Dooce and Sundry both wrote about their children’s eating habits this week. Since I’m nothing but an uncreative lemming, I thought I should touch on the same topic in our home.
First and foremost: My husband will eat ANYTHING. No one ever talks about whether or not their husband’s are picky eaters, but I am grateful for the fact that MrZ will eat whatever I put in front of him. Now - he has preferences of course. But - my hatred of cooking and my limitation in the kitchen seems to not phase him at all. Or at least he doesn’t say anything about it, which is smart because I would love the excuse to quit cooking all together. This is the key to our healthy relationship: He doesn’t complain about me being a crappy cook with only five meals on my menu and in appreciation I will actually cook dinner for him every night. One of those five meals.
Now - onto NikkiZ.
When she wouldn’t eat baby food - we knew we were in trouble. There have always been guarantees for breakfast - for awhile she ate YoBaby every morning. Sometimes for all three meals of the day because that would be all she would eat. Then she started eating oatmeal. And again - she eats it every morning. Without fail. So breakfast has never been a problem for us. Of course - eating YoBaby (she wouldn’t eat any of the cheaper yogurts) and Oatmeal doesn’t seem like the healthiest menu a toddler could have. So, we continued to at least try to get her to taste other foods. I’m not as pushy as MrZ, but we both try.
She made progress around turning 2 when she tried chili for the first time and LOVED it. From that day on, she would eat any tomato based saucy meals. Spaghetti sauce (noodles only recently), vegetable soups, chili. We tried to feed her something like that every night for dinner, and she ate it most of the time. It was AWESOME. She’s also learned to love some rice and beans as well, which was probably an adaptation of survival since the only restaurant we frequent is a Mexican food dive down the road.
But recently? We’ve learned that she will eat ALMOST ANYTHING - as long as she has ranch dressing to dip it in. Baked chicken, pizza, sausage, hamburger…even pretzels! We just put a dollop of ranch on her plate every night and she’s bound to find something she can dip it in to eat. It has been our miracle ingredient. The day she decided she liked ranch dressing was one of the best days of my life.
I obviously don’t get out much.
What about you? Who are the picky eaters in your home? Do you ever use the threat, “If you don’t eat it you’ll just have to starve because I’m not fixing anything else!” Because I have that on a recording in the kitchen that I play on repeat several nights a week.
I will also eat ice cream, but she won’t feed me that at every meal. I don’t know why.
I think that I am the picky eater in our family, I am gluten and lactose intolerant. Fortunately the kids will happily live on steamed vegetables, salad and fruit (I know, it isn’t quite right, don’t hate me). They like to cook and will eat anything that they make, including curry and risotto. Me, I think that I would kill for a some chocolate right about now.
Ketchup. Al eats ketchup on his ketchup. And to make myself feel better about his grilled cheese sandwich and ketchup dinner, I tell myself that ketchup is, indeed, a vegetable.
We had 4, and I don’t think there was ever a single dinner at which one of them didn’t say “Yuck! You know I hate xxxx!” (and if it was #4, xxxx would usually be something that she had professed undying love for the week before.) Eventually we learned to point to the kitchen and mumble something like “the frozen waffles are still in the freezer.”
#1 wouldn’t eat anything green. As a sop to “vegetable” we had corn 4 nights out of 7. 2 and 3 ate pretty much anything unless it was their turn to say the yuck thing. #4 was super picky and dinner was often a glass of milk. We eventually leaned that it wasn’t what so much as when; she would eat lots of stuff at noon, nothing in the evening. My wife eats whatever, but can’t eat the same thing more than once a month (leftovers == ugh, we had that yesterday.) And I’m known as the human garbage disposal.
the GIrl was the SAME DAMN WAY about the ranch - she wouldn’t eat ANYTHING unless she had “wanch dips” to go with it. But over the last few weeks we’ve noticed she’ll eat what we make for her, and SAVE the ranch to eat BY ITSELF after her meal - like it’s DESSERT!!!! cracks me up.
Our kid goes through phses though - she will be incredibly picky and live off one thing, like for awhile it was baked beans, then we had the ranch inccident, but she always “takes breaks” and will eat anything and everything we put in front of her for a few weeks at a time as well.
My husband thinks she gets overwhelemed by the new and then reverts back to just one thing, but then as she gets bored she wants to eat what we’re eating again. But personally, I think she just likes making me nuts. 2-year old are notorious for that…right?
Fuller has yet to develop a love of sauces or dressings. It baffles my inlaws, because my nephew has ketchup on everything. Fuller isn’t too fond of the “red stuff.”
