To.me (and my ped) fruits are an ok sub for veggies. I served fruit with meals as a side along with a vegetable.Sweet meats I agree is a category you can work around by leaving sauce off and only having occasionally. DD expanded over the years. I never wanted dinner to be a battle ground.

The veggies issue is more of a problem than the sauce issue. Since he eats peas I'd work from there. Maybe sweet corn next?

I have an eat everything 9 year old and a pickier 5 year old. The picky kid would only eat carbs and meatballs and cucumbers from 3 until 5. But she does like nearly all fruit. We always had a side of meatballs on the table for her. Ate everything family style and tried really hard not to comment on eating. Now at 5.5 she's gotten much better about proteins and even eats some new to her vegetables. She also tries a lot more things on her own and sometimes discovers new foods (smoked salmon is a new favorite). There is hope I think. But I did make sure there was something she'd eat at every me. Much to my husbands annoyance. Now I point out during dinners that we are all eating the same thing and how fun it is for me.

Our picky eater made my life crazy from 12-18. Now, that they're a junior in college, and cooking for themself, its a whole new world - their eating is great

Just cook the meat plain for him. Not hard.

That's good he doesn't like sugar coated meat.

Mealtime is driving me crazy. I don’t make separate meals but the whining makes me crazy. My 7 year old does not like sweet meat - so teriyaki chicken, lots of Asian stir fries, etc are out. He likes burgers, steak, quesedillas, grilled cheese, pasta, pizza most of the time, and won’t touch a vegetable aside from raw sweet peas. He gets spinach in smoothies i guess, and never met a fruit he didn’t like. I made copycat chick fil a nuggets and even that was rejected the other day which was a bit of a breaking point for me. As a baby, he ate everything and loved peas and broccoli up until 15 months. And it never recovered.

I also have a pretty picky 5 year old who will eat the sweet meat and some broccoli on occasion, but is a die hard Mac and cheese fiend.

If you had a picky eater, what worked? Did they ever grow out of it?