In many restaurants in Australia, the children’s menu is where you will find the least nutritious food. Chicken nuggets, pasta with cheese and pizza and fries are standard ‘kid-friendly’ offerings. Are parents to blame for bringing out the Tupperware filled with cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks, steamed edamame beans and kingfish sashimi when faced with this epicurean wasteland?

More and more parents are resorting to home-brought snacks to feed their little ones. Parents realise that not only are many kids’ menus unhealthy, they’re an expensive option when they are so often pushed aside by stubborn gastronomes who are fully aware of the power of a public tantrum.

Our restaurants, top and not, may know how to feed the adults, but for children they often seem unprepared to break the age-old mould of kids-food-equals-junk-food. Where are the steamed greens with olive oil, the bowls of buttered peas, the legumes, the chickpeas, the fragrant free-range butter chicken to add a little zing to adventurous palates? Do these meatballs even have kale and carrots hidden in them?

Protesting parents are forced to resort to the $80 tomahawk from a sprawling menu of fine sauces and Moroccan spices to feed little Alfie and Clementine. It’s the only thing they’ll eat. It’s no wonder that BYO kid’s food often seems like a viable solution. Parents caring about whether their own behaviour is rude evaporated around the same time they used the table’s water carafe to rinse the chilli and tahini dressing from the seasonal greens the kids say set their mouths on fire.

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With the cost of living as it is, parents might also be excused for ‘bringing a plate’, so the family might eat out without first securing a personal loan. Justifiable it might be, but acceptable it is usually not. A financial win for the diner is more likely to hit the restaurant’s bottom line. Sneaking in a BYO meal for the kids as a trend could turn restaurants’ already slim margins into a business catastrophe.

Darren Robertson, chef and co-owner of Three Blue Ducks, which has venues in Bellingen, Rosebery, Byron Bay, Melbourne and near Wagga Wagga, says many restaurants do the best they can to accommodate the little ones. “These, of course, are our future customers,” Robertson says, pointing out that the venue wants, “The whole family to enjoy the experience, not just the adults”.

This doesn’t stop customers, including parents, occasionally bringing something into the restaurants, says Robertson. His advice: “If anyone wants to BYO anything, whether it’s the special bottle of wine, a birthday cake or a packed lunch for the kids, a little heads-up goes a long way. Restaurants across the board now are pretty good at accommodating dietary needs and special requests.

“It’s just useful to know about it, be it in case someone gets sick or for economic reasons. If you have a third of your restaurant guests bringing their own food and drinks, unsurprisingly, the numbers just aren’t financially sustainable.”

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Whether healthy choices or the cost of kids meals’ inspires it, bringing in outside food to a restaurant is essentially rude, and many restaurants won’t allow it. If you have time to pack a container of snacks for the kids, you have time to call the restaurant ahead and check whether it’s allowed or whether they are able to turn around a healthier, suitable option for children.

If in doubt, ask a waiter if your little people can snack on some home-brought veg before their meals arrive. Jordy’s, a pizza restaurant in Casuarina, northern New South Wales, recently said it was fine to give children a home-brought box of crudites before their restaurant-made meals arrived. As long as it didn’t replace a normal order, there were no issues.

Bringing a version of food or drink that the restaurant does serve – and charges for – is generally regarded as rude behaviour when dining out, as is bringing any food made in another restaurant.

Robertson says that if a restaurant gets the heads up beforehand about food from elsewhere, it might be overlooked. “It’s not ideal, however if you want to enjoy your snow egg in our ever so slightly less glamorous location, then go for gold!”

Parents might be scolded for doing BYO kids snacks, but it’s easy to see why they might. If our world’s top chefs and cooks writing books on the subject of kids’ food are anything to go by, many kids’ menus are getting it wrong. Scan a menu today and often if there are meals targeted at kids, it’s slim (yet, absurdly, obesity-making) pickings.

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The popular kids meal bundle, with a meal plus drink and a scoop of ice cream for what feels like a bargain price, is the dine-in restaurant’s equivalent of the “supersizing” seen fast-food chains.

Confession: I’m a BYO kids’ snack parent. I’m not going to take my kids to Ester in Chippendale and bring out the bento boxes, but might for a casual eatery with nothing for the kids to eat. When you walk into a restaurant you are essentially agreeing to eat the food, in the same way you do when you accept an invitation to a friend’s house. Bringing your own food is fundamentally rude in both instances, and you’d better check whether it’s ok, or explain yourself. Your accompanying fussy eaters is however a widely regarded “good excuse”.

Some restaurants are hitting the mark, allowing parents to leave the snap-lock containers at home. At The Boathouse on Shelly Beach, Sydney, little “nippers” can order chicken bites with veggie sticks and hummus for $14. In Avalon Beach, Girdlers Cafe does a sweet “happy box”, served in a cardboard sectioned-out box that includes grilled free-range chicken or halloumi, roasted potatoes, vegan mayo, carrot sticks, seasonal fruit and a handful of popcorn for $12. The “ducklings” menu at Three Blue Ducks spans chicken schnitzel with mixed salad and potatoes for $15.

If the restaurant’s menu doesn’t cut it, parents can go out on a limb and feed their children at home. Hassle wise, it sure beats bringing out the plastics drawer and fashioning a picnic spread on the restaurant table.

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