	Announce it. Spinach in a mango batido is genuinely undetectable, and saying so out loud is the whole point

6 · The day

Built on the Colombian rhythm, because that is the one that already exists here — desayuno, media mañana, almuerzo as the main meal, onces, comida.

Time	Meal	Miranda	Maxi	The job
07:00	DESAYUNO	16 g protein	13 g	Protein before the day starts. Never cereal
10:00	MEDIA MAÑANA	8 g	6 g	Small. Fruit or a batido, and something with protein in it
12:30	ALMUERZO	20 g	16 g	The main plate. Protein + one starch + vegetables, whole or blended
16:00	ONCES	7 g	6 g	After-school. The sweet slot, on purpose
19:00	COMIDA	15 g	11 g	Lighter, earlier than mine. Protein + vegetables — this is the crema and sopa slot
	TOTAL	66 g	52 g	Spread across five, not stacked at lunch

Protein is spread deliberately. Children absorb and use it better in repeated moderate doses than in one large hit, and it means a refused meal never costs the whole day's total.

7 · The recipes

Every recipe below states its protein per child portion. They are interchangeable within their slot — any breakfast works as any other breakfast. Weights are what goes on the plate, not what has to come off it.

Recipes marked SAFE are inside Maxi's current seven and need no adaptation. Recipes marked BRIDGE are the chaining ones — serve the bridge element small, beside something safe, and say nothing about it.

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Kitchen conventions — these apply to every recipe below and are not repeated in each one

Air fryer. Preheat 3 minutes at the target temperature, every time. A cold basket adds four minutes and produces grey chicken. Single layer, never stacked — food touching food steams instead of roasting. Shake the basket or turn the pieces at the halfway mark.

Internal temperature, measured at the thickest point. Chicken 74°C. Pork 63°C plus a 3-minute rest. Beef 63°C for medium. Fish 60°C, or the moment it flakes with light pressure from a fork. A 900-peso probe thermometer removes all guesswork from this plan.

Weights are raw and per child, unless the line says otherwise. Rice and pasta weights are cooked; lentils and beans are cooked.

Salt goes on meat before cooking and on vegetables after. Oil gets measured for me and eyeballed for them — they are growing, not cutting.

Maxi's plate: components never touching, sauce always in a separate bowl, and one small portion of something new sitting beside the safe food without comment.

Desayuno · 07:00

Recipe	Protein	Ingredients — per serving unless stated	Method, step by step
Huevos revueltos con tajadas SAFE	Mir 16 g · Max 13 g	3 eggs (Mir) / 2 eggs + 1 white (Max) · 80 g ripe plantain · 5 g butter · pinch of salt	Peel the plantain and cut it lengthwise into strips about 1 cm thick. The riper and blacker the skin, the sweeter the result — this is the point of tajada maduro. Preheat the air fryer 3 min at 200°C. Strips in a single layer, no oil needed if the plantain is properly ripe. 10 minutes at 200°C, turning once at minute 5, until the edges are dark gold. While they cook: beat the eggs with a pinch of salt and nothing else. No milk — milk makes them watery. Butter in a cold non-stick pan, low heat. Eggs in, and stir slowly and constantly with a spatula, pulling from the edges to the centre. Off the heat 20 seconds before they look done — they keep cooking in the pan. Soft and just set, never dry and rubbery. Plate the eggs and the tajadas separately, not touching.
Arepa con huevo y aguacate	Mir 17 g · Max 14 g	2 eggs · 1 arepa · 50 g avocado · salt · a little butter	Dry griddle or plancha on medium heat. Arepa on, 4 minutes per side, until it is toasted and puffs slightly. No oil in the pan — the arepa has enough. Eggs scrambled as above, or fried in a little butter with the yolk soft. Cut the avocado into thick slices with a spoon and lay it beside the arepa. Salt the avocado, not the egg. For Maxi: the avocado goes on the plate, separate, unremarked. He does not have to eat it. It has to be there.
Bowl de yogur — Miranda	18 g	200 g plain Greek yoghurt · 80 g mango or mora · 15 g oats · 10 g nuts	Nothing is cooked. Yoghurt into the bowl first. Fruit on top — mango in cubes, or blackberries whole and slightly crushed with a fork so they bleed colour into the yoghurt. Oats and chopped nuts over the top, added at the moment of eating so they stay crunchy. No added sugar. If it needs sweetening the fruit was not ripe enough — use mango or banana, not honey. Three minutes, start to finish.
Salmón y arroz del desayuno BRIDGE	Mir 20 g · Max 16 g	70 g salmon (Max) / 90 g (Mir) · 100 g cooked rice · 1 egg · 30 g mango in strips, on the side · olive oil · salt	Salmon out of the fridge 10 minutes before cooking so it cooks evenly. Pat it dry with paper — wet fish steams. Salt both sides, a few drops of olive oil on the skin side. Preheat the air fryer 3 min at 190°C. Salmon skin-down, 9 minutes at 190°C. Do not turn it. It is done when a fork flakes it with almost no pressure and the centre is still slightly darker. Warm the rice with a tablespoon of water, covered, 60 seconds in the microwave — this steams it back to fresh. Fry or scramble the egg while the salmon rests 2 minutes. The mango goes on the plate cut in the exact same strip shape as his plantain. That shape is the entire bridge. Do not mention it, do not ask him to try it, do not react if he does.
Avena cocida con banano y canela	Mir 14 g · Max 11 g	50 g oats · 250 ml milk · 1 banana · cinnamon · 15 g nuts (Mir) · pinch of salt	Oats and milk into a small pot with a pinch of salt — the salt is what stops porridge tasting of nothing. Medium-low heat, 5 minutes, stirring often so it does not catch on the bottom. It should be thick enough to hold a spoon upright but still pourable. Off the heat, cover, and let it sit 2 minutes. This is what makes it creamy. Banana sliced on top, cinnamon over the whole surface, nuts for Miranda. No sugar. A properly ripe banana and cinnamon do the whole job. Half a scoop of whey can go in off the heat for Miranda on a training day — never while it boils, it goes grainy.

