For your data: I can tell you that my 5yo doesn’t predictably like veggies steamed, stir-fried, roasted, sauteed, flame-broiled, “riced”, or even pan fried in bacon fat with garlic. He is much more likely to eat them raw, but it’s super hit-or-miss even then. When presented with a new vegetable, there’s a (medium-low) chance his curiosity alone will compel him to try it iff we make a big deal about eating it ourselves and how much we enjoy the thing.
This is a complete turn-around from a couple years ago when you couldn’t get him to taste a protein source on purpose. Feeding a small child is hard! You’d think they’d want to eat whatever you’re eating (especially known vegetables!) by default so they, you know, don’t starve! Our current strategy is to make meals with several, varied components and require that he at least taste each thing on the basis that he might like it this week. This does not often meet with his approval, but at least we know he eats a wide variety of foods.
I tend to agree that providing children with textureless, flavorless food is a good way to make them fussy eaters, though, as that was largely my experience growing up. [1] My parents tried to make “good” food, for sure, but the default still seemed to be just to get calories into the kids and presentation be damned so long as it wasn’t actually offensive. It wasn’t until college, when I started routinely choosing and cooking some meals for myself, that I discovered that food could actually be Interesting, for crying out loud! (And that I love vegetables, especially fresh and raw.) I’m trying to avoid that pattern for my own kid, but I’ll admit he doesn’t make it super easy. There must be more to it than just presentation.
[^1] On my proofreading pass, I noticed that I just got finished saying how hard it is to get kids (my kid, anyway) to eat anything on the regular, then I complained that when I was a kid, the food I was served just didn’t seem interesting to me. There’s probably something to be exploited there about finding what foods actually are interesting to my own kid, but his tastes change so fast I can’t be sure that won’t change between one instance of a particular meal and the next. We’ve tried asking him, but he doesn’t seem to know any better than we do until the thing is right in front of him. We even let him help out in the kitchen, so he can give input on the preparation of the meal and have contact with each ingredient before it’s on his plate, but still he often won’t eat what he himself chose and cooked! (deep breath) PSA: Parenting is hard!
We even let him help out in the kitchen, so he can give input on the preparation of the meal and have contact with each ingredient before it’s on his plate, but still he often won’t eat what he himself chose and cooked!
Haha, exactly the same with my 5yo daughter! Sometimes she even invents the food, I am like “actually, this might taste quite good”, we cook it together, and then… only me and my wife eat it.
(The only successful invention I remember was couscous with canned fish.)
Let me add to your data: Kids’ tastes vary. A lot.
My 8yo only likes a very small selection of vegetables since he was little. Best chance to get him to eat vegetables? In the shape of boring, textureless soups. Sometimes, reverse psychology helps better than expected. When we told him “This is for grownups, kids usually don’t like this”, he often would at least try the food and sometimes even like it.
Thinking about this, I might be on to something here. This might set expectations just right, whereas “Try this cauliflower, it’s delicious” is destined to disappoint.
My 4yo on the other hand was exposed to unhealthy food at way younger age than my 8yo. Fast food, chocolate cake, salt pretzels, everything you shouldn’t feed your kids at an early age. Now, she loves most kinds of vegetables and for dessert(!), she will prefer cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, and olives over most sweets (ice cream being the main exception here). With some kids, some parts of parenting are easy; and nobody knows why.
For your data: I can tell you that my 5yo doesn’t predictably like veggies steamed, stir-fried, roasted, sauteed, flame-broiled, “riced”, or even pan fried in bacon fat with garlic. He is much more likely to eat them raw, but it’s super hit-or-miss even then. When presented with a new vegetable, there’s a (medium-low) chance his curiosity alone will compel him to try it iff we make a big deal about eating it ourselves and how much we enjoy the thing.
This is a complete turn-around from a couple years ago when you couldn’t get him to taste a protein source on purpose. Feeding a small child is hard! You’d think they’d want to eat whatever you’re eating (especially known vegetables!) by default so they, you know, don’t starve! Our current strategy is to make meals with several, varied components and require that he at least taste each thing on the basis that he might like it this week. This does not often meet with his approval, but at least we know he eats a wide variety of foods.
I tend to agree that providing children with textureless, flavorless food is a good way to make them fussy eaters, though, as that was largely my experience growing up. [1] My parents tried to make “good” food, for sure, but the default still seemed to be just to get calories into the kids and presentation be damned so long as it wasn’t actually offensive. It wasn’t until college, when I started routinely choosing and cooking some meals for myself, that I discovered that food could actually be Interesting, for crying out loud! (And that I love vegetables, especially fresh and raw.) I’m trying to avoid that pattern for my own kid, but I’ll admit he doesn’t make it super easy. There must be more to it than just presentation.
[^1] On my proofreading pass, I noticed that I just got finished saying how hard it is to get kids (my kid, anyway) to eat anything on the regular, then I complained that when I was a kid, the food I was served just didn’t seem interesting to me. There’s probably something to be exploited there about finding what foods actually are interesting to my own kid, but his tastes change so fast I can’t be sure that won’t change between one instance of a particular meal and the next. We’ve tried asking him, but he doesn’t seem to know any better than we do until the thing is right in front of him. We even let him help out in the kitchen, so he can give input on the preparation of the meal and have contact with each ingredient before it’s on his plate, but still he often won’t eat what he himself chose and cooked! (deep breath) PSA: Parenting is hard!
Haha, exactly the same with my 5yo daughter! Sometimes she even invents the food, I am like “actually, this might taste quite good”, we cook it together, and then… only me and my wife eat it.
(The only successful invention I remember was couscous with canned fish.)
Let me add to your data: Kids’ tastes vary. A lot.
My 8yo only likes a very small selection of vegetables since he was little. Best chance to get him to eat vegetables? In the shape of boring, textureless soups. Sometimes, reverse psychology helps better than expected. When we told him “This is for grownups, kids usually don’t like this”, he often would at least try the food and sometimes even like it.
Thinking about this, I might be on to something here. This might set expectations just right, whereas “Try this cauliflower, it’s delicious” is destined to disappoint.
My 4yo on the other hand was exposed to unhealthy food at way younger age than my 8yo. Fast food, chocolate cake, salt pretzels, everything you shouldn’t feed your kids at an early age. Now, she loves most kinds of vegetables and for dessert(!), she will prefer cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, and olives over most sweets (ice cream being the main exception here). With some kids, some parts of parenting are easy; and nobody knows why.
It’s just to drive you insane. 😉