Overcoming the Picky Eater Around or Inside You!
Is there anyone on the planet that doesn’t know a picky eater? Are you one of them?
The more diverse your diet, the more robust and healthy you will be. Eat the Rainbow. Avoid or limit junk food. Eat whole, healthy food. You know food is healing and food is good for you, but if you can’t get it down it won’t do any good.
Let’s talk about ways to develop a healthy, positive relationship with food. We’ll use Customization, Education, Exploration, and Reboots to help. We will also discuss the difference between Picky Eating and actual eating disorders. Check the video below or read the summary. And let me know what picky food battles you’re fighting!
I started with some discussion of the picky eaters in my life. Though not a picky eater myself, I have seen up close the drama from kids to my own twin sister.
3:50 A Respectful Attitude
First: when working with kids or yourself, it is important to avoid shame, force/power struggles, berating, or any kind of negative pressure. We are setting the tone for a life time of healthy or unhealthy attitudes around food! (No pressure, right?
“We’re not just putting food in front of our kids, we are teaching them to nourish their bodies and building a positive lifelong relationship with food. ”
Though there will be days and food battles where we lose our patience and our cool, we need to put our best effort into focusing on respect and positivity. Communication and compassion are key. Avoid labels. Once a kid gets labeled a picky eater, it can stick with them for life and limit their motivation or ability to change.
Instead of criticism, celebrate their strengths and their efforts and empathize with their struggles.
5:15 Customize
Customize your approach for each kid, each case, each individual.
For example, I thought I was a great mom because I didn’t have any super “picky eaters.” Once in a while we’d encounter a conflict. But usually all I had to do was say “two bites before you turn it down.” The kid in question would reluctantly try two bites of their food and more often than not decide it wasn’t bad after all and keep eating.
2 bite rule (Worked with most of my kids): You can’t tell me you don’t like it until you’ve had two real bites of it. Then if you still don’t care for it, you can pass.
Then I had Zaida.
My fourth kid was a force to be reckoned with. No amount of “2 bites,” threats, bribes, or coercion worked. She didn’t like anything. She wouldn’t try anything. I wondered some days how she was still alive and running around with the limited nutrition I was getting down her! Finally I figured she couldn’t be ruled or punished, but she could be negotiated with. I struck a deal with her that lasted years. If she would let me make her a green smoothie for breakfast, she could have a pass at dinner. That meant I could stuff all the nutrition I could in a big glass of breakfast—protein, probiotics, fruit and veggies—and if she drank the whole thing, then that night if she didn’t like my dinner (which she usually didn’t) she could make herself something else. It wasn’t ideal, of course. But it saved a lot of drama and perhaps saved both our sanity!
Agreement with my 3 year old: IF you let mom make you a green smoothie for breakfast and you drink the whole thing, THEN you can choose to pass on what Mom makes for dinner and can opt to get yourself something else to eat. If you decline the smoothie, you have to eat what’s on the table.
7:50 Be Open To Change
Zaida was such a strong willed little critter that I had to abandon my rules and go off road. Turns out, this gave her enough agency that she was willing to agree to and abide by it. It appeased her need for control while also meeting my need to see some actual nourishment get down her.
8:00 Is Hiding Food a good method?
I’ve done this. Hid veggies in the spaghetti sauce. Put cauliflower in with the potatoes. Tried to “sneak” something new and healthy past the kids. Sometimes it works but quite often they ask “what is in this?” Or say “something is different, what did you do?” So while it may be successful on occasion, overall you are teaching the kids not to trust you by not being open and honest with them. Consider this when using any “sneaky” methods to “trick” your kids into eating something and decide, maybe on a case by case basis, if an honest approach would serve you better in the long run.
8:58 Educate
You may think this only works with older kids, but there are ways to reach all levels. With my older kids (lets say 6 and up), we often watch food documentaries or cooking shows together. We learn about different cultures and then taste something from there. I showcase a vegetable and talk about why it’s good for us and we give it a try. Things like that.
Food Documentaries (there are actual fun ones that appeal to kids!)
Cooking Shows
Ingredient Spotlights
Cultural Spotlights/Travel shows
9:48 Modeling
With younger kids, modeling is the best approach for educating. I would often say things like “I feel so much better when I eat a salad. The rest of my day goes better” Or “if I eat all my vegetables, I don’t get leg cramps at night.” Or “when I put kefir in my smoothie, I don’t get sick in the winter.” Things like that mentioned in passing sink in on some level. Even modeling how to eat foods you don’t like is helpful. My kids, for example, know I do not like applesauce. Never have and probably never will. But once in a while, I still put some on my plate and narrate my actions as I take a big bite: “I am still not crazy about this, but it’s not too bad.” Take another bite. “I think I prefer a big bite of a fresh apple, but it was nice to try this again.” They see me not pulling faces and tantrumming and able to admit I don’t like it. That can be helpful for a kid to observe.
