The Finicky Eater

The worst meal of the day for families with young children is definitely dinner time. Moms and dads are tired. One or both of them just got home from work. They’re eager to get dinner over with, so they can get their screaming tots into the bath, then into bed, before they can finally take a break. And the worst, absolutely the worst thing either of them can do is engage in a power struggle with that child over what food passes between his lips. Once a parent demands that they clean up their plate, it is no longer an issue of health and nutrition. This is a battle of wills, and one the parent cannot win. If the child does eat, he’s not forming healthy, happy eating habits. If he doesn’t eat, the parent will either cave in, or be forced to discipline the child, which can lead to life-long eating disorders.

So end the meal time battle right now, and try a few of the following alternatives:

A Healthy Snack

• Eliminate all refined sugar from your child’s diet. Sugar is not nutritious, but when your child eats even just a little sugar, it changes his palate, and he’ll crave sugary foods even more. He won’t want to eat anything that isn’t sweet. It takes a few weeks to break the sugar addiction, but once you do, you’ll really appreciate how much better all your other food tastes. Natural sugar found in fruit is fine – in moderation, of course.
• Establish specific meal times, and stick to the plan. Write down what time you eat breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. Serve them at the same time every day. Keep them about three hours apart, with NO SNACKING in between. Your child is more likely to eat if he comes to the dinner table hungry.
• Provide plenty of activity during your child’s day. See that he has time to run and play outside, dance, jump, ride a tricycle, throw a ball, climb, hop, crawl, and turn somersaults. Don’t raise a couch potato. If your child is burning calories, he’ll need to refuel at the dinner table.
• Serve more raw foods, more individual foods, and fewer casseroles. It is not uncommon for a little child to like to eat carrots, corn, green beans, and peas, but refuse to eat “veg-all” with all of those vegetables mixed in together. Remember when your young child was still an infant, you might have fed him a jar of peas and a jar of apricots for a meal, but you probably didn’t feed him a jar of lasagna.

Just Because It's Green, Doesn't Mean It Has to be Yucky
• Set the table. Eat at the table. Don’t serve dinner in the car – ever – if possible! Use a tablecloth sometimes. Set out special plates. Use cloth napkins. Light the candles. Make dinner fun! Play Italian music when you serve pizza, or Mexican music when you have tacos.
• Go on a picnic. No matter what the season, you can take a picnic outdoors. My dad used to love winter picnics. I can remember him bringing a broom to wipe the snow off the picnic tables in the park. We’d have thermoses of hot soup and cocoa. You could build a fire in the fire pit or charcoal grill and toast marshmallows.
• Who said picnics have to be outside? Once in a while, take a picnic to the living room. Spread a vinyl tablecloth over the carpet, and serve your favorite picnic fare on the floor. Maybe the teddy bears could join you for this picnic?
• be realistic about what you expect your young child to eat. His stomach is only about the size of his fist. Make his servings MUCH smaller! Half of one slice of bread is a serving for the 2 – 5 year old child, yet if you make him a sandwich, he’s getting four times that amount! For many fruits, a serving size is only 2 Tablespoons – not the whole banana. It’s better to get him to eat two grapes, then ask for more,than to overwhelm him with a whole bunch.
• Plan mealtime conversations. Instead of talking about what he is or isn’t eating, or yelling at him to clean up his plate, engage him in conversation about his day. Ask what he did, what he enjoyed, what he learned. There are whole websites devoted to encouraging pleasant mealtime conversations for the family. (See a few listed at the end of this article).
• If your child still does not eat his supper, he can still sit at the table with the family until they are all finished. He is part of the family, and mealtimes is an important time to build relationships. After dinner, he will NOT be allowed any snacks. It won’t hurt him to go to bed hungry once in a while. In fact, no one should be eating after dinner. The after-dinner snack is a terrible habit to get in to, and if you or your child are not waking up hungry for breakfast it could be because too much food was consumed too close to bedtime the night before. Breakfast is supposed to be ‘breaking the fast” – not just throwing another log on the hot coals of a slow-burning metabolism.

All Done, Mommy!

What a big, beautiful smile! Wouldn’t you love to see this at your dinner table every night? Why can’t mealtimes be the highlight of the day? With a little planning, patience, and ingenuity, it can be!

Check out the book, Table Talk, Creating Meaningful Conversation with Family and Friends, now available in my store.

Table Talk websites:
Table Topics for Kids
Table Talk, How Mealtime Chatter Strengthens the Family
Conversation Jar

Related Reading:
Feeding the Finicky Eater

Top: photo by Chris Denbow
Second:photo by Linda Aslund
Third:photo by Elizabeth Table4Five
Bottom:photo by Robert Lowe

Using the Menus

I tried something different this time, too. I wrote out recipes, not just the menu suggestions, and I tried to put things in chronological order – because some recipes require advance preparation. For instance, to make almond milk, you need to soak the almonds for 12 hours before you puree them in the blender. So if you want almond milk on your cereal for breakfast, you need to set the almonds to soak the night before.

Finally, at the end I typed up a list of ingredients, but not quantities. It’s hard to figure how much you’ll need, because I don’t know how many people are in your family, or how hungry they are. If I suggest mangoes for breakfast, a child might eat only half of one, but a husband might eat two or three whole ones. Either is fine! With the raw foods diet, it is important to eat enough raw foods to fill you. Most of us think of a 10-oz cereal bowl full of lettuce for a serving of salad. But when you’re eating raw, and the salad is your whole meal not just a side-dish, you should think more of eating the entire head of lettuce yourself!

