Picky eaters at friends houses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Do other countries have these issues with their kid and eating, especially non-Western countries?

Indian PP gave her experience and that’s true of South Asia IME (my uncle and cousins are Desi) but not so common elsewhere. Or rather— some cultures have this for kids up to a certain age (maybe 6 or so), but after that, they are largely expected to fall in line. Some of it is class based, too.

[Anonymous]

I’m torn on all of this because I very much agree that you can’t tell by looking at a family if their kid has a feeding disorder etc... but then again, sometimes you do know. Like the PP whose PB&J nephew happily ate everything at her house. And then there’s the issue of being presumptuous and demanding special meals etc.... vs feeding your very picky kid before and after and teaching them to be as polite as they can manage at their age.

I assume picky kids do have a genuine issue and aren’t being coddled... until it’s proven otherwise, and sometimes it is.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t care you brought noodles for your child, except it does create an issue when there are several kids under 6 and you pull out a dish of plain noodles for just your child.

Of course all of the kids, even the ones that would have ate what was served, are now going to want the noodles instead. You should have anticipated that and just asked her if she could have some plain noodles available for your kid (and know the others) or if she would prefer if you brought a single dish for your child. That at least gives her the opportunity to go ahead an make a batch so there is enough for all the kids that would prefer that.

[Anonymous]

NPR did an episode last year on picky eating: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/06/09/618025893/want-your-child-to-try-eat-almost-everything-skip-the-kids-menu

I think there is a big difference between a kid that has an actual food or texture aversion and a kid that will only eat things like chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. A child who has physical reactions like vomiting or gagging to many types of food or who requires feeding therapy doesn't fall into the group of "picky eaters".

Many parents don't expose their kids to a large variety of foods, spices, cuisines, etc. as well as the fact that many parents fear their child going hungry for any period of time. The result is that kids end up eating alot of the same thing and refusing to try new foods. Its really important that kids get as much exposure as possible to different flavors especially from the ages of 1-3. I see so many parents relying on pouches and smoothies as meal replacements which tend to be on the sweeter side and mask the flavors of most of the ingredients beyond apple or banana. When my daughter was a toddler she loved blueberries but I limited buying them more then twice a month because I wanted her to try lots of other fruits. Even though I knew if I fed her blueberries she would easily eat them it was also important to me that she have a wide variety of fruit even if that meant alot of nights of her refusing to touch kiwi or melon. Every month I would try buying a different grain so she would get exposure to things like couscous, quinoa, wild rice, barley, amaranth. White rice is still her favorite but she knows that its something we have once in a while, not all the time.

I love having dinner parties but I also try to know my audience. Offering multiple items so that there is a high likelihood that there is at least one thing that each person can tolerate is a good practice. Offering things in a deconstructed manner so that kids can customize food to their liking like tacos or putting sauce on the side is also helpful. Its also important to remind kids that a dinner party is about sharing a meal together and when one kid has their own special food it can take away from the experience. We go out to eat fairly often to alot of different types of restaurants. I try to remind my three year old that eating out is a special experience and when we go to a restaurant we are going so we can try new things. Sometimes that means having a treat like a mango lassi or getting to order dessert but it also means that the rice might have things mixed in it or the bread might look different than what we have at home. Its helped her be more open to new cuisines and new foods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does pickiness have anything do with what the mother eats when she is pregnant? My sister lived on spicy food while pregnant and during breastfeeding. The daughter loved spicy food from the moment she could eat solids.

Am curious as I adopted my 3 kids and have no idea if food preferences are governed by prenatal behavior. My mother only ate bland foods and I was "picky" because I only ate bland foods until I was an adult. I also had textural issues and could not stand the "dryness" of cheese or peas and the like. (I love those items as adult!)

In my personal experience (which I understand is an n of 1 & is merely “anecdata”), it’s mostly the kid rather than the pregnancy diet or parenting.

I did an “experiment” by having fraternal twins. So they were exposed to the same pregnancy diet & roughly the same parenting. One is a tremendously picky eater & the other will eat most things.

My conclusion is that I suspect that parents have far less control over these matters than we think we do...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Celebrate you will no longer have to put up with that craziness. I am married to a picky eater. He would not have eaten the vegetable casserole either. But here is the issue we run into. My DH would also be perfectly content to sit at the table and talk to everyone else while they ate. This is also never "allowed" by a host. The host will always make a big deal about finding something for him to eat. This will of course embarrass my dh which means the next time there is an event he will not want to go. I don't do the short order cook thing for our family but I will always make sure there are "plain" options. So if we are having pasta the sauce is on the side. We will have a roast with vegetables but not a stew where everything is mixed together. Casseroles will not happen ever. Your friend is crazy to make a casserole as the main dish and expect everyone to eat it.

His rudeness is so over the top that they don’t know how to respond. There’s simply no manual for the right way to handle it when you invite adults over and a child and his enabling Mummy show up.

