Fussy eaters

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Aug 29, 2005
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Moss Beach, California
My youngest son (3 years old) is a real picky eater. Even when I am reading a food magazine and I will say to him, mmmmm this looks super yummy, he will reply "I don't like that, it looks yucky". So I know half the battle is presentation. But I'm running out of ideas.

I'm compiling a list of possible go to foods for him so that when I'm have dead, I can still figure out something he will eat that is healthy and fairly easy to prepare.

Any ideas?

He likes breaded fish, but no other fish. He likes chicken. Likes ground beef. Loves fruit. Fave veges are asparagus, fresh artichoke, broccoli and peas. Loves eggs.

Dislikes cooked tomatoes or tomato based sauces. Hates butter, pork, most cheese but cheese sauce is OK. Will not eat anything with even a hint of spice. The only potato he will eat is chips or french fries. Neither is a health option.

If he had it his way, he'd live on scrambled eggs, fruit and plain pasta.
 
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Are we married and sharing the same 3yr old?

It is a constant battle to get him to eat too. We just keep telling him about getting big and strong by eating the right foods.We try and reinforce it while doing other activities or when he asks about being a "Big Boy" and doing "Big Boy things"

The other he will do is only eat protein at dinner one night then only carbs the next then only veg.He will say he doesn't like the other stuff but you know he does.
 
It's frustrating because his brother was never like this. The brother will try anything and eats almost exactly what we eat and oddly enough loves big bowls of chopped lettuce (???).

I just want a few "go to" recipes that the rest of us might be able to stomach as well.

If I look online, everything is either pizza, chicken strips, chicken soup or corn.

Maybe we are married. We are both in the Bay Area. :)
 
My older daughter will try anything.

How about peanut butter? My boy has to have his whole grain toast with PB every morning.(Me too) We skip the jelly and split a banana.

Have you tried pesto or white sauce or brown butter/sage on his pasta.
 
Nuts, YES. I forgot that. He loves all the nut butters. He hates bread but is OK with toast or crackers. I have this awesome oatmeal cracker recipe that works well with him.

He does not like pesto and although the brown butter/sage sounds delicious, he hates butter. Who hates butter???? I mistakenly put a little butter on his waffle once and it was a total melt down.
 
He likes breaded fish, but no other fish. He likes chicken. Likes ground beef. Loves fruit. Fave veges are asparagus, fresh artichoke, broccoli and peas. Loves eggs.
This sounds like a great start for a 3-year old.

With my daughter, I used to try to get her involved in the cooking part of things. Kids always seem to like food better when they have helped make it. You don't have to work on knife skills or anything extreme, but have them help with mixing things or adding spices you have pre-measured out (make sure you let them smell or taste the spices on their own before adding them).

Don't push too much at once. It will take time. Kids seem to have super sensitive taste buds that pick up on many things that we as adults don't. They don't get subtleties, just the "big picture" flavors like sweet, salty, spicy, sour, etc.

And don't be afraid to use a little tough love from time to time. My favorite saying with my daughter was "if you don't like what we're having for dinner, you know where the peanut butter is." Over time, she ended up hating peanut butter, but loving almost everything else. :)
 
The brown butter may work with him since is is pretty nutty tasting. I have no problem lying to son what things are. If he wants fish and we have chicken then the chicken is fish.

How about fake crab or other seafoods. The "California Roll" noodle bowl that has been posted here is pretty darn good and kid freindly.
 
Steve, you are right about the getting them to help idea. I did alot more of that with m daughter. I am going to make an effort now with the boy.
 
He can cook scrambled eggs. He will crack, mix, pour and cook the eggs and all I have to do is supervise and watch the heat. I know his taste buds are sensitive. I don't even salt his food. And yes he has had many peanut butter on toast dinners :)

I'm going to try the brown butter sage sauce. It might work! I'm so inspired about the seafood comment, I think I am going to try crab cakes tonight. What an awesome idea. I can even freeze them for easy weeknight meals. Alright! Fingers crossed.