It is helpful for kids to see us practice what we preach, even if we have to eat foods we don’t like to do it.
11:49 Explore
This is by far my favorite method of dealing with picky eaters. There are lots of way to expand horizons with food. As mentioned above, watch cooking shows and then try the recipes. Study other cultures and taste their spices. Watch a movie and notice what the characters eat, try fixing in yourself.
Behold, the miracle.
12:00 A Recipe Challenge
One of my favorite plots paid surprising dividends. When my kids were little (8 and under) I was trying to branch out and try new, healthy foods. So I spread all my healthy cookbooks and magazines on the floor (you could easily get some at the library!) and invited the kids to look through them. I told them whatever they picked out, I would fix, They each picked one that looked tasty to them and picked the day to try it. They shopped for ingredients with me and they helped me fix the dish. And then everyone gathered to eat and they were excited to try their brother or sister’s special dish. The kid that helped beamed as we served their exciting new entree. We ended up trying things I never would have thought! The most surprising part was my youngest daughter—the problem eater—Zaida. Though only 3, she wanted to play too. She carefully looked through the books and at long last found what she wanted. She was so excited to show me….it was a beef and broccoli dish. I skeptically looked at my little girl. “Broccoli?” She’d never had it. I never would have dared! This girl wouldn’t even try jam or jelly, how would I dare put a little tree in front of her? But she insisted with her limited vocabulary that she wanted it. So we made it together and a miracle occurred….she ate every bite and wanted seconds and thirds. To this day, broccoli is one of her favorite things! I never would have guessed that if we hadn’t gone exploring.
In a similar manner, I found out she adores cilantro. She’ll eat it by the bunch. My toddler wouldn’t touch ice cream that wasn’t plain brown, but she would eat cilantro by the bunch! It takes exploration to figure these things out!
14:30 Making Friends
Thank you Mr Brown, Human Biology, for making me hate asparagus!
Another aspect of exploration involves taking one food and finding different ways to fix it. I call this making friends. In the video I share a story about why I hated asparagus and swore it off forever. It was repulsive in every way to me. Then, as I tried to become a healthier adult and read how nutritious it is, I decided to make friends with it. I cooked it several ways. Turns out, I HATE boiled, canned, or steamed asparagus and raw asparagus. BUT I absolutely adore roasted asparagus. I can eat it all day. In fact, I need to learn how to grow it to fuel my cravings for it!!
Snap off the woody ends of the asparagus spears and arrange on a baking sheet. drizzle with avocado oil (or other healthy fat) and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place in oven at 425 for 10-15 minutes, or until fork tender. Sprinkle with Parmesan and broil until cheese melts and the tips of the asparagus begin to get brown and toasty. DELICIOUS
I use the above recipe all the time as a side dish, as a bed to serve salmon on, or I love it with a poached egg on top. Delectable! My kids at it too.
In a similar manner, I made friends with cauliflower (I used to totally boycott what I called “ghost broccoli” and now it is a regular in my recipe lineup! I learned to love leeks, beets, parsnips, sweet potatoes, lamb, and fish by exploring different ways of fixing each. It is so fun to cross foods off my list of No’s! What is on your list of no-no foods that you might be willing to revisit? Post in our FB group and lets see what we can help you create with it that might change your mind!
16:26 Choice/Customization:
The reason the above story worked so well is because it involved choice. All of us, regardless of age, are more likely to engage in something if we feel we had a say in it. I know I am! So whenever possible, create options, or the illusion of options. To get my kids to drink more water, I used to ask my them, “Do you want cold water or warm water to drink?” They’d eagerly clamor for the cold water. Weird, I never had any takers on warm. :) But if I asked them if they wanted a drink of water, they would always be too busy playing to respond.
I am not advocating short order cooking where you make meals for each person’s taste. But one way we have removed much of the contention from our dinner table is by serving meals that are highly customizable. Some examples would be:
Taco bar
sandwich night
burger bar
fajitas
haystacks
chili bowls
potato bar
even a classic salad bar: if there are enough goodies to pick from, kids will go for it!
In an environment with no pressure, a kid might surprise you and try something new. For example, when we do burger nights, 2 of my kids have buns and the rest of us have lettuce wraps. Zaida will always opt for a plain burger, nothing on it but bun and meat. But with no one pressuring her, I can say “why don’t you try a slice of tomato on that tonight?” and there’s a good chance she will! I about fell over the first time I saw her put lettuce and tomato on her burger. It would never have happened if I pressured her to do it.
18:00 Dressing and Dips
Dip it in ketchup, dip it in ranch. It will disappear! Salad can be a challenge for me, but I make a probiotic honey mustard dressing I can’t get enough of. I will drench my greens and suddenly the whole salad is gone and I am going for seconds. Switch it up enough to keep it interesting!
