We do the same thing at home with some kinds of salads and with gazpacho and other soups which have “tropezones” (soild bits thrown in, such as diced hardboiled egg or croutons, I don’t know what would be the English word for this). Works fine, and it’s not like any of us is going to drop dead from not having hard-boiled egg, which makes Littlebro gag and always has (he’s 34).
Oooh, thanks for that suggestion! Have you read/recommended other books by the same author?
I have read How To Get Your Kid To Eat (But Not Too Much), but not as recently, and I don’t own it. I think this one is a pretty good general picture, although it tends to focus more on older children (elementary age and up), rather than babies and toddlers.
All you have to do is put the vegetables through a blender to make a puree or a juice.
It works for babies (babyfood) and it works for me. (60 years old)
Garnishes, maybe.
I thought of another suggestion. At 20 months, reverse psychology can work wonders. Sometimes we would tell our son, “Oh, no! Don’t eat that carrot! You can’t eat that carrot!” And, of course, he’d grin and eat it. Or we’d say something like, “That broccoli looks so delicious I want to eat it all up!” If he really didn’t like something, that wouldn’t work, but if he was ambivalent or enjoyed it, he’d gobble it down.
I used to fret and worry and adhere to all sorts of Policies about what and how my children eat. Now I’m old and I’m tired and I let my poor little 6-year-old eat whatever he wants to. I take no credit for this fact, but the fact remains: he’s the only one of my kids to ever eat broccoli before entering middle school. I also generally require a healthy food to be ingested before a dessert is consumed, so that gets me pretty far where snacks are concerned.
Also being old and tired, I let him nibble off my plate. If he starts nibbling green beans, I spoon up another helping when he’s not looking. He is taught and exhibits aptitude for table manners, so realize this isn’t his standard mode of eating.
Of course I make plenty of healthy balanced meals, and it’s all out there and offered … I just don’t force it down anyone’s throat any more.
Something else to think about, especially with raw fruits and veggies (although your little one is probably too young to test this): there might, just might, be some sort of allergic reaction going on, one that makes the particular food uncomfortable to eat but doesn’t produce outward signs.
When I was little (and to this day) I liked cooked veggies but not the typical raw snacks-- apples, celery and carrots in particular, because they made my lips and tongue feel itchy. I think I mentioned it once or twice but my parents didn’t force the issue (since I was eating other fruits and veg), so it only really came out when I was over at a friend’s house or at school and the plate of apple slices and carrot sticks came out, or a whole apple, which I would decline. I remember thinking that these foods must give everyone the same feeling, but I just didn’t like the sensation, and since no one made a big deal out of it, there was no problem (I didn’t like cheese either, so I was used to turning down “normal” foods).
Come to find out (after allergy testing as an adult) that it was Oral Allergy Syndrome, and related to my numerous pollen allergies (birch, in particular, in my case). It’s pretty common, actually, but only recently named.
So, I would suggest that this is a factor to keep in mind with kids who have issues with raw (and some cooked) fruits and vegetables. It might be worth asking (assuming it’s possible-- again, your kidlet is a little young) if a particular food produces a bad *feeling * (itchy mouth) and not just a bad taste.
Most people have “comfort foods”. These foods are generally associated with pleasant memories of some earlier time in life. It would make sense that, if someone associated a food with tension or unhappiness, they might dislike that food. There’s some evidence that it does indeed work this way. Brian Wansink writes in his book Mindless Eating that veterans who experienced intense and frequent combat in the Pacific in WWII are much less likely than other veterans to enjoy Chinese food.
If things are tense at the dinner table when you’re introducing a new food, chances are your kids aren’t going to like that food. They might associate the taste of the food with the tense atmosphere. Or, emotional tension might make them nauseous, and they might end up with an aversion to it that way. A time when you or your kid is tense or upset about something is not the time to introduce new foods. You might end up with a kid with a lifelong aversion to a food. If your family dinners are usually tense and unhappy, you probably want to think seriously about how you might be able to fix that.
The best time to introduce a healthy new food would probably be a day when your kid is in a good mood. The new food might become a comfort food.
Wansink also mentions that coming up with an appealing name for a food is an effective way to get kids (and adults) to eat more of it. He ran an experiment at a vacation Bible school with a cafeteria. When they labeled the peas as “power peas”, nearly twice as many kids were willing to take them.
Another strategy he says is effective is to offer a wide variety of foods. Buy lots of different foods. Substitute vegetables and spices in familiar recipes. Take the kids to ethnic restaurants. Trying a wide variety of foods and spices lets kids discover tastes they like beyond the sweet, fatty, and salty flavors humans are pretty much hardwired to like. Adults whose parents offered them a wide variety of different foods as kids tend to be healthier eaters than adults with less adventurous parents.
I have a personal theory that this is because everybody has some food dislikes, based on things like texture or flavor. If you’ve only tried (say) broccoli cooked one way, and that way happens to hit one of your food dislikes, you’ll think you hate broccoli. If you tried it cooked in some different ways, though, you might find one that you like. Some people might truly have a dislike for any broccoli cooked any way, but I suspect most people who don’t like broccoli might like it if it were prepared a different way.
Barring really bizarre, possibly abusive, techniques, or else a kid with really unusual tastes, you won’t be able to keep your kid from having a taste for sweet, fatty, and salty food. You’re setting yourself up for failure if you try to do that. Instead, try to make sure they like other flavors, too. Likewise, you’re not going to be able to train your kid to have no food dislikes. That’s not a realistic goal. Even professional food critics have some foods they simply don’t like, for whatever reason.
This sounds awesome. Thank you!
Every kid is so wildly different, you’re best bet is to try a million different things and see what sticks. Deceptively delicious seems to have rave reviews; maybe you can even find it at the library for free. Every kid is different. I, to this day, vastly prefer fresh veggies to frozen. Little bro #1 likes veggies in soy sauce - watered-down soy sauce is how he ate them as a little kid. Little bro #2 is a salad man, salad at lunch and dinner, almost every day.
Also, cooked vegetables don’t have to be frozen. Lots of people have textural issues; I don’t like mushy stuff. I’ve made a good faith effort the last two years to eat more frozen veggies, but as a child I adored lightly steamed broccoli.
Tying it into being a better athlete is a good thing too, when they’re a little older and play more games. Little bro #1 ate very few veggies and fruits for a number of years, but once he started sports, well, didn’t you know that spinach makes you grow arm muscles? And broccoli chest muscles? And as a 6’2 180 pound college student, he enjoys quarts of mom’s gazpacho.
Like overly said, for some kids it’s all about the marketing.
ETA: And like someone has mentioned, if the kid has a specific gripe (itchiness, tongue “gets bigger” etc) don’t make them eat that particular veggie. It was years until Bro #2 was foudn to have more than the usual pollen/dust/mold allergies, but also has some of which are veggie-related (would you believe a kid is actually allergic to green beans?)
The Firebug (who turned 3 a few months back) doesn’t like any green vegetables (he used to love spanakopita, but not much anymore), but he loves raw carrots, and same for pretty much all of the more common fruits, and we give him a multivitamin every day.
We give him the opportunity to try the veggies we’re eating, but we’re not going to force them on him. He’s healthy, so I don’t see a problem.