2 Picky Eaters

I got a wonderful gift for Christmas called Deceptively Delicious. It's a cookbook by Jerry Seinfeld's wife. Every recipe has ways to hide veggies in it and it's everyday stuff like chicken nuggets, mac and cheese. It's been a big help.

my kids were the same way...my son is 18 now and 6 foot 2 inches and 215 pounds....as he got older he would try more things. He loved tacos...has alittle bit of everything in them.

My son is exactly the same way. We wants to eat cheese and bread with ketchup nonstop. I use to worry about this until my doctor said not to worry. I now sneak vegetables in his food. I steam veggies and then cut them up very small or put them in a food processor and add them to spaghetti sauce or ketchup. He likes to make pizza so he makes it with the "special sauce" I don't really worry about meat as I add his vitamins to juice and whatever he eats for breakfast so he does not know.

When my kids were little, I put cheeze whiz on anything the didn't like to eat. My oldest liked cinnamon sugar sprinkled on her scrambles eggs!! It got them to eat stuff they normally wouldn't try. Ketchup is great, as long as they are not allergic. I have three kids, 25, 23, and 17. I will be a grandmother for the first time in August. Looking forward to the eating challenges all over again. Good luck!!

Hi I have 3 kids,14,11,and 6. 2's are tuff for picky eaters. My sister has one right now. Do they like muffins? You can take a basic muffin recipe and put anything ground or finely chopped up in them broccoli, cheese, chicken, ham, carrots, peas, etc.... you name it. Call them miny cakes. It worked for me. Jerry Sienfeled's (sp?) wife wrote a book about how to sneek things into food to get them by the kids. Also keep offering alittle bit and they will eventually try it. We did that w/ our youngest. She now eats potatoes and broccoli.
L.

I have a 27 month girl, and the opposite with her. She prefers fruits and veggies(no broccoli).To get her to eat bread I make her a fruit sandwich or mini bagel with cream cheese or PB.It works most of the time. Also try to give him only wheat bread.Good luck!

Hi!
My daughter (14 months) can be a buster too! hehe
I've discovered that putting veggies in a pancake, potatoe pancake or even sweet potatoe pancake (her favorite) does the trick! She'll occassionally pull out 1 or 2 veggies but eats the rest. It's like eating a hearty piece of bread to them.
Just butter them lightly so they are not too dry. You may find it's something your whole family likes. The same works with fruits too!
Hope I helped if even just a little!
Good Luck and God bless!
stepmarie

Hello G.,

I have twin 3 year olds. My little girl stubbornly refuses to eat veggies or meat(chicken nuggets)
1. She is not allowed any "treats" unless she eats her healthy foods at dinner. For veggies, she will eat raw carrots and also loves veggie/fruit juice(V8stawberry or mango). It disguises carrot/tomato/veggie juice. For protein she eats standard mac and cheese, yogurt(drinkables)grilled cheese,pizza(she makes it with mini pizza crust,tomato sauce, cheese, and very vanilla soy milk.Oh, also the new protein/wheat pasta is quite tasty! Treats include pudding, homemade cookies (pumpkin choc-chip, I have a fantastic recipe for these "healthy cookies. Let me know if you would like to try these. Other treats include ice cream and pop-tarts(from the health food store--not the high sugar/frutose ones). She also loves mangos-high in vitamin A. There is a book that you might want to buy called Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food. I have tried a few of their suggestions.. Hope this helps! I am told this is just a stage!

Jerry Seinfeld's wife, Jessica Seinfeld put out a cookbook calledf Deceptively Delicious. It is great. It give tons of recipes on how to "hide" veggies in food. Basically you use a food processor to add veggies to everything from chicken nuggets to chocolate doughnuts. My son is 18 months and a pretty great eater, I'm so lucky, so I haven't tried it much yet. Although my husband doesn't eat veggies very often. I've tried a few things, it's fun and worth it, at least I think. Also, my pediatrician says to look at the amount of food weekly instead of daily and you may feel better about what your kids eat. All toddlers seem to go through hunger strikes! Good luck!

Try to make a hamburger or patties made up of meat/fish/beef put grated carrots, cheese, mix with bread crumbs and a little flour, put egg, salt, pepper & mix all ingredients and form into patties and fry. He can eat it as hamburger for his sandwich or viand. Try to mash some vegetables like potato, carrots, squash to your soup.

My son was the same way. We had the year of the hot dog, the year of the chicken, etc. That is what he would eat every meal. All of a sudden when he was about 6 he suddenly started eating pretty much everything. He is now 6 ft 2 in and the father of his own 2 boys! Give them a multivit and wait it out.

My daughter is 11 and hates to eat veggies. But she does. I give her what is called a "no-thankyou" serving of veggie, which is like a tablespoon of peas or 3 broccoli spears. you get the point. or try mixing the veggies in mac n cheese, it make it colorful and it should work. best of luck!!!

