How do you get good food into picky children?

My grandson (4) is one of the worst. He'll see microscopic things in his food "what's that green thing?" when there's nothing and absolutely refuse to have a single bite. Other than squeezing his cheeks to force his lips apart (which I admit I did once), there's no way to enforce a rule that he has to try a bite. He won't.

I wonder if she would like 'ice cream' made with bananas, or sorbet made with fruit or made into popsicles.
could make some for the whole family.

Well, this may sound harsh, (and my kids are grown now), but.....I always tried to serve pretty balanced meals. We usually had some sort of meat, a real salad, and a vegetable and maybe a roll. Casseroles were frequent too with veggies in them (whole not hidden). Dessert was special, maybe a couple nites a week. I really never had too much problem, because either they ate or they went hungry. No special meal for either of them if they didn't like what was being served. And because of that, they both eat pretty healthy today

It doesn't seem like your kid is terribly picky. My nephew exists on chicken nuggets, fries and pizza only. But that's because my sister in law allows it.

I don't have picky eaters, so I have no advice to offer. I do think however that while hiding veggies is getting the kids the nutrients, it isn't showing them that broccoli can be tasty. I wouldn't call that a long term soloution.

My grandson (4) is one of the worst. He'll see microscopic things in his food "what's that green thing?" when there's nothing and absolutely refuse to have a single bite. Other than squeezing his cheeks to force his lips apart (which I admit I did once), there's no way to enforce a rule that he has to try a bite. He won't.

My kids exactly!

NONE of the above would have worked for me. I was (an still am to some extent) a veggie ninja. I have a 6th sense for them and would not touch anything with them. Just try to be as healthy as you can and hope their taste buds change. Mie did for somethings, but I still cant eat salads...lettuce

The problem with the topic, if you'll give me a few minutes is the very question. I think that the question might be 'how did I break my child and how do I heal her?' This is question I have asked myself on more than one occasion. The introspection is not for the cowardly. I am tough and I barely survived the process of looking in on my beliefs and examining the roots, the assumptions and the solutions to attempting to be a clone and raise one.

No one has to like my reply. I do not intend any rudeness but this subject has fascinated me since I was a child and I'm 46 now. I'll always remember the disagreeable adolescents and adults that started out life as 'picky eaters'. This may not be your child but in my experience 'picky eater' is synonymous with 'my parents were too frightened to raise me to deal with the real world so they trained me to be a complete tyrant on accident instead'.

One: Please consider the value of stopping the habit of feeding your child things KNOWN to destroy digestion and create obesity and diabetes. Don't take my word, study Dr. Peter Glidden and Dr. Joe Wallach on the subject. Their entire medical practices are the most cutting edge on preventing nutritionally related diseases. GLUTEN and GRAINS are not good things to feed little people or most big people.

Two: Apple Juice is a drug, not a food, from a neuroscience perspective. Most things that I witnessed average, otherwise conscientious and educated parents feeding their toddlers was NOT FOOD. I didn't feed my kid juice, only whole fruits and only after she had way more FAT than you describe in the 'what you're already doing' post. First thing every day, my kid eats tons of well sourced fats, second she gets protein according to her activity needs and body weight. Third she may eat from the rainbow any or no food of her choosing. I do not restrict anything and keep the house full of brightly colored, in season, local fruits and veg from the bargain bin. She doesn't eat processed food. We spent WAY too much time trying to live according to the popular mythology otherwise known as modern pediatric opinion and all it got us was a sick kid living in the ER at Children's Hospital. Since I started following my own wisdom and removing Gluten, Grains, sugars and assorted fake food from our lives, about 21 months ago, she's had ZERO trips to the ER.

Three: Make new friends who eat things YOU don't like. Join a Celiac or Paleo Mom's group, learn to cook with the Paleo community. Join a Weston Price Buying Club in your area. Attend an Ancestral Health Symposium. Stretch your own palate. Explore other cultures and nutritional paradigms than the one you're currently espousing as if the exploration is the biggest treat on earth.

