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• February 12, 2012

Raising Fearless Eaters

May 6, 2010

Here’s what we’ve done.  How do you encourage your kids to be brave with food?

7 Responses to “ Raising Fearless Eaters ”

1. 1
   Kate @ Bliss and That says:

   May 6, 2010 at 10:23 am

   I love, love this article!! That’s a mistake I made from the beginning with the first two kids was to feed baby food and immediately cater to “young” eaters for lunch, etc. with sandwiches, mac n cheese, etc. I’m starting to figure it out with the third, and now with this baby on the way, I’m pretty sure there will be very minimal baby food and he/she will be jumping right into the meals that I’m desperately trying to have the 5 and 3 year olds eat! It’s become increasingly important to me to serve the children more diverse, homecooked, and healthy meals. Thank you for the tips!
2. 2
   Fatima says:

   May 6, 2010 at 11:22 am

   They don’t get much of a choice around here. I fix good food and we eat at home most of the time. The rule is that you have to at least try whatever we are eating. There is usually at least one thing on the table that everyone will eat. If you don’t eat your dinner, no treats later. Sounds mean, but my kids eat almost anything. They love asparagus, adore spinach, gobble up eggs and are looking forward to trying the brussel sprouts we are growing in the garden.
3. 3
   Elizabeth says:

   May 6, 2010 at 6:41 pm

   I have a crew of fearless eaters here as well. We practice many of the same things you do, but I think a really important thing is to model adventurous eating. I know plenty of families who have picky eaters, and after discussing it a bit, it turns out that the father, or both father and mother, have a huge list of things that they don’t like. Watching a father turn up his nose at a lot of different types of food says far more to a table of children than trying to convince them with words that the food before them is godd.
4. 4
   Sheila Gregoire says:

   May 6, 2010 at 7:20 pm

   What a great article, Mary!

   I’ve found that even though you treat your kids the same, inevitably one will be more adventurous. My younger daughter will eat anything, and loves spicy food. My older daughter just doesn’t, and she’s more likely to go a little hungry at times (I don’t cook two dinners)! But she doesn’t complain. She just eats bread and cream cheese if she has to.

   It’s funny how when you do exactly the same thing, you don’t always get exactly the same result.

   But the good thing–when we spent three weeks in Africa at an orphanage, they didn’t complain one bit, and jumped in and ate because they knew it was important to be polite to their hostess. So we went three weeks with no meat and no refined sugar, and just lots of kale and tomatoes and potatoes and lentils. They did good!

   Sheila from To Love, Honor and Vacuum
5. 5
   Meghan says:

   May 7, 2010 at 8:16 pm

   Interesting. My husband and I like many types of food, we’re quite adventurous. So, we make whatever we like to eat and serve it up to the kids. I did rice cereal and homemade baby food for my older 2. It was usually whatever we ate mashed up. With my youngest I waited until she was about 8 or 9 months and then gave her real food, no mashed up stuff or cereal, and that’s my plan with the next.
   My oldest will eat pretty much everything you put in front of him. My second would be classified as a picky eater. No matter what we try with him (and trust me we tried EVERYTHING!), he will only eat specific things. We still offer him whatever I make and he has started to broaden his chosen foods (very slowly and sporadically). My third is a vacuum cleaner. Occasionally she finds something she doesn’t like, but in general eats fabulously.
   You can do your best, but every child is different.
6. 6
   edj says:

   May 8, 2010 at 4:38 am

   Mmm. That looks good!
   We thought we had it figured out. We moved ‘em to Africa where they happily ate goat intestines. This is true. But then, they got older, talked to American friends, and are now much more fussy. I do believe they’ll grow out of it…eventually.
7. 7
   Sandi says:

   May 8, 2010 at 12:39 pm

   I never understood cutting off the crusts, either. Sounds like we had similar experiences with liver, although I have served it to my son a few times who was equally unhappy about it. I’ve decided that even as an adult, whether it is fried up with bacon and onions or cooked in a stroganoff style, I just really do NOT care for it. No more for this house.

   I mostly mashed up the adult food for him when he was young, but I did also have jarred stuff sometimes. Whatever I serve for dinner is what he gets; he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have to eat it, but he’s not getting anything else either. I’ve always told him he has to at least try two bites, no matter how yucky it may look or sound. That’s backfired on me a few times as he’s gotten older, though. Now that’s he’s 15, he’ll make some atrocious concoction and tell me I can’t comment about how nasty I’m sure it must be because I haven’t tried it. Smarty pants!