Media mañana · 10:00

Recipe	Protein	Ingredients — per serving unless stated	Method, step by step
Fruta y huevo duro	Mir 8 g · Max 6 g	1–2 eggs · whatever fruit is in the house (Mir) / mango strips (Max)	Eggs into cold water, brought to the boil, then 9 minutes at a bare simmer for a fully set yolk that is not chalky. Straight into iced water for 3 minutes — this stops the cooking and makes them peel cleanly. Boil a dozen on Sunday. They keep 5 days in the fridge, unpeeled, and this is the single most useful thing in the whole plan. Miranda: any fruit, cut and cold. Maxi: mango in strips beside the egg, no comment.
Yogur con mora — Miranda	10 g	150 g plain yoghurt · a handful of blackberries	Yoghurt in a bowl, blackberries on top, crushed lightly with a fork. No added sugar. If they are sour, add half a banana instead of sugar. Thirty seconds.
Pollo frío y tajadas SAFE	Max 9 g	60 g leftover chicken from lunch · cold plantain strips	Nothing is cooked — this is deliberately built from yesterday's lunch. Chicken cold, sliced, from the fridge. Plantain cold, from the same container. He will eat this every single time, which is why it exists. Every plan needs one item with a 100% hit rate for the days that go badly.
Batido de leche y banano	Mir 9 g · Max BRIDGE	250 ml milk · 1 banana · ice	Banana, milk and 3 ice cubes into the blender. Blend 45 seconds, until there is no texture left at all. Any lump and it gets refused. Serve immediately in a cold glass — it separates within 10 minutes. Freeze the banana beforehand and it becomes thick enough to eat with a spoon, which is a completely different proposition for a child.