He is big into PBJ, sketti (no sauce, just cheese), chicken nuggets, and waffles. He goes through phases of likes and then suddenly he hates whatever- eggs, yogurt, applesauce.
Dinner is the only meal he doesn’t get to pick his meal, so it is more frustrating, but generally he gets through it just fine. Might take a few hours, but he eats.
My oldest son will eat practically anything. He is 11.
My youngest son has a limited menu, but is branching out, loves his ranch dressing and has recently eaten brocoli. He is 5.
My husband is the pickiest eatier of all! Refuses to eat any vegetables - meat / potatoes / bread that is it!
I am the picky eater in this house. When I was little, I only ate what my dad would eat, which wasn’t much. He did all of the cooking and it stayed within a very safe few dishes, most of them involving ground beef. He was never forced to eat foods that he didn’t like and he didn’t even try to get me to taste new things. When I met my boyfriend, he was appalled by how few things I was willing to eat. He suggested that, with my adult palate, there were foods that I would like if I were just willing to try them and I’m so glad that he did. I’ve grown into a person who will eat damn near anything; almost all vegetables (sorry carrots and cauliflower, you still suck), any ethnic quisine, including sushi, and it has made me a better and more adventurous cook. I’m proof that it is possible to grow out of the picky eating habits.
I don’t have kids, but my husband is a basic meat and potatoes person. He will put Ketchup on almost anything.
P.S. I am the one in our house that will eat almost anything. My grandmother would be quite surprised since I was the picky kid when I lived with her.
Ok so I consider myself a picky eater because my parents NEVER introduced us to anything exotic. And by exotic I mean that I didn’t even try fast food chinese until I was 17. So I’m really picky when it comes to foreign foods. HOWEVER, my husband doesn’t like cheese. Or noodles. WTF? He will eat pizza, but only with mozzarella. Don’t try and sneak cheddar or parmesan on that bad boy. And he will only eat spaghetti noodles (and only with a red sauce), no other kind of noodles. This does not allow me to make any casseroles since they all contain either cheese or noodles.
Crazy man.
My nearly 5-yr-old daughter used to eat anything - and I mean ANYTHING, but lately she’s gotten pickier. However, on any given day I still manage to get some proteins, fruits, veggies, dairy and grains down her throat.
My younger girl, who is 3, subsides on fruit, cheese and carbs. However, in a rather confusing move, she removes the cheese from pizza, so when we eat that once a week, she essentially eats dough for dinner. Maybe I should give the ranch dressing trick a try?
My youngest is our picky eater. She has a real problem with textures of food - always has.
Now that she is 11, she is pretty independent about fixing herself something else.
She will come upstairs, look in the pots or oven to see what I’m making then if she didn’t like what she saw, she will head to the cupboard to find something to make for herself.
I am NOT the mom that makes several meals. If you don’t like what’s on the stove? There is always PB&J.
Ranch dressing is a miracle food, isn’t it? That’s how I survived dorm food.
Yum, ranch dressing does makes lots of things taste better.
I wasn’t too picky an eater as a kid, except that I didn’t really like the typical “kid foods” — hot dogs, pizza, and cake with frosting. I must have been a joy to have at children’s parties. (I’ve since gotten over the pizza thing, but only eat veggie hot dogs and am still picky about cake and frosting.)
My husband is the picky eater…he doesn’t like VEGETABLES. Any vegetable! Other than corn and potatoes. Which, those barely count. Maybe I should cook him up some asparagus with a side of ranch?
My daughter (19 months) wouldn’t eat baby food. I think it was a texture issue–she still isn’t into very smooth foods. I was very stressed out about it for a while, and it didn’t help that other babies her age seemed to love food and all their moms were always asking if she was eating yet and offering suggestions. Around 9 months I handed her a chunk of banana, and she LOVED it, so I started giving her other things she could feed herself and it totally worked. She ate Cheerios and little pieces of pear and garbanzo beans out of a spicy chana masala. She’s still kind of picky, and she still always has to feed herself, but she will try a lot of things.
I forgot to add that she still doesn’t eat in the mornings. I wish she would eat breakfast, but she nurses when she wakes up and just isn’t interested in real food at that point.
Ha! My friend’s son also ADORES ranch dressing. He dip everything in it. Sometimes just his fingers.
Hoo boy, my husband? He’s pickier than my baby! Elliot will eat anything I put in front of him; and he’s only 1! My husband eats red meat, potatoes, and any variation thereof. He has definitely branched out since I met him 9 years ago but I cannot just make chicken, rice and a veggie for dinner. We are on an everlasting boring rotation of: tacos, spaghetti, mashed potatoes and corn, macaroni and cheese, and turkey and cheese sandwiches.