Off to find the "California Roll" noodle bowl recipe here.

Thanks!
 
I wouldn't push too hard. Toddlers can be notoriously picky eaters, he'll find his own interests sooner or later, and he won't starve to death in the meantime. Just present different things. Involving him in the prep is a great idea! Growing up, our dinner table was a battlefield, as I didn't like anything and my parents would try to make me eat. Guess who won?
 
I'm not pushing. I never want to force them to eat anything they don't like. I just need ideas!

I have a thousand food ideas for food I like for me but for him, it's harder and I feel terrible serving him chicken, peas and rice again and again.

Costco has the lump crab from memory..... I think crab cakes might be a hit. If not, the husband will like them.

The "California Roll" noodle bowl probably won't work as it has mayo in it.......
 
You may want to try mini-crab cakes. One of my nieces was such a picky eater. Her issue was with anything that she had to chew - with the exception of grapes. She did not like things that were too hot or cold - which included ice cream! Fruit yogurt smoothies were a hit as was pudding. So were mini-sized foods. Like she would eat things that were bite-sized. Steam-crisped and cooled veggies cut in matchstick fries or in flower shapes, she would eat. Same with cheese that were cut in pennies. She did not like butter or other greasy textures, but she loved pasta sprinkled with Kraft Parmesan. Serving the real stuff did not fly.

She also liked small rice balls like one would get in a Japanese restaurant - especially when decorated or in a cool shape. As she got older, as others mentioned, having her help pick out what she would take to lunch and create it, encouraged her to eat better. Until then, there was a lot of Kraft Mac N Cheese that filled her tummy.....as long as no butter was used and the milk was skimmed. And bite-sized, shaped food.


 
I'm thinking the shaped food is a great idea. I saw a nice recipe for rice balls that had chicken in them. Yes I agree on the dislike of anything greasy.

We do fruit smoothies fairly often. It is the big old skeleton drinking straws that help there. Also, all food in the frog bowl tastes a little better.

Mini-crab cakes, got it!
 
My youngest son (3 years old) is a real picky eater. Even when I am reading a food magazine and I will say to him, mmmmm this looks super yummy, he will reply "I don't like that, it looks yucky". So I know half the battle is presentation. But I'm running out of ideas.


He likes breaded fish, but no other fish. He likes chicken. Likes ground beef. Loves fruit. Fave veges are asparagus, fresh artichoke, broccoli and peas. Loves eggs.

Dislikes cooked tomatoes or tomato based sauces. Hates butter, pork, most cheese but cheese sauce is OK. Will not eat anything with even a hint of spice. The only potato he will eat is chips or french fries. Neither is a health option.

If he had it his way, he'd live on scrambled eggs, fruit and plain pasta.

He actually has diverse tastes compared to my daughter! I haven't read the other suggestions so sorry if I'm repeating something someone else suggested ... you could try a wrap with a tortilla and some broccoli and chicken, since he likes eggs maybe a quiche type thing with broccoli? Or a broccoli and chicken casserole (like chicken divan). You could do a creative taco with ground beef and veggies or a breakfast burrito with chicken and eggs.

Honestly though I gave up on pleasing my kids at dinner time. I give them what they want (within reason) for breakfast and lunch, but I cook for me and my husband at dinner time. I usually serve some kind of filler (like bread) that they will eat, but if they don't want the rest of it that's their choice. They always have the option of drinking a glass of milk if they're still hungry, but they don't get to refuse dinner and then go help themselves to snack type stuff. I figure with this plan (approved by my pediatrician) eventually they will open up to trying different things (and I cook a really broad variety of foods at dinner time). Hasn't happened yet, though, LOL!
 
I hear you about giving up on pleasing them. If I have enough on my "go to" list, when I'm really stuck I can look at it (physical list in the kitchen) and run with something that is nutritious, easy and tastes good.

Love the idea of the tortillas. Last time we had soft tacos my 5 year old piled anything and everything onto his and the 3 year old ate plain tortillas. Maybe I am just over thinking it.