Almuerzo · 12:30 — the main plate

Recipe	Protein	Ingredients — per serving unless stated	Method, step by step
Pollo, arroz y brócoli SAFE	Mir 22 g · Max 18 g	110 g chicken breast (Mir) / 90 g (Max) · 120 g cooked rice · 120 g broccoli · 7 g olive oil · 1 clove garlic · salt	Chicken cut into 2 cm cubes — uniform size matters more than anything else here, because uneven pieces mean some are dry before others are cooked. Salt, oil and crushed garlic, mixed through with your hands. Rest 10 minutes if there is time. Preheat the air fryer 3 min at 200°C. Chicken in a single layer, 5–6 minutes at 200°C, shaking at minute 3. Done at 74°C internal. Broccoli: steamed 6 minutes over boiling water, or air-fried 8 minutes at 190°C with a little oil. Eight minutes is the ceiling. It must stay firm and bright green — overcooked, grey, soft broccoli is why children hate broccoli, and it is a completely avoidable own goal. Rice warmed with a spoonful of water, covered. Plate the three separately, not touching. This is not fussiness, it is what makes the plate acceptable.
Albóndigas de res con arroz BRIDGE	Mir 24 g · Max 19 g	250 g ground beef (makes 4 portions) · 1 egg · 30 g breadcrumbs · 1 clove garlic · 120 g rice · salt · optional: 40 g grated carrot or courgette	Beef, egg, breadcrumbs, minced garlic and salt in a bowl. Mix with your hands, briefly — overworked mince goes rubbery. This is where route 4 lives: 40 g of finely grated carrot or courgette disappears completely into the mix. Say it is in there. Roll into 3 cm balls, all the same size. Wet hands stop them sticking. Preheat the air fryer 3 min at 190°C. Meatballs in a single layer, 12 minutes at 190°C, turning at minute 6. This is the red-meat entry point. Ground, soft, uniform, and shaped like something he already recognises — several orders of magnitude easier than a steak. Sauce in a separate bowl, never poured over. Rice beside. Roll a double batch on Sunday and freeze them raw on a tray, then bag them. They go into the air fryer frozen at 190°C for 16 minutes.
Carne asada con papa y ensalada	Mir 26 g · Max 20 g	150 g beef, lomo or punta de anca · 200 g potato · cucumber, tomato, lettuce · olive oil · lime · salt	Beef out of the fridge 20 minutes before cooking. Salt it now, not later. Potato in 2 cm cubes, tossed in oil and salt. Preheat 3 min, then 18 minutes at 200°C, shaking twice. Plancha or heavy pan on high heat until it genuinely smokes. This is the step people skip and it is the whole recipe — a lukewarm pan boils the meat grey. Steak on, 2–3 minutes per side for a 2 cm cut, to 63°C internal for medium. Rest it 5 minutes before cutting. Non-negotiable — cutting early loses the juice onto the board. Slice against the grain, thin. Thin slices are far more chewable for a nine-year-old than a block, and chewability is often the real objection rather than the meat itself. Salad dressed with oil, lime and salt at the last second, or it wilts.
Salmón, papa y coliflor BRIDGE	Mir 24 g · Max 19 g	110 g salmon · 200 g potato · 100 g cauliflower + 40 g broccoli · olive oil · salt	Potato in 2 cm cubes, oiled and salted. Preheat 3 min at 200°C, then 18 minutes, shaking twice. Salmon goes into the same basket for the last 9 minutes, skin down, salted, a few drops of oil. One appliance, one timer, one thing to wash. Cauliflower and broccoli in florets of the same size, tossed in oil, air-fried separately 8 minutes at 190°C — or steamed 6 minutes. Serve the cauliflower mixed in with the broccoli, same size, same plate. That is the whole chaining move: same shape, same texture, no colour. Fish is done when it flakes under light fork pressure. If it is chalky white all the way through, it went 2 minutes too far.
Frijoles con arroz y aguacate	Mir 20 g · Max 15 g	150 g cooked beans · 100 g rice · 50 g avocado · sofrito (onion, garlic, tomato) · guava on the side	Sofrito: onion and garlic in oil on medium heat 5 minutes until translucent, then grated tomato, 5 minutes more until it darkens. Beans in with the sofrito and a little of their own liquid, simmer 10 minutes so they take the flavour. Rice and avocado beside. Serve guava, orange or another vitamin-C fruit with this meal specifically. Vitamin C alongside plant iron can multiply how much of it is absorbed — this pairing is free and most people never make it. Cook a full pot of beans on Sunday. They freeze in portions.
Sudado de pollo con verduras	Mir 23 g · Max 18 g	120 g chicken thigh · 150 g potato · 80 g carrot · 60 g tomato · onion · garlic · cumin · salt	Brown the chicken thighs in a little oil on high heat, 3 minutes per side, just for colour. Take them out. Same pot: onion and garlic 5 minutes, then grated tomato and cumin, 5 minutes more. Chicken back in with potato and carrot, water to halfway up — not covering. A sudado is steamed, not boiled, which is the difference between this and a soup. Lid on, low heat, 25 minutes, until a knife goes through the potato with no resistance. For Maxi: serve his chicken and potato with the liquid strained off, pieces separated.
Pasta con pollo y tomate BRIDGE	Mir 22 g · Max 17 g	100 g chicken · 70 g dry pasta · 120 g tomato · 10 g parmesan · olive oil · garlic · basil	Pasta in heavily salted boiling water — it should taste like soup. Cook to one minute under the packet time. Save half a cup of the pasta water before draining. It is what makes sauce cling. Sauce: garlic in oil 30 seconds, grated tomato, 10 minutes on medium until it darkens and thickens. Salt at the end. Chicken cooked separately as in the first recipe, and kept separate. Maxi's portion is plated before the sauce goes anywhere near it — his pasta dry with a little oil and parmesan dust, chicken beside it, and a very small amount of sauce in its own bowl for the one bite. Miranda's is tossed together with a splash of pasta water and torn basil.
Trucha con arroz y ensalada BRIDGE	Mir 24 g · Max 19 g	120 g trout · 100 g rice · cucumber, tomato, lettuce · olive oil · lime · salt	Trout patted dry, salted, a few drops of oil. Preheat 3 min at 190°C, then 9 minutes at 190°C, skin down, not turned. Serve it in exactly the same way you serve salmon — same plate, same rice, same position, same sauce or lack of it. Trout is the highest-probability chaining target in the whole map: near-identical colour, near-identical texture, near-identical flavour, different name and roughly a third of the price. Salad dressed at the table.
Ajiaco de pollo	Mir 22 g · Max 17 g	120 g chicken · 200 g papa criolla and papa sabanera · 1 corn on the cob · guascas · cream and capers on the side	Chicken and both potatoes into a pot with water to cover, brought to a boil then dropped to a simmer. 40 minutes. The papa criolla is supposed to dissolve completely — that is what thickens the ajiaco. The sabanera stays in pieces. Guascas in for the last 10 minutes only. Earlier and the flavour cooks off. Shred the chicken and return it to the pot. Corn on the cob goes into the bowl whole. Cream and capers stay on the table, never in the pot. Maxi gets neither — and he gets the corn, which is the part he will actually eat, and eating it off the cob is half the appeal.