Fondue is another way to get your kids to the table to try new veggies. It is novel, the cheese pot is so enticing. They won’t realize they just dunked a bell pepper!
The key is to remember NOT to pour garbage on your beautiful, healthy dish. Steer clear of commercially bottled dressings and dips full of rancid industrial seed oils and additives. It doesn’t do you any good to eat healthy food if is is delivered with an inflammation bomb!
19:10 Acceptance
Sometimes despite your best efforts, you just can’t cultivate a taste for a particular food. You’ll never be friends with it. You just can’t do it. That’s okay! I hate cornbread and applesauce. I can appreciate gourmet versions of both. I can even make them in ways that reap the compliments. But I can’t enjoy eating them at all. They make me shudder. I’ve decided there is no nutritional gap in my diet if I forgo these foods so I gave myself permission to pass. No shame.
Likewise, we may need to give our kids such permission also. If they really can’t stand a specific food after giving it a fair chance and trying it several times (remember it can take 12-20 times to get a taste for a new food!), it may be time to let them pass. Respecting their preferences this way will make them more likely to trust you when you recommend new foods in the future.
20:07 An example to illustrate:
Laura S. wrote in with this issue:
Cauliflower dipped in Avocado? Sorry Laura, probably not your dish. :)
I can't stand cauliflower and avocado. I've overcome a lot of my childhood dislikes, but these ones I can't seem to get over. Any tips? Or alternatives?
There are a couple things you can do.
Substitute:
If you really can’t stand them, look for alternatives!
Avocado: Make a smashed pea guacamole or spread hummus on your toast.
Cauliflower: Trade it straight across for broccoli in any recipe calling for cauliflower. Also, try riced sweet potatoes, carrots, or squash instead of riced cauliflower.
Explore Options:
Not ready to throw in the towel? Both of these foods are incredible versatile; it would be nearly impossible to say you’ve tried them every way and disliked them all.
Avocado: blend into smoothies. dressings or sauces to add smoothness. Smash them in with hard-boiled eggs for a different take on deviled eggs. Some people like to make a chocolate pudding with them but I think it tastes like chocolate guacamole. Pass for me. You can completely change the flavor profile by marinating them! I like them cubed and covered with lemon or lime juice and served in a salad with cubed papaya. Completely different!
Cauliflower: google recipes, there are as many for cauliflower nowadays as there are digits in pie. Which reminds me, Cauli-shepherd’s pie is delicious. Try different methods of cooking it. I don’t like it steamed or boiled, but roasted is awesome. Try ricing it. Ham fried Cauliflower or cauliflower curry is great. I just invented a cauliflower porridge because my hubby can’t have oatmeal or any grains and no nuts. Sounds like a nightmare, right? It is actually kicks butt on a cold morning. Have you tried the Wisconsin cheddar soup at Zupas? Cauliflower! I avoided it for years before a double dare persuaded me to order it. I have been tricking myself into eating cauliflower for so long now that recently at a party where there was literally nothing I could eat except raw cauliflower and ranch, I was hungry enough to give it a go and I actually liked it. Never thought that was possible.
22:00 Rebooting your Tastes
Finally, after using all these tricks and methods, there is one last concept I want to cover: the reboot. In our modern diet, we have been bombarded with fake, overpowering flavors. Walk down the snack aisle and look for words like Extreme, ultra, ultimate, overload, amped up, blasted, etc. The food industry has perfected the science of flavor and used additives, sugar and salt to make everything off the chart. We’ve lost our ability to taste the subtleties of natural food. We are desensitized to finer tastes. We have Flavor Dysmorphia!
“Flavor Dysmorphia: a modern state where the palette is overstimulated by food additives and overabundant sugars and salt, numbing our ability to perceive and appreciate real, complex and natural flavors. ”
How do we overcome this? You may not like what I say next….we have to go without for awhile. A good example is a 10 day sugar fast. You simply drop sugar in all forms out of your diet for 10 days. No added, hidden, natural or artificial sweets at all. At the end of 10 days, when you taste something sweet, even something you used to eat daily, you will be shocked with how overpoweringly sweet it tastes! You will have increased your sensitivity to sweetness and may find you enjoy real food more. Fruit will taste like candy!
The “Brain cake” that changed his mind.
23:30 Damon’s Story:
Listen to me talk about how my teenage son had to go off sweets and processed foods. A few months in, I was helping his little sisters frost a cake for a party and he stared longingly at it with an expression that broke my heart. I told him to take a swipe of frosting with his finger. He lit up. “Really mom?” Yep. He did. His eyes got big for a half a second and then his face fell. He actually spit it out. “What’s wrong?” I asked, knowing full well. “It doesn’t taste like I remember. It tastes fake and gross.” His tastes had rebooted (I like to say back to the factory settings!) Even now he enjoys fruit more than that “gross” frosting he use to pine for.
