I know that it's impossible to please everyone, especially at a wedding, but you can try, right? Maybe, maybe not. I've recently run into some issues with picky eaters and new vegan friends and family members in terms of what they will or will not be able to eat at our wedding. Luckily, I can count the fussy eaters on one hand and there are only two vegans attending, so with the small number, should I cater to them?
I've gotten some mixed advice. Since we're doing a cocktail reception, it's not as easy as having a different dish available for their dinner, such as chicken fingers and fries. Adding an extra reception station would cost too much money. While the picky eaters have several munching options, including roast chicken, salad and risotto, there's not a ton. We're also a little worried: are summer vegetable rolls and a salad station filling enough for a vegan?
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Hmm... Is the secret to curing picky eating having family dinners 5 or more times a week?
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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?
I once had a boyfriend who could not tolerate the taste or smell of hard boiled eggs. I remember learning this the hard way, after I had made a really terrific, labor-intensive salmon salad (with freshly poached salmon, not canned). We sat down to eat, and as he put the fork into his mouth, a terrible looked passed across his face and he looked like he was about to retch. The fork beat a hasty retreat back to the plate, and he looked at me with a very serious expression on his face and asked, "Does this have hard boiled eggs in it?"
These days I try to ferret out whether someone is a picky eater before I get too attached, but I've discovered that just about everyone has that one thing that they just can't stand to eat. For some folks, it has to do with a texture and for others it's the association that makes it objectionable. My mom doesn't care for pepper and my dad hates the combination of crunchy and creamy (think ice cream with candy bits in it). My list is fairly short, consisting only of shrimp (as I have a highly inconvenient allergy).
What's your objectionable ingredient? Has your list gotten short as you've gotten older? How do you handle it if you are served something that contains this item?
Many experts say that it takes time for a child to accept a new food once it has been offered to them. The number of times you should offer a food varies according to who you ask. The most recent number seems to be 15 times, but once of the reasons to bring up new foods so often is to prevent the kids from getting into a rut with what they eat.
Pediatric nutritionist Jeanne Cox says that variety is important to make sure that kids are getting all of the nutrients that they need, even if the foods that they like are already healthy ones. New foods add flavor variety and change the vitamins and nutrients the children take in. If they are offered, and allowed to eat, the same foods every day, they may be less likely to try new foods in the future.
Cox tells parents that they should offer children, especially picky eaters, very balanced meals that include protein, starch, vegetables and/or fruits. Each element should be varied, serving potatoes, bread (whole grain, of course), pasta or rice for the starch, for example. Even if a child only eats the protein on one night and the starch on another, in the long run, the child will have eaten a relatively balanced diet and probably tried a few new foods, too - new foods that he or she might just want to eat again.
The lengths to which I will go to ensure that my children will eat are sometimes ridiculous. But as a mother I believe one of my duties is to feed them and feed them well. I never force my children to eat but I do sometimes resort to food entertainment in order to encourage their interest. One way I have found success is by using cookie cutters to create sandwich shapes. A sandwich is a sandwich is a sandwich, but cut that boring old square into small stars, pigs or flowers it becomes just a bit more intriguing for my brood.
Over the years I have collected a giant box of cookie cutters for this exact reason. I find that the seasonal shapes go a long way towards mealtime enticement. Also fun are the very tiny cookie cutters, my favorites are from a long ago Tupperware party. The set of four, which includes a sun, star, flower and clover, never fail to bring a giggle of delight and the sound of slurping from the table.
My 12 year-old son, Loren, detests almost all forms of fish. This is
sometimes a dinnertime issue when I want to serve fish and he makes a horrid face and requests another type of dinner.