Onces · 16:00 — the sweet slot, and it is mostly fruit

Recipe	Protein	Ingredients — per serving unless stated	Method, step by step
Plátano al horno con canela SAFE	Mir 4 g · Max 3 g	1 very ripe plantain · cinnamon · yoghurt on the side (Mir)	The blacker the skin, the better this works. A yellow plantain will not caramelise. Split lengthwise, skin on, cut side up on a tray. Oven or air fryer, 200°C, 15 minutes, until the cut face is dark gold and bubbling at the edges. Cinnamon over it the second it comes out, while the surface is still wet enough to hold it. This is dessert and it is also just fruit, with nothing added.
Helado de banano — one ingredient	Mir 2 g · Max 3 g BRIDGE	Very ripe bananas, sliced and frozen. Nothing else	Slice ripe bananas into 2 cm coins and freeze them flat on a tray, not in a bag, or they weld into a brick. Minimum 3 hours. Frozen slices into a food processor or a strong blender. Blend, and keep going through the ugly stage. It goes crumbly, then gluey, then — after about 90 seconds — suddenly turns into soft-serve ice cream. Scrape the sides twice. Eat immediately, or freeze 30 minutes for a firmer scoop. The best single trick in this article. Texturally it is ice cream. Nutritionally it is a banana. Cocoa powder, peanut butter or frozen mango can go in at the end.
Paletas de fruta y yogur	Mir 6 g	Mango or mora · plain yoghurt · moulds	Blend the fruit with the yoghurt, roughly two parts fruit to one part yoghurt. Into the moulds, frozen at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. Run the mould under warm water for 5 seconds to release. The frozen texture is a genuine route in for a child who refuses the identical fruit fresh. Cold blunts flavour and changes the mouthfeel completely — it stops being the thing he already decided against.
Fresas con chocolate oscuro	Mir 3 g · Max 2 g	Strawberries · 70% dark chocolate	Wash and dry the strawberries completely. One drop of water seizes melted chocolate into a grainy paste. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of barely simmering water — the bowl must not touch the water. Or microwave in 20-second bursts, stirring between each. Dip, place on baking paper, 10 minutes in the fridge to set. Two ingredients, and better than anything sold as a dessert.
Fruta congelada en trozos	Mir 1 g · Max BRIDGE	Mango, pineapple, grapes, watermelon	Cut into bite-sized chunks and freeze spread out on a tray first, then transfer to a bag once solid. Frozen in a bag from the start, it becomes one lump. Eaten straight from the freezer with fingers. Grapes halved for Maxi. Cold changes the texture enough that it stops being the fruit he refused at lunch. This is the cheapest experiment in the plan and it works more often than it has any right to.
Manzana asada con canela y nueces	Mir 5 g · Max 3 g	1 apple · cinnamon · chopped nuts · a little butter	Core the apple without cutting through the base, so it holds its filling. Pack the hollow with chopped nuts, cinnamon and a small knob of butter. Oven 180°C, 25 minutes, until a knife goes into the side with no resistance and the skin has wrinkled. Soft, warm and genuinely sweet with nothing added.
Uvas congeladas	Mir 1 g · Max 1 g	Grapes	Wash, dry, freeze on a tray for 2 hours. Halve them for Maxi — whole frozen grapes are a choking risk at speed. They eat like sweets, and they are grapes. That is the entire recipe.
Yogur helado con mora	Mir 10 g	200 g plain Greek yoghurt · 100 g frozen blackberries	Both into the blender, frozen fruit straight from the freezer. Blend 30 seconds — no longer, or the friction melts it back to a drink. Eat immediately. It does not hold. Frozen yoghurt in half a minute, no machine, no sugar.
Mousse de aguacate y cacao	Mir 5 g · Max 4 g	1 ripe avocado · 2 tbsp cocoa powder · 1 banana · a little milk	Everything into the blender and run it until completely smooth — any avocado texture left and the illusion breaks. Chill at least an hour. It thickens as it cools. No dairy required, no added sugar required, and it tastes like chocolate mousse.
Brochetas de fruta	Mir 1 g · Max 1 g BRIDGE	Mango, pineapple, strawberry, grape · wooden skewers	Fruit in even cubes, threaded onto skewers. Maxi builds his own. Format alone moves the needle at nine, and the child who assembled it is measurably more likely to eat it — that is tool 3 from the previous section, applied to fruit. Blunt the skewer tips for the nine-year-old.
Compota de manzana y pera	Mir 1 g · Max 1 g	3 apples · 2 pears · cinnamon · no sugar	Peel, core and chop. Into a pot with 3 tablespoons of water and the cinnamon. Lid on, low heat, 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Blend smooth, or mash with a fork for a rougher texture. Keeps a week in the fridge. Goes on yoghurt, on oats, into muffins, or eaten with a spoon.
Muffins de avena y banano	Mir 7 g · Max 6 g	200 g oats · 3 very ripe bananas · 2 eggs · 100 ml milk · cinnamon · 1 tsp baking powder · minimal sugar	Everything into the blender together — including the oats, which turn into flour. 60 seconds. Rest the batter 5 minutes so the oats absorb the liquid and it thickens. Into 12 lined moulds, three-quarters full. Oven 180°C, 20 minutes. Done when a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack or the bottoms go soggy. Bake on Sunday, they last the week.
Chocolate oscuro con nueces	Mir 4 g	2 squares of dark chocolate · a small handful of nuts	Nothing to prepare. Served on a plate like a normal thing, without ceremony and without commentary. Not reformulated as health food — just a small, ordinary, honest sweet. That is the point of the sweets section.

