Picky child eaters?

[ny biker]

Years ago I worked with someone who felt that food preferences were learned, therefore he decided to like everything. But I don't know, I hated carrots as a child and still hate them today.

Many of my food dislikes are because of texture. I like hamburgers but don't like the texture of steak. (I totally understand if that seems weird. )

[Crankin]

I do believe a lot of it is learned, but some dislikes, I think, are inborn. My older son would/could not eat apples or pickles, because of the crunchiness. He would actually throw up from trying to eat the. He is still like this. He was an extremely picky eater as a small kid, and was always super skinny (still is). But, in high school, he had a lot of vegetarian friends, who introduced him to lots of ethnic foods that he would not eat at home. He now eats everything (except apples and pickles).

[shootingstar]

My first exposure to curry and chili based dishes was when I had a Malaysian room-mate midway through my university years. But we never shared cooking. My mother, to help me in their own low-income way, was she cut up meat and packaged in dinner size amounts. So I ended half of small freezer filled with packets of frozen chicken, pork and beef. Some fish. That was her "care" gift to me during university years. I made my own dinners (peasant Cantonese style dishes which a lot of restaurants don't serve because it uses steaming technique)...and enjoyed it. It was cooking, mindless therapy away from all that reading and studying.

I didn't even know about rice cookers until I met room mate. As a teen, I learned to cook rice in pot the "old fashioned way", on the stove.

Methinks the texture and taste/smell thing are such high influencing factors.
I'll eat carrots, but I find them..boring. So I end having tomatoes or butternut squash to get more carotene.
I agree with your friend nyc, you do have to take the attitude to like a broad range of foods. That helps a lot. Not the other way around....which I see way more often these days among children.

[Jolt]

Interesting article, and makes a lot of sense. As someone who will likely be having kids in the next few years, it is nice to see that there is something parents can do to help avoid having their kids be picky eaters (I would find it extremely frustrating to have meal times always turn into a fight or have to limit what the rest of the family eats).

[colby]

We are shifting to the method in the latest picky eating kids thinking with my daughter (2 in 3 months). After we did baby-led weaning (and she ate more "human food" than "baby food" while learning to eat), she is still settling in to some toddler habits (she would eat mac and cheese for every meal, I swear, but she also loves steamed edamame, blueberries, and some spicy foods). The BLW helped with not having to feed her ourselves from the ground up (we do sometimes shovel in yogurt to keep things clean), and being at "school" she only self-feeds there, too, from what's put in front of her.

Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Your-K.../dp/0915950839
Another link: http://ellynsatterinstitute.org/dor/...yinfeeding.php

Summary of the thinking is: "parents are responsible for what is presented to eat and the manner in which it is presented. Children are responsible for how much or even whether they eat." As a part of it, you generally include one food you know they will eat with foods they may or may not eat. Sometimes it's mom's favorite food night, sometimes dad's favorite food night. They learn to feel a little less stressed out about the food in front of them and end up more likely to try different things. As an example, for Christmas the family had roast beast (I had a stuffed pepper) with sweet potatoes and green beans, on my daughter's plate we put roast beast, sweet potatoes, a sample of my pepper, a side of mac and cheese, and green beans. She ate all of the mac, a couple green beans, a bite of sweet potatoes, and some pepper, but no meat (normal for her). One night she put a BUNCH of crinkle cut carrots in alongside some of her staple foods, which I haven't seen her do in a while. It also takes a few presentations for a new food to become a comfortable food, so you can't take turning their nose up at it once as a forever no, or a reluctance to try new things to mean forever no.

It's hard because sometimes she's a snacker (eats small meals and wants snacks), so we have to think defensively and plan ahead a little.

[salsabike]

Colby! Congratulations on your daughter and hello. That's all I wanted to say.

[zoom-zoom]

Mine is picky, but it's mostly a texture thing -- yay, autism!! He was less picky as a toddler, though the things he really liked when little he still likes. He'd eat broccoli every day. Still loves a bloody steak, good salmon steak, and gobbled up zucchini "noodles" the other night. He's generally been good with most veggies. He's trying new things, which is a step in the right direction. I just wish he didn't reach for processed carbs, first.