Raising Adventurous Eaters

Now, I’m writing this from the perspective of a mom of 3, only two of whom eat real food and none over the age of 2. So… I am not saying I’ve raised adults who are out eating cockroaches and training to be chefs. I just want to talk about how to get your children to eat what you want to cook, how to discourage pickiness, and how to avoid fighting at dinnertime, if you can help it.

I am not a gourmet cook. My children may or may not have eaten rice with ketchup one day and lamb chops with herb and garlic mashed potatoes the next. I cook what I like and we eat what we have. If we run out of groceries before it’s time to go to the store again – according to our budget – then I don’t make an emergency trip and spend $50, I get creative. (Side note: I’m releasing an ebook in January on frugal and simple living from a mother’s perspective and I may or may not mention shopping behaviours). Do I make a habit of rice and ketchup? Of course not. I mean, there wasn’t even a vegetable. But they like pasta sauce so I thought ketchup would fool them. Luckily, it did.

And also fortunately, they ate the lamb chops. And they eat fried okra. And green bean pesto pasta and cabbage and grilled shrimp and salad. I’ll not say they always lick their plates clean or that they talk about it for hours, but they eat it. At least a bite or two, and sometimes a full plate. So, while I don’t always cook a diverse and complicated meal, whatever I do cook I expect them to eat.

Here’s how we can (hopefully) avoid raising picky eaters. Or at least, help them to overcome the pickiness.

1.  Don’t be a short order cook.

A friend and mother of two once told me she cooks four separate things for dinner. Her husband only wants steak, she eats a salad, one child only wants chicken or fish sticks and the other macaroni. I almost died. How she ever wanted to go home in the evenings I’ll never know. If you can help it (and I’m not talking about specific intolerance or allergy issues that must obviously be addressed) don’t cook up lots of things aiming to please. Whenever I’ve not taken my own advice and done this, it always backfired. I’d be annoyed and simply want them to eat (so they’d nap well) and I’d give them what I thought they wanted only to see they didn’t eat it either. That happened once or twice and I gave it up. I cook one meal for everyone that everyone can eat (as in, no one is allergic to it) and that’s it.

2. Don’t be dramatic about the whole thing. 

In Making your Children Mind Without Losing Yours, the author gave some great advice. He said to put dinner on the table and let everyone serve themselves (for older children). If they eat what’s there, good. If they don’t, fine. But they don’t go into the kitchen and prepare something else nor do they need to sit at the table until 3am unless they eat it. I try not to make a big deal about what I’ve cooked, particularly if it’s a bit different. I dish their plates with small servings and let it be. Sometimes they finish and want more, sometimes they don’t. I never make them sit at the table until they’ve eaten it because then it becomes a power battle. If they’re hungry then they’ll eat. If not, I’ll try again when it’s leftover day. 🙂

3. Don’t try to cook “age appropriate” foods. 

Of course babies will get puree and you won’t serve foods that are dangerous for different ages, that is a given. But I don’t scour the internet or pinterest looking for child friendly recipes. I just look through my books, find something I like and cook it. They don’t always love it, but it does mean that they’ll eat what they are served when we are at someone else’s house or a restaurant. They have learned to eat what’s there. It doesn’t have to be frozen food advertised for children for them to eat it. Sometimes that’s great and convenient. I’m not knocking frozen food. I’m simply saying that you can cook a meal fit for a dinner party and your children will still eat it. If that’s the norm in your home.

4. Get creative. 

One friend told me that daughter was adamant she didn’t like mushrooms, and so she decided to test her. She made a meal and prepared three sample bites for her daughter. One part that had never touched the mushrooms, one part that had been cooked with mushrooms but the mushrooms were taken out, and the third with mushrooms. She said her daughter just barely identified the spoonful with mushrooms but quickly declared it wasn’t so bad after all. That’s all she wrote. Realizing that it was more than likely not an actual preference, she rooted out the issue. I make my kids take one bite of each thing I cook and, if they don’t like it, fine. But that one bite might just show them they do like it.

Sometimes I put butter on something – or ranch – so they’ll be more likely to eat it all. We don’t have vegetables every single night and sometimes we have peanut butter and jelly for dinner. I don’t make myself feel like a failure over this because they have something to eat. There are people all over the world who have no food to eat so if someone in my house complains because we’re having slightly dry toast with canned peaches, well, they’ll get an earful. Part of learning good table manners is being grateful.

Everyone has different tastes and there will be some food your kids legitimately don’t like. But if you cook a varied diet and maintain consistency with your dinnertime choices, then I don’t think dinnertime will be a struggle. Sure, some nights you’ll have more leftovers than others, but keeping things simple will go a long way towards having a harmonious dinner.