Comida · 19:00

Recipe	Protein	Ingredients — per serving unless stated	Method, step by step
Pollo al horno con brócoli SAFE	Mir 16 g · Max 12 g	90 g chicken thigh (Mir) / 70 g (Max) · 120 g broccoli · olive oil · garlic · salt	Thigh, not breast — more fat, more forgiving, better flavour, and it does not dry out. Salt, oil, crushed garlic. Preheat 3 min at 190°C, then 18 minutes at 190°C, turning at minute 9. To 74°C internal. Broccoli into the same basket for the last 8 minutes. One appliance, one timer. Nothing else needed. This is the default evening meal and it should be boring.
Lomo de cerdo con puré y habichuela BRIDGE	Mir 19 g · Max 14 g	130 g pork loin · 150 g potato · 40 ml warm milk · green beans · garlic · butter · salt	Pork loin salted and left out 15 minutes. Preheat 3 min at 190°C, then 14 minutes at 190°C, turning at minute 7. To 63°C internal — pork does not need to be grey any more, and grey pork is what made a generation dislike it. Rest 3 minutes, then slice thin. Purée: potato boiled 20 minutes until it collapses, drained thoroughly, mashed with warm milk and a little butter. Warm milk, not cold — cold milk makes it gluey. Never use a blender on potato; it turns to glue. Green beans steamed 5 minutes, still squeaky. Pork loin is pale, soft and close to chicken in both colour and texture, which makes it the easiest non-poultry meat to land.
Tortilla de papa y espinaca BRIDGE	Mir 15 g · Max 12 g	3 eggs · 150 g potato · 40 g spinach · olive oil · salt	Potato in thin slices, softened in oil in a non-stick pan on medium-low for 12 minutes — softened, not browned. Spinach in at the end, 1 minute, just to wilt. It reduces to almost nothing, which is exactly why it works here. Beat the eggs with salt, pour over, low heat, 6 minutes uncovered until the edges set. Flip using a plate over the pan, then slide back in, 3 more minutes. Cut Maxi's slice from the edge, where there is the least spinach. He can see it is the same tortilla — that is what matters, not how much of it he eats.
Pescado blanco con puré y habichuela BRIDGE	Mir 17 g · Max 13 g	110 g white fish — tilapia, corvina or basa · 150 g potato · green beans · lime · salt	Fish patted dry, salted, a squeeze of lime. Preheat 3 min at 190°C, then 8 minutes at 190°C — white fish is thinner than salmon and goes from perfect to cardboard in about 90 seconds. Purée as in the pork recipe. Green beans steamed 5 minutes. Green beans are the second broccoli bridge: same green, same length, softer bite, milder flavour.
Arepa con huevo, aguacate y carne desmechada	Mir 18 g · Max 13 g	2 eggs · 1 arepa · 50 g avocado · 60 g shredded beef, left over from lunch	Arepa on a dry griddle, 4 minutes per side. Shredded beef warmed in a pan with a spoon of its own juices, 2 minutes. Eggs scrambled soft. Everything on the plate side by side, nothing stacked, nothing sauced. This is built entirely from leftovers and takes eight minutes.
Sopa de lentejas con pollo BRIDGE	Mir 17 g · Max 13 g	120 g cooked lentils · 60 g chicken · carrot · potato · onion · garlic · cumin	Sofrito of onion and garlic, 5 minutes, then cumin. Lentils, diced carrot, diced potato, shredded chicken and water to cover. Simmer 30 minutes. Strain most of the liquid out of Maxi's bowl so it reads as rice-and-lentils rather than as soup — the chaining target here is the lentil, not the format. Serve his over rice. Miranda's stays as soup.

