The first time my mom gave my younger sister a taste of mashed banana when she was a baby, my sister screamed and hollered like she was being poisoned. My mother was really confused by her behavior as I had loved mashed banana as a baby. She even went so far as to take a taste of the bananas, to make sure that they hadn't gone bad. They were perfectly fine. To this day, my sister still isn't particularly fond of bananas.
Yesterday, the New York Times Dining and Wine section ran an article on kids who are picky eaters and a recent study that may have confirmed that being a averse to new foods may well be a trait that is based in biology. It seems that it's fairly normal for kids to be off-put by new foods as that was a way for them to be protected from the hazards of the world back in our caveman days. They have some good suggestions from the experts on ways to handle introducing new foods to your reluctant kids and mention a book by Jessica Seinfeld (wife of Jerry Seinfeld) on ways to hide healthy food in with the stuff your kids will eat.
For those of you out there who are parents, were your kids picky eaters? If so, how did you handle it?
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10-11-2007 @6:41PM LizA said... Picky eaters in my family? Aw heck no. I grew up in a "This Is Not A Restaurant" family, and so too my children. If you don't like what's planned, you can wait until the next meal comes along. Complain often enough, and *you* get to cook the next meal. My daycare children have learned this, too, and not a single one is under weight or undernurished. You have to watch the food = love, love = food thing with kids.
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10-11-2007 @8:06PM ann marie said... well i have one kid who only eats 3 things....chicken fingers, gnocchi and olives...and the other kid eats everything....my sister is weird picky....my brother and i will try anything....my boyfriend is weird picky...the rest of his family will try anything...so im not sure about this gene thing....maybe we just arent hungry enough....are starving ethiopians picky eaters?
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10-12-2007 @12:06AM Jason Levine said... For the longest time, my son wasn't picky at all. He'd eat broccoli, mushrooms, etc. The only thing he wouldn't eat was tuna fish or most other kinds of fish, for that matter, except for fish sticks.
Around 3 1/2 though, he suddenly turned finicky. Broccoli was out. Mushrooms were out. All veggies were out. He insisted on a small set of dishes that he would eat and that was that (in him mind).
We fought back by insisting that he eat a certain amount of food before any dessert. I've also started hiding healthy foods in my recipes. For example, my broccoli-cheddar soup became "Green Cheese Soup." (The broccoli gets food-processed until unrecognizable.)
I plan on getting either the Seinfeld book or the Sneaky Chef to find other ways of tricking my son to eat healthy foods.
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10-12-2007 @1:46PM rainey Smith said... Yup! Although I'm completely confused by this finding since we are a family of lusty and adventurous eaters. My first two were eating Indian, Mexican and Thai along with standard American fare by 3. My third had a culinary vocabulary of about 6 things from the time he was little.
When he got a little older and verbal he told us is was things with "edges" he didn't like. He's still not fond of a lot of texture in his food at 21. And he'll always be remembered as the kid who went to birthday parties and wanted cake without any frosting. Currently, to add to his food pecadillos, at almost any fastfood resto, his choice is the #4 combo. What's that?????
We tried to not have highly objectionable foods at home and did our most adventurous eating in restaurants. Meanwhile, anytime he wasn't eating what I was serving he was free to help himself to leftovers in the fridge or make himself one of the things he lived on: frozen pizzas, a bowl of cereal, a quesadilla or mac & cheese (the real stuff) which he knew how to make at 10. Mostly, although we joked about it a lot, we didn't make a fuss or EVER struggle over food.
He had a lot of broken bones growing up which I attributed to his refusal to have anything to do with vegetables or fruit but which orthopedists attributed to soccer and skateboarding. We agreed on multivitamins as a compromise.
It's not such a bad thing. He developed independence and at 10 if he wanted cookies, he got out a cookbook and made some. And his individuality surfaced in other very interesting ways. Finally, today at 21 he's more open to food and he's the thinnest, healthiest, most athletic person in the family.
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10-13-2007 @1:11AM R said... eh...I hated bananas too as a baby (still do), but I'm a pretty adventurous eater now. Having certain food aversions does not necessarily equal picky...although I can see how in some people it may carry forward in an extreme way.
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10-15-2007 @12:27AM Finecky Eater in NC said... I have always been a picky eater; as a kid I wouldn't eat lettuce, red tomatos, peanut products or celery etc. But I did eat spinach (thanx Popeye the Sailor man), Fried green tomatoes (Driving Miss Daisy), & brussel sprouts(momma called it cabbage GOD made just for kids), and still to this day what I didn't eat then I won't eat that stuff now. I'm now 21 @5'4" I'm a healthy 117 Lbs, & I eat a bigger variety now than I did then.
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10-16-2007 @4:52PM katjenlily said... My mom used a rather unconventional but highly affective way to get me to try new food. She bribed me. I got a dollar everytime I tried a new food. I ate nearly anything as a child. Most of my food aversions began when I was a preteen and only then against "normal" things like spagetti and donuts. I guess its a good thing I didn't become a politician though.
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