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I've got a 6 yo and an almost 3 yo. The 6 yo is an amazing eater. She loves many (not all) vegetables and asks for them by name. LOL! She will try just about anything at least once, and often try them again even after deciding she doesn't like it. (We tell her that sometimes your tastes change and you might like something you didn't previously like). She eats pretty good balanced diet. That's not to say she doesn't enjoy treats, but she seems to understand that they can be enjoyed in moderation.
Her little brother, OTOH, will not touch a vegetable and will only eat meat rarely. I don't know what else to do to get him to eat better. I put a variety of vegetables on his plate for every meal. I've tried coaxing, bribing, just offering, sneaking, hiding veggies in other foods, getting the 6 yo to tell him stuff is good... you name it.
As babies I fed them both the same. I made my own baby food and started with vegetables as is often suggested. He would eat vegetables then, but not now. Since he has been feeding himself and eating 'regular' food (not mashed up) he has eaten one, yes one, baked bean, and that's it for vegetables.
Here's a list (probably not complete) of the vegetables I regularly offer him:
corn
green beans
baked beans
black beans
lentils
sweet potatoes (mashed or sliced)
potatoes (mashed or sliced)
tomatoes
butter beans
black eyed peas
carrots
brussels sprouts
broccoli
chick peas/hummus
water chestnuts
snow peas
edamame
peppers
onions
He will eat chicken and fish occasionally. He likes peanut butter, breads and cheeses. He'll eat just about any fruit.
I've spoken to his ped about this and the ped says Jacob is doing fine, very healthy, 'keep doing what you're doing'. I think he was exactly at the 50th percentile for weight. He's also very tall, I think 80th or 90th percentile for height.
So, any suggestions or clever ideas? Should I quit stressing about it and just keep offering?
He's only 3 I know - but can he articulate at all what he doesn't like about vegetables? Taste, texture, previous experience or is it just "yuck"?
Have you tried a small garden - sometimes kids will eat things that they've watched grow and helped to tend - even if it just grape tomatoes and various lettuces.
Our kids eat what we eat...and we eat pretty healthy. If they don't want to eat they don't have to. But, what we put on the table is the only thing that they are getting. They will often (especially my daughter) decide not to eat. And I find it amazing that they can go a whole day barely eating anything. But, once that hunger finally kicks in they'll eat huge amounts of food. I've seen my two year old son (who is on the small side for his age) eat three eggs, two pieces of toast, a whole banana, a cup of oatmeal, and several slices of cantaloupe at one sitting!
We asked our pediatrician, and this is what he told us to do. So, we do it. He made it very clear to us when he said, "If your child becomes a picky eater it will be your fault." He also told us, "Don't worry, they won't starve themselves." I told him once that I was worried that they tended to eat too many carbs and not enough protein. He told me that kids don't have the same need for protein that we do. He also said that carbs, as long as it isn't predominantly sugar, aren't a concern. He said the biggest issue with children that he sees is that many don't get enough good fats in thier diet.
I've worried that my daughter, who is the more picky of the two, will just wait us out until she gets a meal with foods that she likes. So, if its fish, and spinach she'll just go hungry until the next meal hoping that its something better. We've debated taking thier plates when they refuse to eat and putting them aside until they are hungry. We would then not allow them to eat anything else until they ate the food presented. So, it would be fish and spinach for breakfast! But, we decided against it. If the issue became much worse we would likely try that option. But, right now they do well enough.
Jack, our newly 4 yo boy, rarely rarely eats vegetables. I (most of the time) require him to eat as many bites of green beans as years old he is...i.e. 4 small green beans. One of my main goals for my kids is to learn to swallow one bite of something without throwing up!
Some ways I am getting him to eat other veggies:
1) I make spaghetti with diced tomatoes and tomato sauce with my own flavorings, so a lot less sugar than the pre-made sauce. If I would think far enough ahead, I could sneak some zucchini in by chopping it ultrasmall.