You really have some issues to even be able to see the described behavior as "over the top rudeness". Imagine getting so upset simply because someone else isn't acting exactly like you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Do other countries have these issues with their kid and eating, especially non-Western countries?

My mil is from an island in the pacific ocean. I can only speak for my inlaws' home, not for other parents in her home country, but serving lots of food to guests is important to my mil and seeing kids eat is important. She will cook anything she knows the grandchildren like if she notices that they aren't eating the food that is being served. It is very important to her that they eat, and there are no food battles or even cajoling to eat certain things, the important thing is that the kids are eating anything. She was like this with the older grandchildren 20 yrs ago and she is like this with my young kids now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Do other countries have these issues with their kid and eating, especially non-Western countries?

My mil is from an island in the pacific ocean. I can only speak for my inlaws' home, not for other parents in her home country, but serving lots of food to guests is important to my mil and seeing kids eat is important. She will cook anything she knows the grandchildren like if she notices that they aren't eating the food that is being served. It is very important to her that they eat, and there are no food battles or even cajoling to eat certain things, the important thing is that the kids are eating anything. She was like this with the older grandchildren 20 yrs ago and she is like this with my young kids now.

I can’t speak to her specific culture when it comes to people’s own kids, but there’s a difference between catering to your guests and “spoiling” your grandkids and how you deal with feeding your own children in your own home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Serious question: Do other countries have these issues with their kid and eating, especially non-Western countries?

My mil is from an island in the pacific ocean. I can only speak for my inlaws' home, not for other parents in her home country, but serving lots of food to guests is important to my mil and seeing kids eat is important. She will cook anything she knows the grandchildren like if she notices that they aren't eating the food that is being served. It is very important to her that they eat, and there are no food battles or even cajoling to eat certain things, the important thing is that the kids are eating anything. She was like this with the older grandchildren 20 yrs ago and she is like this with my young kids now.

My grandmother was from an island in the mediterranean sea. She was the same way -- with her own kids, with her grandkids, with anyone who came to her table to eat. Eat, eat! You don't like this, I'll get you something else.

Of course her cooking was so good that most people liked whatever she made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does pickiness have anything do with what the mother eats when she is pregnant? My sister lived on spicy food while pregnant and during breastfeeding. The daughter loved spicy food from the moment she could eat solids.

Am curious as I adopted my 3 kids and have no idea if food preferences are governed by prenatal behavior. My mother only ate bland foods and I was "picky" because I only ate bland foods until I was an adult. I also had textural issues and could not stand the "dryness" of cheese or peas and the like. (I love those items as adult!)

In my personal experience (which I understand is an n of 1 & is merely “anecdata”), it’s mostly the kid rather than the pregnancy diet or parenting.

I did an “experiment” by having fraternal twins. So they were exposed to the same pregnancy diet & roughly the same parenting. One is a tremendously picky eater & the other will eat most things.

My conclusion is that I suspect that parents have far less control over these matters than we think we do...

I agree. I had two children closely spaced together. The first was a SEVERE selective eater from his first introduction of solid foods (he was very happy to breastfeed). The second was raised exactly the same as the first, although probably with more exposure to "kid food" because at that point we were trying anything to feed the first one, and had no trouble learning to eat all kinds of foods, tastes and textures -- she's very easy going, can eat most foods and is very adventurous unlike her older brother.

Curiously though, her older brother does like very spicy foods (probably because it can cover up the taste of foods he doesn't like?) while she really can't tolerate a lot of heat.

Anyway I am pretty sure I ate the same foods for both while pregnant/breast feeding. I do think I drank more alcohol and caffeine while pregnant/nursing with the second (more mellow eater) than the first though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Celebrate you will no longer have to put up with that craziness. I am married to a picky eater. He would not have eaten the vegetable casserole either. But here is the issue we run into. My DH would also be perfectly content to sit at the table and talk to everyone else while they ate. This is also never "allowed" by a host. The host will always make a big deal about finding something for him to eat. This will of course embarrass my dh which means the next time there is an event he will not want to go. I don't do the short order cook thing for our family but I will always make sure there are "plain" options. So if we are having pasta the sauce is on the side. We will have a roast with vegetables but not a stew where everything is mixed together. Casseroles will not happen ever. Your friend is crazy to make a casserole as the main dish and expect everyone to eat it.

His rudeness is so over the top that they don’t know how to respond. There’s simply no manual for the right way to handle it when you invite adults over and a child and his enabling Mummy show up.

You really have some issues to even be able to see the described behavior as "over the top rudeness". Imagine getting so upset simply because someone else isn't acting exactly like you do.