Cremas y sopas · almuerzo or comida

Built on the formula above. Every one of these is 300 g or more of vegetable per child, and every one has its protein already in it. They freeze in portions, which is why Sunday exists.

Recipe	Protein	Ingredients — per serving unless stated	Method, step by step
Crema de auyama con huevo BRIDGE	Mir 13 g · Max 10 g	400 g auyama · 100 g potato · ½ onion · 1 garlic clove · 2 boiled eggs · 20 g parmesan · olive oil	Base: onion, garlic and diced potato in a little olive oil, medium heat, 6 minutes until translucent — not browned. Auyama in 3 cm cubes, then water to just cover and no more. Too much water is the single most common crema failure. Simmer 20 minutes, until a knife goes through the squash with no resistance. Blend until completely smooth. If using a stick blender, go a full minute longer than feels necessary. One lump is a legitimate reason, at nine, to stop eating forever. Chop the boiled egg in at the table so he sees it go in. Parmesan, black pepper, a thread of olive oil, and toasted arepa cut into croutons on top. The sweetest crema there is, and the one to start with. Say the word auyama out loud when you put it down.
Crema de brócoli con pollo	Mir 20 g · Max 15 g	350 g broccoli · 100 g potato · 60 g shredded chicken (Max) / 80 g (Mir) · ½ onion · garlic · 20 g parmesan	Same base: onion, garlic, potato, 6 minutes. Water to just cover, simmer 12 minutes until the potato is soft. Broccoli in for the last 8 minutes only. Any longer and it goes army-green and sulphurous, which is a different and much worse soup. Blend smooth, then stir the shredded chicken through off the heat. Serve it with two florets of whole broccoli on the side. It is broccoli and chicken — two foods already on his list — in a new shape, which makes this the least risky crema in the set.
Crema de zanahoria y lentejas	Mir 14 g · Max 11 g	300 g carrot · 80 g cooked lentils · 100 g potato · onion · garlic · cumin · olive oil	Base as always, with the cumin added to the onion so it toasts for 30 seconds. Carrot in coins, potato in cubes, lentils, water to just cover. Simmer 25 minutes — carrot takes longer than most vegetables. Blend completely smooth. The lentils vanish entirely and the crema stays orange, which is the whole trick: they are the protein and nobody can see them.
Crema de calabacín con queso	Mir 12 g · Max 9 g	400 g courgette · 100 g potato · onion · garlic · 40 g cheese · olive oil	Base, 6 minutes. Courgette in thick slices — skin on, that is where the colour and most of the nutrients are. Water to just cover. Simmer 20 minutes, blend smooth, stir the cheese in off the heat so it melts without splitting. The most neutral-tasting crema in the list, which makes it the one for a bad day.
Crema de espinaca y papa con huevo	Mir 14 g · Max 11 g	200 g spinach · 200 g potato · 2 eggs · onion · garlic · 100 ml milk	Base, then potato and water to just cover, simmer 18 minutes. Spinach in at the very last minute, only to wilt. Boiled spinach turns bitter and loses the colour. Milk in, then blend smooth. Back on low heat, and pour a beaten egg in a thin stream while stirring — it sets into fine threads through the crema. This is the protein step and it takes 20 seconds. It comes out green. Say it is spinach.
Sopa de verduras con pollo	Mir 18 g · Max 14 g	80 g chicken · carrot · peas · green beans · corn · potato · onion · garlic · cilantro	Sofrito of onion and garlic, then chicken pieces, browned 3 minutes. All vegetables in, cut to the same size so they finish together. Water to cover. Simmer 30 minutes. This one is not blended — it is the visible-vegetable version, and both versions need to exist. Cilantro in at the end, off the heat. For Maxi: two options. Either strain almost all the liquid and serve the pieces separated on a plate, or serve half his portion blended and half whole, side by side. The second is the more useful experiment.
Ajiaco de pollo	Mir 22 g · Max 17 g	120 g chicken · 200 g papa criolla and sabanera · corn on the cob · guascas · cream and capers on the side	Chicken and both potatoes in water to cover. Boil, then reduce to a simmer. 40 minutes. The criolla is meant to dissolve completely — that is what thickens it. The sabanera holds its shape. Guascas only in the last 10 minutes, or the flavour cooks away. Shred the chicken back in. Corn on the cob into the bowl whole. Cream and capers on the table, never in the pot. Maxi takes neither, and takes the corn.
Sancocho de pollo ligero	Mir 24 g · Max 18 g	130 g chicken · yuca · plantain · corn · potato · carrot · cilantro · cumin	Brown the chicken 3 minutes per side, then out. Sofrito, then everything back in with water to cover. Simmer 40 minutes. Yuca goes in first, plantain and corn 20 minutes later — yuca takes twice as long as anything else. Cilantro off the heat. Less starch and more vegetable than the traditional version. Plantain and corn are already on Maxi's list, so the bowl arrives about 60% familiar, which is exactly how you want a new dish to arrive.
Caldo de costilla con mazorca	Mir 16 g · Max 12 g	150 g beef rib · potato · corn on the cob · onion · cilantro	Ribs into cold water with the onion. Bring to a boil and skim the foam off the top — this is what makes the difference between a clear broth and a cloudy one. Reduce to the barest simmer and leave it one hour. A rolling boil makes the meat tough. Potato and corn in for the last 25 minutes. Cilantro at the table. A traditional Colombian breakfast that works as an evening meal, and one of the very few soups children ask for unprompted.