This is the source of a lot of our arguments and my resentment towards him!
My son is one of the most picky eaters I have ever met. He doesn’t even eat candy, ice cream, cookies, cake, or any other junk food that you think every child would love. He does like popcorn and plain chips though.
Other than junk food, he will only eat a few different raw vegetables or fruits, plain tofu (we are vegetarian), spaghetti and vegetable soup. He *may* eat the cheese off of pizza and will always eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches. That’s it. We work around his eating habits and know not to go out for long periods without either a sandwich or a banana packed. I can’t wait for the day that he will try something, anything, on his own.
My boyfriend is a picky eater, although he likes to refer to himself as a “precise eater” (a term I could kick my friend Wihl’s butt for introducing him to).
We’re both vegetarians, but Spencer doesn’t particularly like vegetables. He doesn’t like tomatos, lettuce, mushrooms, zuchinni, squash, eggplant, lima beans, or asparagus. This leaves us with brocolli, cauliflower, green beans and carrots to serve with meals most nights. (Corn is not a vegetable.) He hates all condiments — including salad dressing, mustard, mayonaisse, and ketchup. He has to have whole wheat bread - not white and NOT whole grain. He loves peanut butter and jelly but is has to be grape jelly. Eating out can verge on nightmare territory when we add his best friend, also a picky eater, to the mix. Meanwhile? All of this and his favorite food is Morning Star Farms veggie corn dogs. EW.
I hate doing this, because I work for the company that makes it and I don’t want to feel like I’m pimping my product to friends but have you tried supplementing her diet with PediaSure drinks? She doesn’t look like she’s malnourished at all, but if you were concerned about her getting everything she needs it’s pretty much the reason they were made, for picky eaters. They’re a balanced source of vitamins and minerals and taste like ice cream. (I’m an especially big fan of the chocolate.)
My husband, on the other hand, will eat anything and everything that is vegan. He mixes the weirdest foods together to make a ‘meal’.
i took care of a little cousin (18 months) for about a month, and i learned quickly that depending on what kind of food it was, putting ketchup or honey mustard on top was a sure way to get him to eat it. however, the first time i tried the honey mustard thing, i made the mistake of giving it to him on the side– he stuck his fingers in it and ate it plain! adorable, if not totally nutritious…
i’m like nikkiz though, i eat nearly anything if i’ve got ranch on hand.
I have no kids who make meal times hard (though, JS doesn’t like pasta…seriously. PASTA.) When I was little, though, I wouldn’t eat much of anything. But instead of refusing? I’d just push the food all over my plate, and cut it up into microscopic pieces. I think it worked until I was 8.
I have been very fortunate that my kids are all pretty good eaters and husband and I both will try just about anything. That being said my middle daughter would subsist on buttered noodles and buttered white rice if I would let her but I only let her have those a couple of times a month if that.
My rule is you try what is put in front of you - not a big bite but enough where you can taste the flavor etc. If you don’t like what is being served you can help yourself to a sandwhich or cereal because Mom is not code for short order cook!
Yeah, that’s pretty much Liam in a nutshell. Yogurt is king, if we would actually FEED it to him. Or if we don’t mind sopping up the mess afterward if he feeds himself. But he will eat PB&J sandwiches, thank GOD. Well, mostly he digs out the jelly with his finger and eats that but I’M NOT GOING TO COMPLAIN. Right now, for breakfast, he’s having milk mixed with a yogurt smoothie in his sippy cup. Loves it. I’ll give him a handful of dry cereal here in about an hour and he’ll munch on that. Breakfast is served!
Bryan — THE OTHER ADULT IN MY HOUSE — is our picky eater. He doesn’t like tomatoes. Or anything green. He doesn’t like mayo or yogurt or sour cream. He doesn’t like salad. He doesn’t like seafood. And even if I didn’t list the food YOU’RE going to serve him in the before-mentioned list, there’s a 50% chance he won’t like it, either.
I, on the other hand, will eat anything that isn’t moving. (And some things that are.)
HA! I’ve used the you’re gonna starve line 9 out of 10 nights at my house. Only now, it works if I tell him he’s gonna go to bed. While it’s still daylight. And I send him to bed. He gets the picture now. Bed is no fun.
