My 2 1/2 year old son is presently refusing to eat vegetables or fruit if presented as such. He seems to be on a carbohydrate tear, wanting to eat only bagels, cereal, bread/toast, or cake. I need some recipes like zucchini or carrot breads, preferably savory not sweet, so I can sneak some needed fruits and vegetables (and maybe some legumes or lentils for protein?) into the bread. Any recipes or suggestions where I can find recipes would be great.
Thanks for your help. Any voices of experience on dealing with this would be appreciated.
Banana Milkshake
Freeze some very ripe bananas
Put 'em in a blender with about a cup of soy milk (you can get cases of soymilk CHEAP at Costco) and throw in a couple tablespoons of ground flax seed. The bananas provide enough sweetness. Toss in a couple strawberries too. I’ve heard that freezing strawberries wrecks the vitamins & junk, so maybe fresh strawberries.
Just about any recipe for banana bread can be turned into banana muffins. Use Honey to sweeten them and add a bit more flour to compensate. Add a cup of chopped walnuts or almond slivers. Use whole wheat flour.
When my son was about the same age, he went through the same thing. I think he went for about six months eating nothing but peanut butter toast, Cheerios, and Go-gurts. He was drinking lots of milk and apple juice, too. I was giving him multi-vitamins to make sure he got what he needed. I tried sneaking veggies into stuff, but he wouldn’t budge.
My pediatrician suggested the Pedia-sure drinks, like Ensure, but for kids. He liked those well enough, but I was still worried.
He finally started eating green beans. I’d offer it at lunch and dinner, but didn’t make a big deal out of it. I made sure the rest of us ate some. One day he just started eating a bigger variety. He’s still a picky eater at 8, though - just like his father.
I have the same issue with a parrot-- he likes carbs but will not eat fruits (except grapes-- not too healthy) or vegetables, but because of his species needs lots of Vitamin A. We make a cornbread according to the recipe on the cornmeal package, except cut down on the sugar and instead of any milk or water or whatever we use a can of sweet potato puree or a few things of organic babyfood, and also add a bunch of pulverized broccoli and carrot. He gobbles it up.
Thank you to everyone who responded. The smoothie idea worked for a day before my son started refusing them, for reasons I have yet to figure out. I’m glad to hear that other people’s kids (and birds) can be helped to survive despite themselves.
Just out of curiosity, what happens if you don’t give a kid much of a choice? That is, if the kid’s hungry for a snack, he gets a banana, and no amount of begging will turn it into a cookie?
I honestly don’t know. I do remember when I was a kid, my mom let me choose three ingredients that she wouldnt’ put in dinner (like eggplant, green peppers, and barbecue sauce or something), and otherwise, I had to eat what was in front of me or go hungry.
My kids are five and 7 and we are still working on it. I did discover that they will eat vegetables more readily raw than cooked. We also found a couple of soups they liked. My son went to a daycare where the caregiver rotated about 3 different homemade soups and he came out of it with a fondness for split pea soup and a couple of others. Vegetable soups can be pretty sweet, too, especially if you add corn and carrots.
You can put almost anything into a quick bread, though–sweet potato, squash, carrots, tomato juice, pumpkin, spinach, not to mention just about any fruit. I’d just decide what sounds interesting a do a search. I looked, but didn’t see a single site with all of them together.
Carrot cake made with fresh carrots and pineapple might tempt him. Here’s a link to a recipe, although I have not tried this specific recipe myself: http://cake.allrecipes.com/az/BstCrrtCkEvr.asp
Put Instant Breakfast into the banana milkshake. All the kid knows is that it’s chocolate.
My kids EXPECT a carrot cake for birthday parties.
They INHALE pumpkin pie for breakfast (they would eat it for lunch, except that they’ve eaten it all before then). Again, use 1/2 to 2/3 of the sugar called for in the recipe. The recipe is on the can of pumpkin.
My boy will eat greenbeans, peas & carrots, but only if they’re raw, and only if they come out of the garden. I let him plant them, he takes care of them (and then I come along behind him to take care of them) he picks 'em & eats 'em raw in the sunshine like a rabbit.
When I make cakes, biscuits, pancakes…anything requiring milk, I use soy milk. And actually, I think it makes things fluffier and yummier than regular milk. The kids think so too.
Last I saw, carrot cakes are higher in calories and fat than regular cakes. I made on with lowfat ingredients once, but it still had quite a few calories and grams of sugar. It’s that cream cheese icing, I tell ya.
Not meaning to hijack the thread, but how do some of these kids get so fussy? When I and my brother were young we had a choice - eat it and like it, or go hungry. My mum had the opinion that kids would eat when they got hungry enough (and we did. Even to the point where she had us eating liver, which is my second most hated of foods). We didn’t have a chance to get fussy until later in life, when we were cooking our own meals and then could choose what we put in them.
Back on topic now - you said he’s on a carbo tear, but what about meat? Ground beef/chicken, finely minced onion, carrot, courgette etc (and by finely, I mean nearly pureed). Mix it all up with some eggs and breadcrumbs and maybe a bit of cheese, and voila, you have burgers/patties that are full of veggie goodness that he can’t see or taste.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. I will try them & keep you posted as to results.
Left Hand of Dorkness , I don’t know what other people’s kids do when not given choices, but mine refuses to eat the offending item(s) and then will gorge on stuff he likes at subsequent meals. For example, refusing fruit or vegetables at meals means he will guzzle down ridiculous amounts of soy milk and then gorge on permitted carbohydrate products later in the same day or else the next day. End result is a kid who has not taken in anything technically unhealthy, but the lack of fruits & veggies is still a negative in his overall diet.
Sierra Indigo , I love your idea about the meat patties, but so far he’s been very fussy about meat too. The only way I have been able to get meat into him in the last year is a teriyaki stirfry (the only nondisguised way he also eats his veggies, by the way) or in pasta sauce. Fortunately, he likes eggs. I will give it a try, though, maybe with some potato to make it feel more bread-like.
In the case of my son, the usual toddler pickiness is compounded by a developmental disorder, making him very sensitive to tastes and textures in food. While I am not willing to become a short-order cook for him (and don’t think it would be good for him in the long term, either), given that there is a reason for the fussiness, I am willing to try to make it a little easier on him by sneaking the disliked foods into liked foods for now.
I thought the same thing when I had kids. My memory was that I ate whatever was put in front of me when I was a kid. I can recall eating horrible meals at other homes (my mother is a very good cook) with the typical Aussie overcooked vegetables and meat but I was too polite to refuse anything.
I asked my mother and her recommendation was - don’t force the kids to eat anything but insist that they try everything. Our rule became, you eat what you are served, you have to have one mouthful of everything on the plate but you don’t have to finish anything you don’t like.
Worked pretty good. You just shy away from the things they hate for a while and then reintroduce them (with variations) every so often.
Ah, I understand some of where you’re coming from now. At least you’re trying what you can to get him to eat, even if he doesn’t like the foods.
I had another thought for something you could try with him - potato cakes. Mash some potatoes, mix with egg, breadcrumbs, cheese and again with very finely minced/mashed veggies. Roll in breadcrumbs and bake in the oven to lower the fat content. I used to love these as a kid, especially with sauce/ketchup.
Mum did that from time to time, too, but with the extremely loathed foods (liver and capsicum being mine, I still won’t and can’t eat those) she ended up losing her 'nana and making me sit there until I ate them G