2) Another source of tomatoes is what we call swiss steak. All it really is is round steak covered and baked in diced tomatoes/tomato sauce.
3) Cucumbers: for a while he would eat them with cider vinegar/splenda/water/salt mixture. Now he prefers plain.
And then we just supplement and get our colors with fruit. Kiwi, strawberries, grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon, bananas, oranges, apples are regularly seen at our table for lunch and supper.
Probably just relax would be my advice. As long as he's getting some color variation with his fruit I would continue your good example of eating a variety of veggies.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll go through and respond to each, one at a time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LisaS
He's only 3 I know - but can he articulate at all what he doesn't like about vegetables? Taste, texture, previous experience or is it just "yuck"?
Have you tried a small garden - sometimes kids will eat things that they've watched grow and helped to tend - even if it just grape tomatoes and various lettuces.
He's been slow to develop speech wise. He understands us, but is only now getting to the point where he talks in sentences. His sister was more advanced verbally, he's much more advanced physically. Anyway, I'm not sure what his issue is. Mostly he just won't even try a vegetable. He will not pick it up to eat it, and if I try to offer it he mashes his lips together and turns his head away. He will lick corn on the cob, but won't take a bite, and won't eat it if I cut the kernels off for him.
Unfortunatley we don't have any place to have a garden. We have a very shaded and wooded lot with a creek running through the back. We've tried growing things in barrels without much success (they develop blossom rot or some such thing). We've tried a similar approach with shopping and cooking the food though. When we go shopping he gets a little cart and will select the vegetables and fruits and put them in the basket, and help put them on the conveyor at the checkout. I have him stand on a chair and help cook things (mixing, cutting, peeling). He loves to help cook, but still won't eat the stuff.
I will definitely continue with that sort of thing though. It can't hurt right?
Hide everything under cheese. Worked for my little brother.
Yes, oh, I've tried this so many times! He loves quesidillas, but will not touch them if there is a hint of vegetable in them. I don't know how he knows. Maybe he can smell them. LOL!
Our kids eat what we eat...and we eat pretty healthy. If they don't want to eat they don't have to. But, what we put on the table is the only thing that they are getting. They will often (especially my daughter) decide not to eat. And I find it amazing that they can go a whole day barely eating anything. But, once that hunger finally kicks in they'll eat huge amounts of food. I've seen my two year old son (who is on the small side for his age) eat three eggs, two pieces of toast, a whole banana, a cup of oatmeal, and several slices of cantaloupe at one sitting!
We asked our pediatrician, and this is what he told us to do. So, we do it. He made it very clear to us when he said, "If your child becomes a picky eater it will be your fault." He also told us, "Don't worry, they won't starve themselves." I told him once that I was worried that they tended to eat too many carbs and not enough protein. He told me that kids don't have the same need for protein that we do. He also said that carbs, as long as it isn't predominantly sugar, aren't a concern. He said the biggest issue with children that he sees is that many don't get enough good fats in thier diet.
I've worried that my daughter, who is the more picky of the two, will just wait us out until she gets a meal with foods that she likes. So, if its fish, and spinach she'll just go hungry until the next meal hoping that its something better. We've debated taking thier plates when they refuse to eat and putting them aside until they are hungry. We would then not allow them to eat anything else until they ate the food presented. So, it would be fish and spinach for breakfast! But, we decided against it. If the issue became much worse we would likely try that option. But, right now they do well enough.
I have really considered this. My ped did not like the idea though. Personal opinion, I guess. What I have usually tried to do is to make sure there is at least one thing each of the kids like in each meal. With my daughter it's not a problem. With Jacob it's more of a chore. And, of course, it gives him the option of eating nothing except that one thing and not being hungry enough to try anything else, so I see the point of limiting; I just feel guilty doing that. I grew up in the era of 'clean your plate or else', and I just don't really think that did much for my eating habits.
With it being our fault... yeah, I suppose it is. It's just confusing because we've done everything the same with him and he's so much pickier than my daughter. Just a personality quirk that we've been enabling maybe?
