You'd think that was on the dinner menu last night, by the looks of it. In reality, it was just good, old-fashioned Potato Soup. That's normal, right?
I proceeded to asked Kate what things she liked for dinner. Her list? Ramen and Macaroni & cheese. If only I could make those things every night for dinner, my life would be a lot easier too!
However, I do believe in good nutrition (at least most of the time--there have been chicken nugget sightings at our house), but my efforts to introduce a little variety(and heaven forbid, some fruits and vegetables) have produced noses turned up, and downright refusals to eat.
It's interesting though--Kate and Ryan are the picky ones, while little Miss Emma is my fruit and veggie girl, plus everything in between. The girls have been given the exact same food at the exact same time since birth, yet their attitudes about food are vastly different.
So, what's a girl to do? I would love to hear your tricks of the trade, and how you handle picky eaters. I'm certainly not a short order cook, and I will only prepare one meal, but I don't like to see kids hungry, either.
Don't tell me I'm alone, here!
14 comments:
You are not by any means alone. I have 2 great eaters and 2 picky ones and they are slowly coming over to the "dark side"(which is what I used to refer to eating fruits and veggies). Tips to come at a later time....
you are not alone with this. Some nights I will be a short order cook, but most of the time if they wont eat they do go to bed hungry. Natasha who is our picky eater has gotten to were she will now try every thing on her plate, because she doesn't want to go to bed hungry.
Since I am not a short order cook, I do not make extra meals for anyone. However, that means I try to make at least one side that everyone likes. I do have many picky eaters in my house including the husband. Sometimes just cutting things in fun shapes or in a different way help. I have also gotten sneaky about hiding vegetables in smoothies. Our favorite is banana, strawberry, blackberry, spinach, and a scoop of protein powder, and milk. It is really delish! You can't tell there is spinach in there. Dip are also good for veggies such as ranch, peanut butter, hummus, and carmel
My daughter will not touch veggies. Something that helps me is what a doctor said once, that the variety of nutrition a child eats doesn't have to all happen in one day. That means if she eats a good mix of foods over the course of a few days then that's good enough! I still try to make sure my kids get nutritious food everyday but obviously they don't always eat everything.
I absolutely LOVE that picture of Kate! Of course I have no advice...thankfully my husband will eat ANYTHING :)
Here is one that I absolutely love to do. I like to offer two veggies at every meal. I love vegetables and my kids have grown up knowing that eating one vegetable at a meal is obligatory. They can choose the lesser of the two if that is how they feel about it but at least they can choose. I on the other hand get to have both. Unfortunately my kids now like most vegetables and I find it annoying that they don't leave more for me. Maybe that is a growing teenage boy problem though more than a vegetable consumption problem. :)
We will need to have a chat about this one. I have had every other one of my children be picky. It can be a frustrating experience. The best cookbook I have found for picky eaters is Deceptively Delicious. 4 of my favorite picky eater tricks are:
1. food on scewers they love them
2. children's chopsticks(they used to have animal ones at School Days)I think they are called zoosticks if you want to order them on-line
3. I finally got one of my picky eaters to like salad by dipping baby spinach leaves in ranch and then moved on to romain hearts being dipped and now he can eat them as a salad-so dip dip dip
4. I hide pumpkin in pancakes and spinach puree in eggs-green eggs all around!!!!
So dip, chopstick, scewer, and hide!!!!
Funny enough I heard Dr Laura answer this EXACT question from a Mom yesterday!! She told the Mom to start out making one of her "favorites" every other day- even if it's as a side dish- then after a couple weeks, push it out to every three days etc etc etc until she has opened up to new food! She also said to say things like- can I try your potato soup? Wow that's yummy, and encourage them to "try" something of yours. And things like "It's okay if you want to try some steak" she said it's always better to challenge! Hope that helps!
You guys are awesome! Thank you for all the suggestions-I appreciate it!
I have had picky eaters and those that would (and did) eat anything. (My one son who has autism couldn't stand a lot of different textures so quite often I had to cater to him. It didn't bother his older sister because she ate everything.
I'm mean and horrible if they don't eat dinner they don't get anything else. (Believe me none of them ever starved--they learned they had to eat what was in front of them)
We make the children "try" each dinner. If they really don't like it (I STILL don't like brussel sprouts, soggy plain spinach, liver - I would hate it if someone made me eat it at this point), then they are allowed to have more of the side dish, etc. but that's what's for dinner. I've found with my few picky eaters that over time, since they have to try at least one bite every meal, their tastes change and morph over time. 100% of the time, they have gotten used to it, and will politely eat it, even if they don't choose it for their birthday dinner. OK, and if I notice that Jeff & I are the only ones who like a meal, we don't make it as a general rule. Kids have so many more times the taste buds that we do, so adult food may very well be too strong - and we like it strong around here. Was that long enough?
I make sure there is at least one thing in the meal that will be liked. They can't have seconds of that item until the other items are at least tried or x number of bites taken. That way they aren't exactly hungry, but don't get to stuff themselves on just one thing and have to try the other stuff to get what they really want. Last night, Sidney really wanted seconds of baked ziti, but had to eat her green beans first. It worked!
You are definitely not alone in this one. I wish I had some good tricks for you. I have a couple of kids who will try anything once and who would eat fresh fruits and veggies from a garden and nothing else for the rest of their lives. THEN, I have the other two who won't touch a green vegetable with a ten foot pole. I just try to make do with what they like and keep trying to introduce them to different things, but I swear that the more I "force" the issue, the worse it is.
I too am in the same boat. So I'm just gonna read all the wonderful comments!
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