When did your kid-food-liking kid start becoming an adventurous eater?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol, this thread is equal parts infuriating and illuminating. Fellow parents of picky eaters that are working their asses off trying to get their kids to eat what they used to or need to, I see you. I have always offered vegetables, protein, then carbs. I never stopped offering the same variety. Still, the range of foods dwindled and dwindled. Over years, it's slowly getting better. Oh. well. We're all doing the best we can with the kids we can. I know the parents saying, "my kid eats better because I tried harder than you" just have different kids. Just like I know my well behaved, agreeable child is better behaved than the wild kid next to him because he's a different kid, not because of my superior parenting.

[Anonymous]

Seventh grade for both my boys. They LOVE Thai food, steak, seafood and will try anything. It gets very expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Picky eaters exist o my because lazy parents allow them to.be picky.

Parents of picky eaters are not lazy. It would be so much easier to have a kid that ate anything and everything.

Theyvwi I'd you start out saying, ' this is dinner. Eat. Enjoy.". And, you don't give in to letting them dictate to you the foods they will eat! We never ordered pizza for dinner or anything else.. once in awhile, we took them out to pizza or Chinese food. We also took them to restaurants but not to places where chicken nuggets were on the menu.

Okay, then when they refuse to eat, you say, “they’ll eat when they’re hungry “, right? Then they’re still up at 10pm crying for food but still refusing what was offered. Or up at 4am crying because their tummy hurts. How far do you take it? How many days?

Awful, but they do this because they know you’ll break down and give them what they want. Starving children aren’t waiting for some different meal to come along.

Yes, starving children do refuse certain food too. Are you educated on this subject or just riding your ego.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not what you want to hear, OP... but we limited kid food between 0-3 so they would develop a taste for other things. No snacks except fruit and only water between meals. Start meals with vegetables, then protein, then grain. A lot of variety and little pasta, bread, etc. They were hungry so they ate everything. We also took them to a lot of ethnic restaurants early on — Mexican, Indian, Thai, middle eastern, Korean, etc. — and made a big deal about how delicious the food was. They learned to love trying new things and will eat everything we eat. I feel like it is harder when they get older because it becomes a control issue and also a psychological familiarity one. Anxiety develops between ages 3-8 so kids at those ages often don’t want to try new things. YMMV.

your kids discovering more tasteful foods than ones you forced me to does equal anxiety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lol, this thread is equal parts infuriating and illuminating. Fellow parents of picky eaters that are working their asses off trying to get their kids to eat what they used to or need to, I see you. I have always offered vegetables, protein, then carbs. I never stopped offering the same variety. Still, the range of foods dwindled and dwindled. Over years, it's slowly getting better. Oh. well. We're all doing the best we can with the kids we can. I know the parents saying, "my kid eats better because I tried harder than you" just have different kids. Just like I know my well behaved, agreeable child is better behaved than the wild kid next to him because he's a different kid, not because of my superior parenting.

This kind of discussion totally brings out the smug.

[Anonymous]

We always had a rule, I think I read it on DCUM, that anyone was free to make themselves a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if they didn't like what was served for dinner.

Sometimes my kids would do it every day for a month. Mine all went through a phase around 5 or so when they figured out where meat came from and decided to be vegetarian for a little while. So when we were having meat for dinner, they ate sides and a PB&J. It was kind of inconvenient for them, so it had to be bad enough that they were willing to put in the work of making a sandwich (which is some effort when you are 4 or 5), but we never had to have any battles about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If they eat a certain way now, I think they'll continue that way through adulthood. I'm sure we've all met that person who can't or won't try something new, and there's no sensory issue/medical reason. People like what they like and it's all shaped from when they're really little. Nothing wrong with liking nuggets and mac and cheese.

This is insane and so un true. The vast majority of adults in America today grew up eating, like, chicken nuggets and hot dogs. Foods like sushi, Thai food, Ethopian, etc. barely even existed in most of the US for our childhoods. And yet we all eat them now and something like sushi hardly even seems out of the ordinary anymore. The idea that toddler food preferences predict adult preferences is so beyond reality. Sure, I know a guy who won't eat vegetables but he is a crazy exception, not the norm!

Good point. The only “ethnic” food I had before my late teens was Americanized Chinese food. All my vegetables were canned or frozen except for iceberg salad. Now I eat a huge variety of foods

Same here. I take comfort in this a bit, because even though my 3yo has become more picky, he still probably eats a greater variety of foods than I did at his age. And now I’ll eat pretty much anything except for pork chops and peas (post-childhood trauma!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it starts early, really early. As in, first foods. We always gave them small tastes of whatever we were eating, including “ethnic” foods. My kids are now 9, 6 and 4 and while they still have typical kid preferences, they are much less picky than other kids their age. We go out to eat a lot and they do not like spicy foods, but are great with pickled, tart, or fishy flavors. They also eat their vegetables, with some prompting for ones they don’t like as much. We also always make them try something just once when they whine. And when the grocery stores have samples on the weekend I take them around to the sample stations to try new stuff.

Following up... https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/25/can-babies-learn-to-love-vegetables?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Apparently "palate training" starts in utero.