That's interesting about the protein/carb needs. I've heard from many friends that their kids had basically vegetarian eating habits for the first 4-5 years, which is what I see with Jacob (actually frugivore would more accurately describe him, I guess). I'm not too worried about protein or fats, because he does drink a lot of milk and will eat bread and pasta with olive oil etc...
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying that its your fault. Our pediatrician stated that to us in no uncertain terms. I guess childrens diets is a pet concern of his as this was before our first daughter was even eating solids.
Jack, our newly 4 yo boy, rarely rarely eats vegetables. I (most of the time) require him to eat as many bites of green beans as years old he is...i.e. 4 small green beans. One of my main goals for my kids is to learn to swallow one bite of something without throwing up!
Some ways I am getting him to eat other veggies:
1) I make spaghetti with diced tomatoes and tomato sauce with my own flavorings, so a lot less sugar than the pre-made sauce. If I would think far enough ahead, I could sneak some zucchini in by chopping it ultrasmall.
2) Another source of tomatoes is what we call swiss steak. All it really is is round steak covered and baked in diced tomatoes/tomato sauce.
3) Cucumbers: for a while he would eat them with cider vinegar/splenda/water/salt mixture. Now he prefers plain.
And then we just supplement and get our colors with fruit. Kiwi, strawberries, grapes, cantaloupe, watermelon, bananas, oranges, apples are regularly seen at our table for lunch and supper.
Probably just relax would be my advice. As long as he's getting some color variation with his fruit I would continue your good example of eating a variety of veggies.
I have tried the spaghetti sauce approach. He won't touch spaghetti sauce at all. Even with no vegetables added. He doesn't eat much meat either, so I don't think that approach would work. I will continue to try. We have lots of stuff kind of like that (a meat baked in a vegetable sauce, or with vegetables).
I haven't tried cucumbers. I will give that a shot.
So, yes, I've been varying the fruits a lot and he will eat just about any fruit. Peaches, strawberries, grapes/raisins, watermelon, blueberries, apples, pears, bananas, cantaloupe, kiwi, starfruit. If it's a fruit he'll pretty much eat it (unless it's cooked). Oh, and I've tried raw vegetables too, but at least for the ones I've tried, he won't touch them.
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying that its your fault. Our pediatrician stated that to us in no uncertain terms. I guess childrens diets is a pet concern of his as this was before our first daughter was even eating solids.
Oh, I know. I'm not offended, and I understood that it was coming from your ped and not you.
I don't know if I agree with him though (at least not 100%). I do think that certain preferences are just genetically programmed personality differences, if that makes sense. I do agree with his concern about childrens' diets though. Childhood obesity is too big a problem in our country to ignore!
Since fruit vs. vegetable is an arbitrary distinction, you have to wonder how he knows. Texture, sweetness, temperature at service?
A sweet cooked carrot circle served cool/room temp (not mush just softened) isn't that different from a slice of cantalope. A grape or pear tomato isn't that different from a grape or raspberry. If he knows the word tomato call it a 'love apple'.
What about different preparations of fruit like hot or pureed fruit? Applesauce, warm berry cobbler or peaches grilled on the BBQ?
He could be a super-taster where the flavors are just more intense and bitter than you'd otherwise expect. You might have to wait until some of those taste buds just die off as he gets old.
This is where I think a "must have two bites (or four or =your age" rule could be useful. If I recall correctly, my nephews had a two bite rule before they could be excused from the table. Generally there was only 1 questionable food on the plate (and not every meal or every day) but it was a little rule for them.
I didn't live in the house of course so I have no idea if there were tantrums or long times where someone sat at the table for hours waiting to be excused
Since fruit vs. vegetable is an arbitrary distinction, you have to wonder how he knows. Texture, sweetness, temperature at service?
A sweet cooked carrot circle served cool/room temp (not mush just softened) isn't that different from a slice of cantalope. A grape or pear tomato isn't that different from a grape or raspberry. If he knows the word tomato call it a 'love apple'.