Batidos · media mañana or onces

The fruit-and-vegetable delivery system. Every one has protein in it, which is the difference between a batido and a glass of juice.

Batido	Protein	Ingredients	Method
Mango, banano y leche BRIDGE	Mir 9 g	250 ml milk · 1 banana · 80 g mango · 3 ice cubes	Everything in, blend 45 seconds until there is no texture whatsoever. Serve in a cold glass immediately — it separates within 10 minutes. For Maxi this is two bridges in one glass, dairy and fruit. Try it only after mango strips have landed, or you are testing two variables at once and will learn nothing from a refusal.
Batido verde	Mir 10 g	250 ml milk · a large handful of spinach · 1 banana · 80 g mango	Blend the spinach with the milk first, on its own, for 30 seconds. This is the step that matters — it eliminates the flecks, and visible green flecks are what gets it refused. Then add banana and mango and blend 30 seconds more. The spinach is genuinely undetectable behind the mango. Say it is in there anyway. That sentence is the exposure, and it is the entire difference between this and hiding it.
Mora y yogur	Mir 12 g	150 g plain yoghurt · 100 g blackberries · a splash of milk	Blend 30 seconds. Frozen blackberries make it thick enough to eat with a spoon. No added sugar. If the mora is very sour, half a banana fixes it.
Lulo en agua BRIDGE	Mir 1 g	2 lulos · 250 ml water · ice	Cut the lulo, scoop the pulp, blend with water for 20 seconds. Strain it — the seeds are the objection, not the fruit. No dairy, no sugar. This is the first batido to try on Maxi, precisely because it removes the milk variable: one new thing instead of two.
Papaya, banano y avena	Mir 10 g	250 ml milk · 100 g papaya · 1 banana · 15 g oats	Oats into the blender dry first, 20 seconds, to break them down. Everything else in, blend 40 seconds. Let it stand 5 minutes — the oats absorb and it thickens noticeably. A thick batido gets finished; a thin one gets abandoned.
Remolacha, fresa y banano	Mir 9 g	½ small cooked beetroot · 80 g strawberries · 1 banana · 250 ml milk	Use beetroot already cooked and cooled — raw is too earthy and too fibrous. Blend 60 seconds, longer than the others, because beetroot fibre is stubborn. Comes out bright pink and tastes entirely of strawberry. The colour is either the best or the worst thing about it, depending on the child.
Curuba en leche	Mir 9 g	3 curubas · 250 ml milk · a very small amount of panela	Scoop the pulp, blend with the milk 30 seconds, then strain out the seeds. Panela at the absolute minimum — the fruit is already sweet, and panela is sugar. A local fruit that exists almost nowhere else on earth, and a calcium vehicle at the same time.
Maracuyá con yogur y proteína	Mir 20 g	150 g yoghurt · pulp of 2 maracuyás · 15 g whey · 150 ml milk	Maracuyá pulp strained, or left with seeds if she likes the crunch. Whey goes in last and gets the shortest possible blend — over-blending whey makes it foam into a glass of air. Miranda's post-training glass. Hers, not Maxi's, and she is old enough to know the difference and to like that it is hers.