If you accept a dinner invitation at someone else’s home and then proceed to act like a toddler, refusing to even try the dinner, you are beyond rude. My dad is very picky, and even he can manage to take three bites, fill up on rolls and salad, and make such pleasant conversation that, to the untrained eye, it just look like he didn’t eat a ton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone so offended by the appearance of buttered noodles at their dinner table has an ego problem.

Ellen Satter doesn’t work for everyone. My picky DD ended up on an all carb diet. Or she would just starve until crappy snacks were offered somewhere and then she’d go wild. In my house, you don’t get to choose to eat unbalanced meals all the time.

I was super picky as a child and I remember the absolute disgust I felt at most foods. I truly hated most food until I was a teen and started doing sports for several hours a day and worked up a huge appetite. Even then I was still picky but actually wanted to eat meals. I gradually tried more and more foods in my 20s and eat pretty much everything now. Picky kids aren’t necessarily picky adults.

Thank you for giving me hope! My spouse is dead set against turning meals into a battle, and prizes that peace and harmony above all other things, so we don’t push non-preferred foods. But I worry. Kid is 10 and has slowly, on his own, started to try new things… but just a few of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Celebrate you will no longer have to put up with that craziness. I am married to a picky eater. He would not have eaten the vegetable casserole either. But here is the issue we run into. My DH would also be perfectly content to sit at the table and talk to everyone else while they ate. This is also never "allowed" by a host. The host will always make a big deal about finding something for him to eat. This will of course embarrass my dh which means the next time there is an event he will not want to go. I don't do the short order cook thing for our family but I will always make sure there are "plain" options. So if we are having pasta the sauce is on the side. We will have a roast with vegetables but not a stew where everything is mixed together. Casseroles will not happen ever. Your friend is crazy to make a casserole as the main dish and expect everyone to eat it.

His rudeness is so over the top that they don’t know how to respond. There’s simply no manual for the right way to handle it when you invite adults over and a child and his enabling Mummy show up.

You really have some issues to even be able to see the described behavior as "over the top rudeness". Imagine getting so upset simply because someone else isn't acting exactly like you do.

If you accept a dinner invitation at someone else’s home and then proceed to act like a toddler, refusing to even try the dinner, you are beyond rude. My dad is very picky, and even he can manage to take three bites, fill up on rolls and salad, and make such pleasant conversation that, to the untrained eye, it just look like he didn’t eat a ton.

This. Adults who are polite and mature know how to manage your themselves in such a way that no one would know you are picky. If you are an adult and your friends can rattle off your aversions because you make much of yourself over them, grow up.

I had a close friend and didn’t realize for years that she didn’t eat cheese, because she knew how to manage so well, even on pizza night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does pickiness have anything do with what the mother eats when she is pregnant? My sister lived on spicy food while pregnant and during breastfeeding. The daughter loved spicy food from the moment she could eat solids.

Am curious as I adopted my 3 kids and have no idea if food preferences are governed by prenatal behavior. My mother only ate bland foods and I was "picky" because I only ate bland foods until I was an adult. I also had textural issues and could not stand the "dryness" of cheese or peas and the like. (I love those items as adult!)

In my personal experience (which I understand is an n of 1 & is merely “anecdata”), it’s mostly the kid rather than the pregnancy diet or parenting.

I did an “experiment” by having fraternal twins. So they were exposed to the same pregnancy diet & roughly the same parenting. One is a tremendously picky eater & the other will eat most things.

My conclusion is that I suspect that parents have far less control over these matters than we think we do...

I agree. I had two children closely spaced together. The first was a SEVERE selective eater from his first introduction of solid foods (he was very happy to breastfeed). The second was raised exactly the same as the first, although probably with more exposure to "kid food" because at that point we were trying anything to feed the first one, and had no trouble learning to eat all kinds of foods, tastes and textures -- she's very easy going, can eat most foods and is very adventurous unlike her older brother.

Curiously though, her older brother does like very spicy foods (probably because it can cover up the taste of foods he doesn't like?) while she really can't tolerate a lot of heat.

Anyway I am pretty sure I ate the same foods for both while pregnant/breast feeding. I do think I drank more alcohol and caffeine while pregnant/nursing with the second (more mellow eater) than the first though.

WTF!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t care you brought noodles for your child, except it does create an issue when there are several kids under 6 and you pull out a dish of plain noodles for just your child.

Of course all of the kids, even the ones that would have ate what was served, are now going to want the noodles instead. You should have anticipated that and just asked her if she could have some plain noodles available for your kid (and know the others) or if she would prefer if you brought a single dish for your child. That at least gives her the opportunity to go ahead an make a batch so there is enough for all the kids that would prefer that.

This. Even if my kids like what's being served they are going to want the noodles. It's not like at school where everyone has a different lunch. If everyone is eating one dinner and one kid is getting buttered noodles the kids are going to notice. If it were an allergy situation I could explain that to my kid. It's harder to explain that she has to have one food but the other kid gets noodles because she's a picky eater. Especially if they are the same age.