The worst mistake you can make.

     Now it may be presumptuous of me to say this is the worst mistake you can make. I suppose a worse mistake would be to get the picky eater to eat by flinging peas into his mouth using a spoon as a trebuchet. But only just behind that is the all too common proclamation made in an attempt to get the child to eat, which in reality doesn't convince. To tell a picky eater "You can't even taste it" is a grave error made all too often.

     First of all, you have no idea whether I can taste it or not. You probably like the taste of whatever it is already, so having a slight bit of that flavor means nothing to you. However, for the picky eaters like me, it's an obvious change to what the meal could have been. We all have different tastes and tolerances, so maybe you truly can't taste those carrots in the soup, but to me they stick out worse than a clown at Sunday service.

      Second, it feels like an attack. It isn't going to be the same for everyone, but when I get told "You can't taste it" what I hear is "What is wrong with you? Why can't you eat like a normal person?" Not only is that depressing, but it also completely puts me off to whatever is now being put in front of me. I will dislike this food even if I can't taste whatever ingredient was originally putting me off.

    Rather than try to convince the eater that the ingredient has no taste, acknowledge that it's in there, and ask them to give it a shot. Highlight what is in the recipe that they like (hopefully it contains something  that they like, because otherwise there is next to no chance of this working out) and, if possible, make the pieces of the ingredient small so that the flavor has the best chance of actually "disappearing".

From a grown up picky eater

One would think that a boy who hated vegetables and loved greasy foods would never fall for a dietician. Well, it happened.

My name is Grant, and while I've progressed a lot from my childhood fits caused by the mere presence of greens, I still regard the majority of vegetables as "icky". Then my wife entered the picture. She had grown up eating fairly healthy and then got her degree in dietetics, so needless to say vegetables are now taking a greater place in my diet, whether I want them to be or not.

While I have grown and matured from where I used to be in my eating preferences, it's still rough sometimes to find things I like to eat.

What I've noticed is that there are a near infinite amount of blogs, books, and articles addressing the issue of picky eaters.  Ranging from fun recipes to near mind control they all claim to be the great fix for the picky eater. But what I find to be lacking were these very things written by picky eaters.  The writers of these books and articles talk about living with and cooking for the child with the selective palette, but what happened to the voice Of the picky child?

My hope with this blog is to shed a little more light on what happens in the mind of the picky eater. I want to show why is it that the tricks work, and why things may not work out as well as they did for the author.

So to close my first blog post, I would like to offer what is in my opinion the most important thing to apply when working with a picky eater. Be patient. Now, when I say that I don't even necessarily be patient as you work through different recipes and techniques. You might do everything right and still end up with a child that refuses to eat his broccoli, but that's ok. A child who doesn't like carrots is not a sign of a bad parent nor a bad child. Let them grow up and eventually on their own they may develop a love for the foods they once despised.

I mean, when I was younger I refused to eat potatoes in anything other than fry or chip form. No matter what recipe was tried I wanted nothing to do with them.  But then I grew up. I went off on my own and actually lived in Argentina for 2 years, where I learned to not only eat potatoes, but wholeheartedly enjoy them. Now I eat mashed, boiled, and baked potatoes whenever I get a chance!

So really, don't stress too much about it. Just let them learn to love different foods on their own time.