Cooked ground beef in a non-tomato sauce. Freeze small kiddy portions and then the next time the rest of the family dives in for diverse soft tacos, I can pull out some non-offending protein for him. I like the chicken/egg idea too.

I just want him to eat more than a plain tortilla.

Thanks guys, this is great.
 
My mother fed us in the kitchen about an hour before my parents ate in the dining room. We often had toasted cheese sandwiches (openfaced under the broiler), canned corn, macaroni and cheese, and, my one bro's and my favorite--saltines, hardboiled eggs, and spinach. We didn't eat with our parents except on holidays (if you call being at the kiddie table eating with them). She served us a lot of canned soup. Mind you, she always hated to cook and until we moved to a house that didn't have space in the kitchen to feed us first (and put us to bed), we didn't eat with them. I was 7 when we moved and the youngest.
 
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I've worked with a lot of very poor people. In the families that I worked with who were literally starving, I never saw a child who was a picky eater at any age. They ate anything that was food and got near them, and they loved it all.

My belief is that picky eating is a learned trait. Learned from other children usually or from a parent who is a picky eater themselves, or as a means to gain attention. I mean no insult to anyone by saying this, but I really do feel this is true.

In my home when I was a child, the plates were stacked at my Dad's place and he served every person at the table. He put a reasonable portion of each item that was cooked on every plate and the plate was passed to each person, starting with my Mom at the other end of the table.

We were allowed to leave the table when our plates were empty unless we were sick.
 
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i agree with tim. in my growing up family, we were required to have at least a small spoon of each item served. we knew it was a rule and we did not violate it. i did the same thing with my children. no picky eaters at all!!
 
We vacuum food in this house. Just the little guy is picky. Elder son eats like a demon. 3/4 of us are non-picky.

I'm the youngest of 6 and my parents ran the family like an army boot camp. I hated it and did not want a large family (not enough parent to go around, I was raised by siblings) nor the extreme I felt our family had. Searching for a happy medium is what I aim for.

For what it is worth, food did not go down well tonight (not crab cakes but teriyaki chicken) so he went without. The rest of us ate.
 
We vacuum food in this house. Just the little guy is picky. Elder son eats like a demon. 3/4 of us are non-picky.

I'm the youngest of 6 and my parents ran the family like an army boot camp. I hated it and did not want a large family (not enough parent to go around, I was raised by siblings) nor the extreme I felt our family had. Searching for a happy medium is what I aim for.

For what it is worth, food did not go down well tonight (not crab cakes but teriyaki chicken) so he went without. The rest of us ate.

Please know that I worried all night last night that what I said might have been taken wrong, and have insulted someone. I sure didn't mean it to have done this. Please accept my apology if I sounded harsh or impolite. I meant no harm or insult to anyone. It upsets me greatly when I feel I might have mistakenly done that.

I know I've had periods where maybe I had a stomach upset and food just didn't taste good or seem appetizing to me for several days. Perhaps that's what the little guy is going through. A well pureed veggie soup with no seasonings usually goes down well and helps me get through those times.

I always keep several quarts of homemade veggie soup base in the freezer. I use it in a lot of dishes.

Children have "perfect" taste buds. No smokers, no tobacco chewers, no beer drinkers...just pristine taste buds that may taste food many times more powerfully than thier adult counterparts. What may be moderately seasoned food to you might be overwhelming to a child. Especially with salt or things that have adult strength seasoning with soy sauce or other spices.

Just a thought. I've known families that took the children's portions out of the pot after applying half of the intended seasonings and leaving some, like hot sauce, out. Then they put the remainder of the seasonings in for the adults.

Or, your 3 year old might just be in one of those "not feeling good" times that all children go through during that incredible time of super fast growth in their little bodies and minds.

Even with my vocabulary, experience and education, I sometimes have a problem expressing a body problem I'm having. Tiny children must find it especially frustrating at times and may express it as crying or refusing foods or contact.

If nutrition becomes a worry because of food refusal, it may be a wise choice to seek the child's Doctor's advice. Real food allergies might be coming into play.
 
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