24:30 Rebooting your Gut
It’s not enough just to recalibrate your taste buds. It is much deeper than that. By now, you are aware of how many billions of microflora live in your guts. You probably know there are more bacteria cells than human cells in your body! And that they are essential to survival. Our microbiome helps us digest our food, absorb nutrients, run our immune system, regulate hormones and emotions, it even communicated directly with our brain! Our microbiome is constantly changing and shifting in response to what we put in our body. If we eat processed foods and lots of sugar, the strains that will thrive in our body love exactly those things. If we cultivate a “gut garden” of these sugar loving microbes and suddenly put a salad into our system, their will be a revolt! It may look like gas and bloating to you, but to them it is a signal, a warning to give it the sugar it is used to and skip this fiber nonsense! Because what you eat feeds them and they grew up on sugar, a radical diet change is a threat to their survival and they will put up a fight. These bacteria will literally signal your brain to send you more of what they want. We call these cravings. That’s why you may have tried to start a diet cold turkey but found you coudln’t get past the cravings for sugar or chips or whatever you’re missing.
The good news is that you can change your gut. You can shift the balance to healthy bacteria that love and crave healthy, real, nutritious foods. It takes a little patience, some pre- and probiotics, and a lot of good food, but it can be done!
The foods she gave a thumbs up to at the beginning of her journey are complete opposite of those she loves now!
26:37 Tayler’s story
Listen to a story about my sugar loving daughter, Tayler. She grew up with a sweet tooth and a junk food radar. She was a typical kid who loved chips and ice cream and pizza and nuggets. I share a not so flattering story (for me) about a dinner encounter where I couldn’t get her to eat my “healthy” dinner.
When she was 12, we had to completely change her diet for medical reasons. It was drastic. Lots of whole foods. Lots of probiotics and gut balancing foods. No junk. At all. It was hard at first. I used all the methods we’ve covered here. Education, exploration, respect and love and a lot of creativity to make the change as smooth as possible. But it was a huge shift for us.
Fast forward 4 years. She is 16 now and her real food, no sugar lifestyle is permanent. She likes it. She doesn’t want the junk food. She eats better than I do!
So I asked her what her favorite foods are now.
Foods I never would expect a teenage girl to try, let alone love!
29:20 As adults
We have more control over what we put in our body, what we feed ourselves. Are we creatures of habit? Are we at the mercy of our schedules? Are we Fast, Cheap, and Easy? Can we change? If we can mindful enough to cultivate our palettes and our guts to appreciate real, natural foods, we will completely elevate our quality of life.
Do you Need Help with A Reboot?
You can cleanse and rebalance your gut on your own. But if you’d like help with some methods and systems, give me a holler!
30:31 Is this Beyond Picky Eating?
Have you wondered if there is more going on here than just picky eating?
30:38 Allergies and Intolerances
Consider getting tested for food allergies and intolerances. There may be a biological reason behind your aversion to a food. I know I’ve never been crazy about dates. I make or buy Larabars for my kids all the time. But when an intolerance panel showed I was reacting to dates, suddenly the pressure was off and I stopped trying to force myself into eating them. I can help you order testing, if you’re interested.
31:33 Eating Disorders
I think as mom’s we have powerful intuition when it comes to our kids. Is this more than stubbornness and power struggles? Does this go beyond a preference for junk food? Is their real anxiety and even fear behind their food choices. Are they avoiding social situations involving food? Are they at risk for nutritional deficiencies from severely limited food options? Is this upsetting their entire life? Here is a helpful list of the differences between picky eating and what’s called Selective Eating Disorder (Or Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder).
If you suspect you or a loved one have SED, contact a professional psychologist for help. Though I can offer dietary support to supplement medical care, disorders like this are out of my scope of practice.
33:36 Some Helpful Sources
Community is always helpful so I have a couple Facebook groups to offer for you (not run by me.)
Feeding Littles: they have a great community for moms of toddlers and infants. On their site, they even offer online courses and a free newsletter full of helpful tips and supports for struggling moms.
Extreme Eating Help: another facebook group with a supportive community. They cater to a wider range of ages. They have two great books on Amazon that can help you out. One for younger kids and the other is an actual workbook for teens and adults. Might be worth looking into! (Links included in post are affiliate links, I do get a small kick back if you purchase, but that is NOT my motivation!)
34:25 Conclusion:
It is worth every effort for us to overcome picky eating in ourselves and our children, to expand our horizons and our health by embracing a wider range of foods.
We can do better. We can feel better!
Come visit me in the Farm store to chat in person about your picky eating struggles.
Chat in our very own facebook page!
Work with me personally!
The most successful plan is one with you in mind. I can help you identify where you need to focus your efforts and come up with a strategy that works with your lifestyle! Book a free 20 minute session to explore what you need!