What about different preparations of fruit like hot or pureed fruit? Applesauce, warm berry cobbler or peaches grilled on the BBQ?
I don't know how he knows, and I've wondered that myself. Like, we do a cut up apple as a snack quite a lot, but if I offer uncooked carrots in a similar way he won't eat them (at first he would chew them up and spit them out, but now he won't even put them in his mouth). I've even tried offering a dipping sauce as well, because kids like to dip stuff.
He won't even eat a tomato, which is technically a fruit, so I'm not sure what's tipping him off.
As for cooking the fruit, he won't touch it. He might try it, spit it out and say, "hot". Even though it's not 'hot' just warm. He does like applesauce though.
I forgot to mention squash and zucchini in my first post. We regularly have those as well.
He could be a super-taster where the flavors are just more intense and bitter than you'd otherwise expect. You might have to wait until some of those taste buds just die off as he gets old.
This is where I think a "must have two bites (or four or =your age" rule could be useful. If I recall correctly, my nephews had a two bite rule before they could be excused from the table. Generally there was only 1 questionable food on the plate (and not every meal or every day) but it was a little rule for them.
I didn't live in the house of course so I have no idea if there were tantrums or long times where someone sat at the table for hours waiting to be excused
Interesting! I've never heard of that. I did know that some people can taste the bitter component in broccoli and some can't, and that's genetically determined. I've got to google 'super-taster' now.
I do the one bite/two bite thing with my daughter, and it's worked well. She will sometimes realize she likes things that she thought she didn't. I've tried with Jacob, but he refuses even one bite, and I'm just not sure he's developmentally able to understand that as a rule.
I actually wonder sometimes if there's something wrong with him. He has some OCD traits that worry me. I've talked to the ped about that concern too, and he assures me that Jacob's behavior is normal, at least for now.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I hope I don't sound like I'm rejecting everything, because I'm not. A lot of these things we've tried, and even so I'm willing to try them again. I'm rolling everything around in my head right now, considering all the ideas.
Really, I think finding something healthy he will eat and taking the pressure off is the way to go. If he can't really tell you why he doesn't like something and the "two bites" rule is a no go developmentally, then I'm not sure what other choice you have. Just let him be three and you set the good example of eating healthy and not forcing the issue and I think he'll grow out of it.
Have you ever tried making sweet potato fries? I cut up a sweet potato, sprinkle on just a little seasoned salt, bake until kind of crispy, and serve with ketchup - my daughter isn't a picky eater, but a couple of her friends are, and I'll serve that as a side when they stay for dinner - it's the only time I've ever seen those kids eat a vegetable.
Really, I think finding something healthy he will eat and taking the pressure off is the way to go. If he can't really tell you why he doesn't like something and the "two bites" rule is a no go developmentally, then I'm not sure what other choice you have. Just let him be three and you set the good example of eating healthy and not forcing the issue and I think he'll grow out of it.
Wise words and true.
It's really no big deal if a kid refuses to eat vegetables, as long as he's getting a fairly balanced diet otherwise. Besides, he's a man. Don't you know that REAL men don't eat vegetables??
I have a daughter and 2 sons, As they grew, they expanded their tastes, because of my and my husband's example. And we ate as clean as we could. As they get to be around 5 or so, he'll want to emulate the adults, by eating like the adults. Doesn't always work every single time, but just lead by example in everything you do. Kids learn what they live, not what you say.
And my children are all healthy adults now. My sons play college rugby, and still have all their teeth. As your children grow, you worry about bigger things than vegetables. I guess it's all in perspective.
Ha, I guess I will have bigger things to worry about.
Okay, I'm going to keep offering a variety of fruits and vegetables. When he gets a little older I might try to institute the one bite rule, or use bribery or something (I'm not above bribery).
I don't constantly stress about it, I just usually ask people (especially other moms) if they have any tips or tricks, trying to come up with that magic idea that I haven't tried yet!