I"m not an especially creative cook, nor do I intend to run a 24 hour-- day restaurant to cater to the dietary
whims of my three offspring. So in an effort to tap into his inner love for fish I have resorted to testing various
recipes on him. One winner is fish sticks but I can't in good conscience serve them very often. Another winner has been
salmon cakes. I have reviewed many variations on
the recipe, but the one that the easiest and fastest involves canned salmon. Below is the basic recipe:
Your son or daughter never eats bread crusts and refuses to tough either peas or pasta sauce. Picky eater,
right? Maybe not. As children age they develop preferences about their food, based on flavor, texture and, eventually,
political and nutritional preferences. Simply because a child refuses a food once, they are not necessarily a picky
eater. Often, a food will have to be offered to a toddler or child from 5 to 10 times before they become accustomed to
it. The kids who eat the foods are not really picky eaters. No child has been fooled into eating a carrot because it
was crunchy like a potato chip – and any parent whose child was “tricked” into that had a child that
wasn’t entirely averse to the carrot in the first place.
The really picky eaters are the ones who refuse to eat anything beyond boxed macaroni and cheese and peanut butter
sandwiches well into their teens, possibly into adulthood. These eaters become more and more reluctant to try new
foods.
But there is one thing that can convince them, even when parents cannot: the “cool factor.”
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend,
scientists think that “picky eating’ may have developed as a survival trait that kept children, and perhaps
adults, from snacking on poisonous and unknown foods during the hunter-gatherer stage of life. Unwillingness to eat the
unfamiliar until it becomes a safe, known quantity is a good survival tactic. Modern humans (with the possible
exception of the roadkill chef) do not have to
worry about survival in this manner because to most of us, safe food is readily available; survival of the species is
no longer a major factor. So what is it that makes some people turn up their noses at cheese or sushi?
A recent study of 50 extremely picky adults at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia seemed to indicate
that texture, more than flavor, is what turns people off. They hate surprises or simply don’t want to learn how to
eat them. Many parents try to overcome these fears in their children, but the problems can be more difficult to deal
with in adults. Most adults can avoid the foods they don’t enjoy, but if they travel on business, for example,
encounters might be inevitable. The WSJ offers a few tips from eating consultants to wary business travelers: take a
lot of foods you like (rice, potatoes) and don’t even ask what unknown foods are. Either take a little and
“kind of nibble a little bit” or just push it around on the plate.
Hmm... Is the secret to 
Many experts say that it takes time for a child to accept a new food once it has been offered to them. The number of times you should offer a food varies according to who you ask. The most recent number seems to be 15 times, but once of the reasons to bring up new foods so often is to prevent the kids from getting into a rut with what they eat.
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The lengths to which I will go to ensure that my children will eat are sometimes ridiculous. But as a mother I believe one of my duties is to feed them and feed them well. I never force my children to eat but I do sometimes resort to food entertainment in order to encourage their interest. One way I have found success is by using cookie cutters to create sandwich shapes. A sandwich is a sandwich is a sandwich, but cut that boring old square into small stars, pigs or flowers it becomes just a bit more intriguing for my brood. .jpg)
My 12 year-old son, Loren, detests almost all forms of fish. This is
sometimes a dinnertime issue when I want to serve fish and he makes a horrid face and requests another type of dinner.
I"m not an especially creative cook, nor do I intend to run a 24 hour-- day restaurant to cater to the dietary
whims of my three offspring. So in an effort to tap into his inner love for fish I have resorted to testing various
recipes on him. One winner is fish sticks but I can't in good conscience serve them very often. Another winner has been
Your son or daughter never eats bread crusts and refuses to tough either peas or pasta sauce. Picky eater,
right? Maybe not. As children age they develop preferences about their food, based on flavor, texture and, eventually,
political and nutritional preferences. Simply because a child refuses a food once, they are not necessarily a picky
eater. Often, a food will have to be offered to a toddler or child from 5 to 10 times before they become accustomed to
it. The kids who eat the foods are not really picky eaters. No child has been fooled into eating a carrot because it
was crunchy like a potato chip – and any parent whose child was “tricked” into that had a child that
wasn’t entirely averse to the carrot in the first place. 
According to an article in the 
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