I have a wooden sign in my dining room that says: Dinner Choices 1)Take It 2)Leave It. My kids are required to eat what I cook. They can drown it in ketchup or ranch or picante sauce or whatever, but they will eat it when it is served. I know it sounds mean, but I don’t cook liver and onions or weird stuff. It is so nice to know that I can send my kids to someone else’s house and they will sit down and eat. I am often appalled at the friends who come over to our house and look at me like I am crazy when I put their plate in front of them. Some of them just don’t eat some of them are just plain rude - I would kill my kids!! That being said I obviously didn’t have that policy when they were little - my kids ate the normal little kid diet of yogurt, cereal etc until they were probably around 3 or 4. They are now 8, 9 and 13 and eat me out of house and home!!!
My 12 year old daughter has HUGE texture issues which has led her her being a super picky eater.
I put a very small portion of what we have on her plate every night and if she doesn’t like / want to eat it she is on her own (from a select menu that she must make herself).
Her dr. told me not to worry she would eat when she got hungry - that may have been one of the best days of my life.
Right now Edward (3 years old) is my pickiest. He sometimes eats nothing at all for lunch or dinner, and sometimes nothing at all for another meal, too. I’ve been using lamaze breathing to deal with it.
My sister once told my son to stop dipping his broccoli in his ketchup because that was gross! I almost slapped her!
My kids aren’t picky now but my son refused to eat baby food and lived in danger of choking because he insisted on solids from 6mos. Ranch makes everything better for a lot of kids I know.
My oldest son (14) will eat anything I put in front of him but my 3 yr old’s diet consists of yogurt, fruit, crackers, grilled cheese and cheese pizza. That is it!! No sweets or pasta or potatoes or rice. It worried me to death but my husband kept telling me to quit worrying because he is very healthy. But it sure is a pain to have to accomodate him with something other than what I have prepared for dinner. I just don’t have the heart to tell him to take it or leave it because he has issues with texture and seems to have a true fear of the foods he does not like. Go figure!!
My toddler is also picky and also has a YoBaby habit that is draining our bank account. My husband will eat anything I put in front of him as long as it isn’t vegetable lasanga. That is the only meal he hated that I ever made.
My 15 YO niece won’t eat baby food. Actually she won’t anything that requires utensils. If she can eat it with her fingers? Then it is good to go. So she isn’t food picky…but more like….well I don’t know what to call that? finger food picky?
Unfortunatly im the fussy eater at home. I have loosened up in the past couple of years, but there are still many of foods that i HATE.
My partner loves anything, and will eat anything! He even loves BRUSSEL SPROUTS!! i only found this out recently when he moaned that i never buy them. I said “why should we buy them? they taste gross and it would be a waste of money”
He replied… “but i love them” And he has proven that he actually does love them. Luckily none have been brought home yet. YUCK!
My daughter will be 16 in a week and she STILL doesn’t eat sauce of any kind. She’s a wacky eater. She loves veggies and fruit, pasta, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese. and caesar salads. She will not eat hamburgers, hot dogs, lasagna, spaghetti, etc. No sauce on ANYTHING. She’ll eat plain chicken, but nothing with flavoring. She hates spices of all kinds. The blander her food is, the better she likes it. My feeling is, and has been since she was a toddler, that is as long as she eats fruits and veggies, she’s fine. She’ll eat most carbs, and the protein she needs she gets from eggs, milk, cheese. Sure it’s not the most heart healthy diet, but she will never be adventurous.
She will, however, be a really cheap date since the only thing she’ll order in a restaurant is grilled cheese. Or corned beef. Plain. No potatos, no cabbage, no onions, no carrots. Plain corned beef. She’s so weird.
My older two are like Mr. Z, they will eat pretty much anything put in front of them. #3 has been more picky from day 1. Ranch is our best friend…or ketchup. He just needs “DEEEEYUP” as he says.
As our doctor says, “Toddlers are good at eating what they need…don’t push too hard, yet.”
I have no children yet, due with #1 in November, so take this with however many grains of salt you like. I read recently that you may have to introduce a new food 7 times or more before your kid will eat it. That is a lot of damn times to offer a food, and I can see why parents give up. I have grown up to be super-adventurous-omnivorous - I will try anything once. I credit my parents. They were pretty adventurous cooks, themselves, and rarely made special meals for just me, but they never forced me to eat anything. If I said I was full, I didn’t have to eat it. If I said I didn’t like it, the rule was I still had to try one bite, and then if I still didn’t like it, I didn’t have to eat it. My mom always said I should keep trying different foods because my tastes will change as I got older. Darn it, she was right, because I never liked sweet potatoes or acorn or butternut squash until I was about 20, and then all of a sudden, delicious! So, it can take a long time, but it seems like getting your kids in the habit of trying new things and making it low-pressure can work.