My daughter is fearless in Chinatown and eats anything, I MEAN anything, that is put in front of her. She does this from a place of pride and JOY, not because I 'fooled' her or from any coercion. We made a code word which I HONOR to this day. If we're in public, at a friend's home or at a restaurant and she samples the food enthusiastically with not a hint of dislike while exhibiting great manners and posture, but tells me privately, quietly that it tastes "interesting', then and only then is she excused from trying any more of the new food.

Once I got all the digestion destroying ingredients out of our life, built a life around my daughter's optimal health and changed who I hung out with, who I learn from and how I look at nutrition, the kid ate everything with ENTHUSIASM. She did go through a texture preference for nothing leafy from birth to age 6.5. I did not require her to eat lettuce ever! When she started asking for salads, I was surprised but showed no preference. Our agreement was that she didn't need to eat anything that she didn't prefer the texture or flavor of, not ever. When we shop she eats the rainbow. We explore the benefits of each of the bright colors online and then she is responsible for making decisions about how to fulfill her body's rainbow requirements.

We made a calendar on a page as big as she is that she could crawl around on and color. We also cut out pictures of food and glue sticked them to the poster. She colored the days of the week one color per day with bright (washable) markers. Each day she only need eat one serving of that day's color which she already chose herself while we were shopping.

Now for shopping via the rainbow:

Example: [In the produce section with our favorite produce guy, Audi. Please show us (color) today.] She needs to try something new, something she's never tried before each time we shop before we buy her familiar faves. The brain loves novelty. She is not required to swallow. In fact depending on the age of the child there are several steps required to circumvent often maladjusted amygdalas. One: touch the food. Kids touch foods for a long time before eating them. Two: Smell the food: Three: Touch the food to their lips. Four: Touch the food to their tongue. Five: Bite but do not eat the food. Six: Chew and spit out the food. Seven: Eat the food. When she has gotten through all of these stages with a new food over multiple visits to see Audi, she can like or not like the food but now her brain has a choice rather than a knee jerk reaction to it.

Rule: Today is Red day. Pick a REAL RED food (apples don't count - they are like a Snickers bar but without the helpful fat and protein, they must be 'earned' by eating enough fat and protein to make it more safe for her to digest, so a slice of bacon first, salt and cinnamon on the slices, always organic). Never made her eat tomatoes. They are nightshades. I'm not sensitive to them but maybe she is. I trust her wisdom. She selects raspberries and sometimes strawberries or very red figs. Great. Done.

A different day: Today is Green day. She reminds me of what she doesn't prefer. I say, 'that's fine, dear, what green WILL you eat'. She picks chard. We take it home, I chop and she sautes it in grass fed butter, pastured lard or chicken fat. We blend it with my immerson (stick) blender with some chicken bone broth and a spoon of her favorite herbed butter that she made herself at Thanksgiving and put away for cold, wet days like today in January. She's in heaven over the creamy goodness of the emulsified fat. She experiences pure pleasure. This feeds her brain happy chemistry. She likes different herbs than me. I would have chosen the parsley butter but she likes thyme. No problem. We own multiple containers, we can have different herbed butters.

Closing anecdotal points: My kid is training for triathlon. She lifts kettlebells, She taught herself algebra one day when I got busy in the kitchen creating and I didn't even know she could add or subtract as she was only 4. She started her first business at 6.9 years. She is musically creative, studying several instruments, she loves to learn EVERYTHING whether it is global politics, local cultural events or trivial pop culture, she is autodidactic. She is full of compassion and wisdom and continually looking to improve the systems around her that don't work as well as her little life does. These are the rewards to my choosing to live outside the overculture's norms for parenting, nutrition and eating. A kid who is a natural at being herself who is a highly selective and discriminating consumer but not a picky anything.

Have you tried having them help make the dish? My friends can never figure out how I manage to get their children to eat veggies and fruits at my house, but they will not touch it at home. Their parents refer to them as picky eaters, whereas with me they're little angels and great helpers.

