10 Tips for Dining (or Not) With Picky Eaters by Melanie Rehak in How-to, September 23rd, 2011
As a veteran mother of a picky eater who’s now five and a half, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to navigate the dinner table without either giving in to his demands or failing to nourish him properly. At certain points over the years I’ve left the table in order to take a deep breath in the other room, left the table to lie down on my bed for a moment in a quiet place where no one is saying “Yuck!” over and over and again while waving his napkin in the air, and left the table to work on the book I ended up writing about, yes, my picky eater and my own love of food and cooking. In fact, sometimes excusing yourself is the best way to deal with it. When it’s not, here’s a list of tips that I’ve discovered — through a lot of trial and error, needless to say — that make mealtime as painless as possible.
1. Don’t assume they won’t like something. Just put it in front of them and see what happens (This is how I discovered my 5-year-old, who won’t try shrimp, will happily eat shrimp tempura).
2. Always serve bread. It’s easy and it will at least fill them up if all else fails.
3. Never negotiate — number of bites, what they have to do to get dessert, anything else. It only opens the door to arguments and broken promises.
4. Once or twice a week make something you know they like. There’s no point in being needlessly dogmatic and sometimes a little generosity goes a long way.
5. Don’t offer them food later. When the meal is over, it’s over. Unless your child is severely underweight, it’s not going to hurt him or her.
6. Don’t punish them for it. Not catering to them by making them something else to eat is plenty.
7. Once the unpleasant meal is over, let it go.
8. Teach them to manage in other people’s homes. They can refuse food politely and ask for something simple like bread or yogurt. Trust me, no one wants your kid to go hungry on their watch.
9. Sit down at the table hoping for the best. If you radiate tension before the meal has even begun, you’ll be sure to get exactly the kind of behavior you don’t want.
10. Don’t use arguments that make sense to you, like “You’ve never even tried it. If you did, I’m sure you’d like it.” Or “It’s made entirely of things you love, just put together.” Picky eating is usually pretty irrational (see item one on this list), so trying to explain why it’s silly to the picky eater has zero effect.
Melanie Rehak is the author of Eating for Beginners: An Education in the Pleasures of Food from Chefs, Farmers, and One Picky Kid, just out in paperback. She writes a column on food books for Bookforum and is also the author of Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her. For more, check out Melanierehak.com, follow her on Twitter @melanierehak or like her on Facebook.com/MelanieRehak.
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Tags: picky eaters
What Abour a 50 year old picky eater !!!!
I'm 32 years old and your great advice still makes sense for me. I'm a blind food critic and can be extremely picky at times, and yes some of my issues are slightly irrational but you pinpointed the basic 10 tips very well. If interested, please take a look at my blog: http://www.blindtastetest.net
Thanks!
I use receipes from Ken Haedrich's Feeding the Healthy Vegetarian Family. I notice that he has you cut strongly flavored hings up very, very small (like mushrooms), so that they bring flavor, but not big hunks of overly strong tastes.
When I was a child, mild cheese was too strong for me, as were mushrooms and many other flavors. That slowly goes away, and now I like everything. For some people, it's not an "irrational" dislike, it's extreme sensitivity to flavors or certain textures, and no amount of cajoling will change how the food tastes or feels. Only time and aging will change the experience.
I think the other thing to remember is to try and keep it fun. I'm lucky my daughter usually follows the rules and at least tries one bite. Doesn't have to be big but a taste, and we have also had to ban words like yuck and gross from our dinner time. They are not acceptable. They don't have to like it but to complain about it all the time and refuse to eat because she is too busy saying ewww gross, I just can't handle. But like I said she eats pretty much anything.
Some things that we do to keep things fun, is when we have oatmeal, I sweeten it with honey but she can sprinkle a little bit of colored sugar or even sprinkles on top. A light dusting doesn't hurt or add that much more sugar, plus it's fun and colorful, we do the same with cinnamon toast, instead of regular sugar we use colored sugar, again since it's colored it shows up real well and you actually end up using less. I love to use colors when I can. We planted rainbow chard and she loves it, every now and then I splurge and buy the purple potatoes. We are even mashing up some avocado with our white ones and making them greenish. Plus the avocado is good for them too.
Sometimes there needs to be a little pain which mean not providing bread which is emply calories unless it is whole grain. My son would eat only bread, crackers and croutons if I let him. Most meals I make are cetered around vegetables and I have learned that I have to force him to try them. It turns out he likes some vegetables but not all so I give him some vegetables that I know he likes and couple new ones. He likes yellow summer sqash but not zucchini and green beans but not peppers. I also let him pick vegeables when shopping. He saw tatsoi at our farmers market and thought it looked like a lolli pop so I gave him a whole bowl of tatsoi and he loved it – I gradually have worked in other lettuce like baby romain, boston bib, galactic, baby mustard greens and other small varieties. He now loves salad and eats a huge bowl so I make salad often. The point is there is no progress without a little pain and once you see progress take small steps and give them some control. I know the nights there will be a little pain so when I know we need to get in a bath other another activity after dinner I plan simple things I know he will like. Good luck!
My toddler grandson likes to eat the prepackaged Lunchables. Once when he was here he insisted that was all he would eat and I didn't have any so I had him help me to make a "homemade Lunchable". I made him a sandwich and used a small biscuit cutter to cut it into circles. It was a huge hit. I have since used that trick to cut chicken and other foods with cookie cutters. It works best if he helps. Also, he nearly always eats vegetables when I let him help prepare them (e.g., select the cans from the pantry, empty a can into a pan, etc.). Involving him in the food prep and making it fun works nearly every time.
It's amazing all the vegetables you can hide in a quesadilla. Our 6 yr old visitor loves bacon and eggs and will eat quiche. You can hide a lot of vegetables in a quiche and he likes the idea of "egg pie". If we really don't want any hassle, questions or comments, we place a Hershey's Kiss in front of the plate and not a word is muttered. He eats as if it's his last meal just to get a tiny piece of chocolate for dessert. We also find that if he cooks his own food such as pizza, pot pie or soup, he seems to feel obligated to eat it since he was the chef. He has his own apron with his name on it. This is a child that I'm sure rarely had vegetables before but now will eat a huge salad full of different ones topped with grilled chicken just for a Kiss. He decided on his own to eat the things he doesn't like first and save the best for last. He also decided to cover things he really doesn't like such as bell peppers with a piece of lettuce and eat it that way.
I love cooking and when my kid was small I almost cried when it was lunch time. But suddenly when she was around 10, my daughter (now 15) started eating! She still doesn't eat eggs, hates carrot soup and won't look at a hot dog, sandwich or hamburger, but she loves most vegetables, eats all kinds of fish and shellfish and is willing to try new food. Last Sunday we went to a restaurant and she had mussels in garlic sauce and mushroom and artichoke risotto. She wouldn't even look at the white bean salad, though! It took time and tears, but now it's a pleasure to cook for her.
It's amazing what happens when they grow up and get a girlfriend! My oldest son (who is mid-20's now) would never touch anything with beans in it nor would he eat black-eyed peas, etc. I eventually managed to put the beans (for chili) in cheesecloth, and get him to eat it, begrudgingly. For New Year's Day, I made him eat at least 3 to 5 black-eyed peas for good luck (yes, I was raised in the south, ie Texas), even when they were cooked as hoppin' john, with some onions, bacon, & my Tex Mex seasonings in them. Enter new girlfriend, & her family made them eat everything as was, no special changes, unless for food allergies. Magically, he will now eat chili with beans, some black-eyed peas (they do that, too), etc, no questions asked. He's not that happy about that, but she's training him to eat more veggies, lol.
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