8 · Sweets, and why restricting them backfires

Sweets are in the plan on purpose. The research here is uncomfortable but consistent: heavy restriction increases desire. Locking things away, making dessert scarce and morally loaded, or monitoring every bite reliably produces more attention to the restricted food and more eating of it when access finally appears.

So the approach is structure rather than scarcity:

Do	Don't
Serve something sweet predictably, in the onces slot	Make dessert conditional on finishing vegetables
Build it from real things — fruit, yoghurt, oats, egg, dark chocolate	Use words like good, bad, clean, cheat, junk
A child-sized portion, served without ceremony	Hide it and hand it out as a reward
Sweet things with a meal rather than grazed across hours	Reformulate everything as a health product — an ordinary sweet, honestly served, beats a constant stream of "healthy" desserts

Across a week, keeping added sugar under about 10% of energy is a sensible household target — roughly 20 to 25 g a day as an average, not a number either of them ever hears about. Sugar inside whole fruit and the lactose in plain milk are not in that count.

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Panela is sugar.

It is traditional, it is delicious, and nutritionally it is added sugar with a trace mineral rounding error. Aguapanela is a sugar-sweetened drink. That does not make it forbidden — it makes it a SOMETIMES food that should stop being described as a healthy one. Same for honey, agave, coconut sugar and date syrup.

9 · Hydration

	Total water/day	From drinks
Maximiliano, 9	~2.4 L	~1.8 L — about 7 glasses
Miranda, 11	~2.1 L	~1.6 L — about 6–7 glasses

Roughly a fifth of that arrives in food. Water is the default at and between meals. Milk counts and carries calcium, iodine and B12 with it — 300 to 500 ml a day is a sensible range for Miranda, and more is not better, because milk blunts appetite and displaces iron-rich food.

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The juice problem, stated plainly

Juicing removes the structure, usually removes the fibre, eliminates chewing, and lets a child drink four fruits in ninety seconds. Once fruit is juiced its sugars are classified as free sugars — even with nothing added, even freshly squeezed, even if it is the best mango in Antioquia.

In a city this good at fruit that is genuinely annoying. But whole fruit plus water beats juice every time. The routine amount of juice here is zero; socially, a small glass with a meal is fine.

The signs that matter are boring ones: normal energy, regular urination, pale yellow. Not colourless — pale.

10 · The week, and who does what

When	What
Sunday	Cook once, eat all week: boil a dozen eggs · bake the oat muffins · cook a pot of rice · cook beans or lentils · roll and freeze the meatballs · blend a crema and freeze it in portions · cut and freeze fruit for batidos and paletas · portion the chicken and beef. An hour on Sunday removes most weekday decisions
Daily	One protein, one starch, vegetables. Something Maxi already eats is always on his plate, and one new thing beside it
Twice a week	Oily fish — salmon or trout. This is the omega-3 line and it is not optional
Twice a week	Red meat — beef or pork. Iron and zinc, and the two nutrients hardest to get from Maxi's current seven
Every meal	One bite of everything, from everyone. A point on the chart when Maxi tries something new
Never	Forcing, punishing, dessert-for-vegetables, secretly hidden vegetables, or a separately cooked menu

Cristina and Sofía cook from the Spanish PDF. It has the same recipes, the same weights and the same timings, without the reasoning — because the reasoning is my job and lunch is theirs. Sofía is a chef, which is an unfair advantage I intend to keep using. Her story is here.

What I expect to happen

Miranda will be fine. The plan for her is mostly about keeping her range wide and not letting it narrow to match her brother's.

Maxi will take months, and the honest version is that some of these chains will fail. Mango might not work. Cauliflower probably will. The point is not that every bridge holds — it is that there are twenty of them, eight active tools to push them with, and I only need a few to land per quarter.

The method, in one line: good food five times a day, something safe always on his plate, one new thing beside it, one bite expected, a point on the chart when it happens, and no fight when it doesn't.

And if it all goes sideways, I have the deal on video.

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Related Reading

MONSTER 2.0 — The Kitchen — the adult version. 2,455 calories, 225 g of protein, 25 solver-checked recipes. Same discipline, entirely different problem.

MONSTER 2.0 — The Response — what a physician-signed protocol looks like when you write the proposal yourself.