I am a mother of four. One girl, three boys. My daughter is 9 and my sons are 6,4, and 3. Something I found with encouraging healthy eating habits is letting the kids help me fix meals. Also, giving them some choices about meals like "Do you want to have corn or peas with dinner tonight?" I've found that this combo helps a lot! When the kids get to help pick out what's for dinner, they're more excited about eating it also, they are definitely excited to eat something that they helped fix! My 6 and 4 year old both call themselves my chefs now. My husband is a chef, so it really makes him happy to have the kids be so interested in preparing their meals!
I really hope this helps you out!
~P.

Hi G.! Have you check out the Sneaky Chef cookbook. There are a lot of great ways to sneak veggies into kids everyday meals that they love (including desserts). I am lucky right now that my soon to be 2 year old loves his veggies, but there is nothing wrong with giving him the extra boost. I bought my book at Borders for I believe $15. As for meats, I really can't help you with that. Good luck!

I mix baby food veggies into my pastas/sauces. For instance, Get a Gerber 2nd's Mixed Veggie and mix it into a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese. There is just a slight effect on the taste, but it looks the same because the veggies are orange. Another thing I do is cut the broccili up very small and mix it in with the rice (it should be the size of a piece of rice or smaller). If your son asks, just tell him that you bought green rice for St. Patrick's day.
Another, my son likes playing with dinosaurs. We have little toy trees and I told him that they like to eat trees. So, he makes the dinousaurs chomp on the trees. Then, when we sit down for dinner with broccili, I tell him to eat the trees, just like the dinosaurs do. If he is hesitant, let him have a dinosaur at the table to "feed". Then call him your big dinosaur and tell him to eat his trees to grow big and strong.
Another trick, have your kids help make make the food. For instance, I have my 2 1/2 year old stir the food or "chop" the ground meat with a wooden spoon (with supervision of course).
My son loves to drink milk instead of eat so I don't give him any milk until the end of the meal. If he's really thirsty, I let him have a sip, but then he has to eat 2 more bites to get antoher sip. This has really improved his appetite.
I also noticed that after the baby was born, he ate even less because he wanted us to feed him, just like we feed her. And, I stopped catering to his wants. I tell him that this is dinner, if he doesn't want to eat it, that's fine, but I'm not making him anything else. That also doest the trick on difficult days.
I don't know if this helps, but good luck.

I feel your pain! There are so many arguments out there that if you give it to them, they will eat it. If you eat it, they will eat it. If you keep offering it, they will eat it. Not in my house! My oldest son refused green veggies even as a baby - period. He would eat "orange" baby food...but even that stopped early on. At 12, he still completely refuses anything veggie related - has actually vomited rather than eat vegetables!

Now...for the nature v. nurture argument in my house - my daughter eats ANYTHING and EVERYTHING and will try things she has not liked in the past over and over just to make sure. We eat quite a few veggies of varying types and salads on a regular basis - so the example is there and my daughter's mentality has always been, "if mommy is eating it, it must be OK."

My youngest has a severe sensory processing problem and only eats a few foods, period. From what we have learned in working with him - many of my oldest son's food issues are sensory related too.

OK...all of that said...here are a few things that have worked for us. Pumpkin bread. Zucchini bread. Carrot muffins. Zucchini pancakes (if you have to...zucchini is actually good with chocolate chips in breads, etc.). The V8 Splash is good and my oldest will drink that occasionally.

Finally, if all else fails, the health food store sells green food Gummy-Vite Bears. These look like gummy bears and taste decent enough that my boys will both take them. They have all kinds of green food, orange food and purple food "good stuff" in them.

Good luck - this is a difficult battle!

Do you have a food processor? If not, a blender may work too. Try putting some veggies; brocolli, squash, cauliflower in the processor/blender with spaghetti sauce. My oldest is autistic and has texture issues and loves carbs as well. Not only will the added veggies in the sauce give your boys extra vitamins and nutrients, the sauce already has the benefits of the tomatoes. I usually like to buy Newmans Own sauce because it's more natural without the high fructose corn syrup in it. To add protein, you could try tofu in the processor/blender as well. The tofu takes on the flavor of the food you add it to. As long as it's well blended, the color (white) shouldn't be too obvious that your little guys will notice. You could also try lean ground turkey or chicken in the sauce as well. If really saucy spaghetti isn't for your boys, I make spaghetti bake. My 8yo hates red sauce. I make the sauce with meat, boil angel hair pasta. Mix it together in a baking dish and bake on 350 for 20 minutes. It helps to dry the red sauce and helps to lessen the acidity as well. My husband usually can't eat regular spaghetti without getting reflux, but can eat spaghetti bake since the acid seems to bake off.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

B.

Hi G.,

The best way I've found to increase the kinds of foods given to my kids is to limit what is available. As long as other choices are available, they will continue to eat only what is familiar. At dinner, we have vegetables, meat, and some sort of carb. There are no other alternatives.

I've found that children won't starve themselves, they may refuse to eat at one meal or even two, but they will get hungry and they will eat what you offer. You're not being mean, you're being the parent.