There is a book titled The Sneaky Chef and there is also a website The Sneaky Chef....has all sorts of recipes that show you how to sneak the veggies in...really great check it out..

bump. my son is 19 mos and way too smart for his age lol

My kids eat what I serve, or they get punished.
We seldom have any issues. Hunger coupled with proper discipline has a way of stifling a picky attitude.

I didn't read anyone else response, but I think the best way is to make her a smoothie and put fruit and vegatables in it. Add some spinach, carrots, bananas and blueberries with some vanilla yogurt with milk or juice. That should do the trick, well only if she likes smoothies.

My daughter does this with her kids too.

I am not going to make any friends in this post. But here it goes.

Now there are Deceptively Delicious by Jerry Seinfeld's wife. But I must say stop being a short order cook request at least three bites of a food and re introduce it again a month later. It takes children a while to develop there tastes. Try raw over cooked veggies with dips or salad dressings. Try and remember when you were a kid and the foods you did not really like. For me it was mushrooms and peas. Until an aunt did not boil the peas for an hour. This showed my mom that I would eat if not over cooked.

You could ask her to describe what she does not like about the taste to see if this is a taste thing or just I don't want to eat that. If it is a control thing. Put the plate in the fridge and when hungry try it again.
Skipping a meal is not being a bad parent make. I know easier said than done. Just try again later. But don't be a short order cook.

I wish you the best.

^^THIS!

Smoothies, pureed soups and spaghetti sauces (cooked carrots puree well into spag. sauce), and tasty dips or for celery/carrot stix and cheese sauces for broccoli and cauliflower worked well for me, too.

Most people really don't want an answer to this question because it means they won't get their "goodies" either. Get rid of all foods high in sugar or starch until the child learns that veggies and meats can fill all voids. Veggies can be sweet, crispy, savory, spicy, or anything you want them to be depending on how they are prepared. Yes, that means get rid of the noodles. Get rid of the chips, popcorn, crackers or pretzels. No soda in the house. No candy. No sweet juices (get low sodium veggie juice if the rascal wants something other than water or milk). Cut back or eliminate sweet fruits for a little while. No prepackaged foods. Once the sugar (and chemicals if you are giving them soda or prepackaged foods) is out of their system, real food will start to taste good to them.

The sad reality is that many children who are "picky eaters" are really just addicts. Real food doesn't have the caffeine and sugar hit of a nice soda or the sodium kick and high glycemic rush of a chip. Prepackaged foods are loaded with chemicals to make you crave them. Etc. Etc.

Unfortunately, you must get the crap out of your house because kids like that are smart. They know you aren't going to let them starve to death and you need to be able to look them in the eye, with all honesty in yours, and say "Hunny, we do not have any of that in the house. We only have this, this or that. Which would you like?"

Part 2 is almost equally as important. Tell them to turn off the TV, computer or video game and come help Mommy in the kitchen. As noted above, show them the things you have and let them decide which one you are going to eat for dinner. Have them help peel, chop, etc. If they are real young, this could be standing on the chair next to you and have them move things from a cutting board (that you chopped) into another bowl, EVEN IF YOU DON'T NEED ANOTHER BOWL! If they are involved, they are creating. When they create, the have pride. When they have pride in their creation, they are more apt to eat it.

Good luck!

EXCELLENT! You should be a mom.

I didn't read anyone else response, but I think the best way is to make her a smoothie and put fruit and vegatables in it. Add some spinach, carrots, bananas and blueberries with some vanilla yogurt with milk or juice. That should do the trick, well only if she likes smoothies.

This! But I use Pineapple as the main fruit as it makes it sweeter and a dont put yougert. Add some honey let him/her make it with you. I tell my very very picky daughter if you cant eat the hot veggies on your plate you can eat the smoothie for a snack and not have the veggies on your plate at all, Mind you it will take some listening to fuss at the begining but after a couple weeks she quit fussing over it and now she will eat SOME vegies but alot of smoothie.