Ew. I have never tried pickled herring. I guess I'd give it a nibble, but honestly I don't think I've ever even seen a pickled herring.
I've found that my tastes seem to change over the course of a few years. There are things I eat now that I used to not like. Tomatoes are an example. I don't love tomatoes, but I like them allright now. I don't like pickled cucumbers, and I don't think I ever will.
I still try a (very very small) bite of pickled herring each Christmas - and I still cannot STAND it. But my tastes may change eventually
Quote:
Originally Posted by Snarlla
Ew. I have never tried pickled herring. I guess I'd give it a nibble, but honestly I don't think I've ever even seen a pickled herring.
I've found that my tastes seem to change over the course of a few years. There are things I eat now that I used to not like. Tomatoes are an example. I don't love tomatoes, but I like them allright now. I don't like pickled cucumbers, and I don't think I ever will.
I love pickled anything.. including pickled herring. Typically you will find this item in Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
We only have plain pickled herring but in Scandinavia they are being more adventurous, so we frequently buy pickled herring at the food section in IKEA
Lutefisk is made from dried whitefish (normally cod, but ling is also used), prepared with lye, in a sequence of particular treatments. The watering steps of these treatments differ slightly for salted/dried whitefish because of its high salt content.
Pickled herring is a popular delicacy in Europe, and has become a basic part of both Jewish and Nordic cuisine. Most cured herring uses a two-step curing process. Initially, herring is cured with salt to extract water. The second stage involves removing the salt and adding flavorings, typically a vinegar, salt, sugar solution to which ingredients like peppercorn, bay leaves and raw onions are added.
In Scandinavia, once the pickling process is finished and depending on which of the dozens of classic herring flavourings (mustard, onion, garlic, lingonberries etc.) are selected, it is usually enjoyed with dark rye bread, crisp bread, or potatoes. This dish is a must at Christmas and Midsummer, where it is enjoyed with akvavit.
In the Middle Ages the Dutch developed a special treat known in English as souRed herring or rollmops.
Pickled herring is common in russian cuisine, where it can be served as simple as just cut into pieces seasoned with sunflower oil and onions, or can be part of herring salads, which are usually prepared with vegetables and seasoned with mayonnaise dressing.[6]
Pickled herrings are also common in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, perhaps best known for forshmak salad known in English simply as "chopped herring".
Pickled herring can also be found in the cuisine of Hokkaidō in Japan, where families traditionally preserved large quantities for winter.
no, lutefisk is lye-cured fish. Usually cod I think. Pickled herring is just pickled. There is also herring in cream/sour cream. But they all come from the same deranged Scandanavian food brain.
how are you cooking the veggies? I know anything in the cabbage family (which includes broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts) has sulphur compounds in it that really are noticeable if you boil, steaming not as much. Maybe try roasting things for a sweeter taste?
Growing up I was a picky eater too, but my family had the 3-bite rule. Choking down three bites was pretty manageable. I hope your son grows out of his pickyness, we have a family friend who at the age of 45 still hates anything that is green or "tastes green" like corn. He's just wierd I think because he hates pie too.
I cook the veggies a variety of ways. Broccoli is pretty much always steamed. We don't have cauliflower all that often.
We had some progress tonight. He licked a green bean and stuck it in his mouth for a minute, then spit it out. That's about it. Tonight I didn't put any of his preferred items on the plate. I gave him something he likes for lunch (pbj), but nothing that I KNOW he will eat for supper. He had rice, which is hit or miss for him. He'll probably be hungry in the morning. I was too tired and grumpy to deal.
Just to be clear, I wasn't saying that its your fault. Our pediatrician stated that to us in no uncertain terms. I guess childrens diets is a pet concern of his as this was before our first daughter was even eating solids.
Most likely he had 1/2 an hour of nutrition training out of the mutiple years of medical training, if he was lucky, and likes to lay the law as he sees it - no matter how bizzare - on his clients.
Sort of OT- Kids' eating habits
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