No More "Picky" Eaters

I was out with some friends recently, and the subject turned to our children’s eating habits. Immediately, three of the parents looked sheepish. Out came the confessions:

“My kid doesn’t eat anything.” 

“It’s pasta every night.”

“My kid is a picky eater.”

While I am in no way qualified to be a dinner table therapist, my first reaction was: let’s stop with the guilt trips. What to feed our kids is a complicated issue. There are so many competing values at play for each and every meal: is the meal healthy, local, organic, not too expensive, convenient, flavorful? We want our kids to be adventurous eaters. We want to eat together as a family. We want our kids to grow. But mostly, it’s 6 pm and we just want to get dinner on the table, pronto.

Some people might say I have a picky eater in my house. But I reject this label as a waste of time. My so called “picky eater” loves gnocchi, pineapple, guacamole and burritos. He doesn’t like pizza (unless he makes it himself), hamburgers, cake or ice cream. He says he is a vegetarian, although he has a weakness for bacon. While I find one-dish dinners a quick dinner option, he is wary of food where he can’t figure out what is in it (being suspicious of new or unfamiliar foods, and the ability to grow out of it, may be genetic).

Is that picky, or is that just who he is right now? I choose to take the long view, even though it’s longer than I ever thought possible, and have faith my child will make it to adulthood as an adventurous and healthy eater.

There are steps to take to encourage children to broaden their palates and be healthy, even if they aren't eating a wide variety of foods. I employ many of these regularly (even if I don’t see immediate results).  

• Start with whole foods (not the store, but the concept). Shop the edges of the grocery store as much as possible, where the fresh and perishable foods are.

• Get kids invested in shopping, growing and preparing food. I teach cooking to kids and adults, and I find most students are interested in what they touch. They may not eat it all, but usually they’ll try it.

• As the great blog Dinner a Love Story says, have something familiar on the table along with new dishes. For my family, that often means pasta in some shape or form. If my kids want the pasta plain, so be it. If we have soup and bread and they only want bread, so be it. When they get to choose what’s for dinner, it’s almost always ravioli. So be it.

• Have veggies and fruit out. Just put out a bowl of grapes and see what happens. My kids will eat a number of different veggies, but only raw. So for now, keep it simple. 

• Avoid processed foods as much as possible, or as Michael Pollan says: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” If the choice is between a pre-made smoothie with 15 ingredients, and one you make in the blender with yogurt, honey, and frozen fruit, go for home-made.

• And of course, the most important rule of all is that sometimes you have to break the rules. And not feel bad about that.