What to Eat on a Raw Food Diet

There is, of course, a lot of variety on the web of “how” to eat a raw food diet. Some sources say as long as it’s raw, it’s okay. Some say you shouldn’t eat potatoes, carrots, or beets which are “hybrid” vegetables. I wonder why they didn’t put corn on the list – isn’t that the most genetically altered vegetable on the planet? Other sources say to avoid spices, which are all slightly toxic and harmful for the digestive system. Other sources say to be sure to add avocados and olive oil to your diet, so you do have some source of fat, yet of course, other sources claim that most of us who transition to raw eat too much fats even in our raw diet. So, unless you want to get several degrees in nutrition and fitness, you just have to make a few decisions for yourself based on the best information you have available.

I suggest using your body as a guideline. I love garlic. I’ve always cooked with garlic, and I’ve read a lot about the health benefits of garlic. But when I put two cloves of raw garlic in one of this week’s recipes, I had a bellyache for 24 hours. I may try cutting the raw garlic down to a single clove, but if it happens again, I think I’ll cut raw garlic from my diet.

Raw Foods are Child Friendly

Women should consume 6 pounds of fruit, 2.5 pounds of vegetables, and 1/4 pound of nuts and seeds daily.
Men should consume a bit more – 7.5 pounds of fruit, 3 pounds of vegetables, and 1/3 pound of nuts or seeds daily.

A “fruit” is any food that has seeds. So while apples, pears and peaches are fruits, so are tomatoes, cucumbers and avocados. Avoid eating hybrid fruits that do not have seeds, like seedless watermelon. I’m not sure why folks recommend that, but if you are trying to eat a raw “living” foods diet, it would stand to reason that seedless watermelon cannot be a living food.

I’m learning that in the raw foods diet, all vegetables are great, but concentrate mostly on dark green leafy vegetables as they have the highest nutrient count. There is a wide variety – chard, collards, spinach, kale, and more. Lettuce should be leaf lettuce, not iceberg, which doesn’t have much for nutrients at all.

Chew Your Food Thoroughly

Chopsticks May Help Keep Meal Times Fun

Many weight-loss programs also advise careful and thorough chewing of food, but for a different reason. If we eat too fast, our bellies are full before our brains realize it. Eat slower, and your brain can tell you when you’ve had enough, so you don’t overeat. Then I read that if you want to train yourself to eat slower, switch to chopsticks for now! Before you master the trick of chopsticks (unless you already know how to use them) you’ll have established the habit of slower eating and careful chewing.

I hope you enjoy this week’s menus! As an added bonus, I simply LOVE how much quicker most of these meals are to prepare. There are NO cooking dishes to scrub. No messy, greasy clean-up, no long-lasting food odors that hang in the air for days. And I feel so much better! Happy eating!

For more information on Raw Foods, read:
Going Raw
Raw for Life
Creative Health Institute

Photo Credits:
Top:photo by Nadia Progoda-Lee
Middle: photo by Summer
Bottom: photo by Terren in Virginia

Preschoolers Love Finger Foods

Raw Finger Foods Are Very Popular with Young Children

Muesli – or Raw Oatmeal – Can Be Delicious

I learned how to make muesli – another food item my granddaughter loves. It’s raw oatmeal -which sounds faintly disgusting – but you soak it for a while to soften it, then serve it with fruits and nuts. We like it with banana or blueberries and a dollop of pure maple syrup. Yum-yum! Best of all, besides all that wonderful natural oatbran for its cholesterol-lowering ability, it’s quick and easy to prepare, and no yucky pot to wash. I think I like that part about the best. When you serve raw foods, there are no cooking dishes!

I haven’t learned to like “energy soup” yet. That’s simply a garden salad pureed smooth and you drink it. Lots of good reasons why energy soup is good for you. I just wish it tasted better! I like salad. I guess I’m just not a “soup” person.

Raw Foods Menus Are Posted

Raw Tacos - Food From Heaven

What Could Be Better than a Georgia Peach

For further reading, check out:
Raw for Life
Feeding the Finicky Eater
We Like it Raw
Transition Kids to Raw

Photo Credits:
Top: Photo by Tiffany Washko
Middle: photo by Geoff Peters
Bottom:photo by Bruce Tuten

This child doesn’t seem to eat, ever, although she appears healthy and of average weight.  One day she might love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and the next day she throws a kicking and screaming tantrum when you put peanut butter on her bread.  She hates fruits, vegetables, most meats, and would survive on soda and cookies if you let her.  She turns up her nose at the spagetti you serve the rest of the family for dinner, yet five minutes after you clear the table, she demands your instant attention because she’s hungry.

Many Toddlers and Preschoolers Go Through a Fussy Eating Stage

Yes, dear parent.  You have on your hand  every parent’s nightmare, the finicky eater.  Is there no hope?  How can you deal with the tantrums?   You’re just shooting yourself in the foot if you send her away from the table without eating something, as she’ll never sleep through the night on an empty stomach.  But why should you prepare her a separate meal any time she doesn’ t like what the rest of the family is eating?  Shouldn’t she just learn to eat like a normal person?

There are several methods for coping with this phenomenon.  No one method will work all the time in all situations.  You must try them each until you find one that works best for you.  No one said this was going to be easy, but as your gooey little guy gives you a bear hug, leaving jelly smears on your cheek, you know that it is all worth while.

Method one:  The Repeat Performance

Raw Foods are Easier to Serve Again

Ignore your child’s food peculiarities and pray she outgrows them. Continue to learn about good nutrition, so you will serve a variety of wholesome, healthy foods. Model good eating behaviors. Keep mealtimes pleasant. Your child learns everything else by watching you. She learned to talk, walk, and use the toilet by your example. Eating should be no different.

Method three: Junior Chef

Children Are More Likely to Eat Foods They Helped Prepare

Method four: Extra Credit

Formally teach her about food. Start one week and focus on apples. Serve an apple at every meal and snack for the entire week. The first few days, serve it only raw. Later, serve it in home-made applesauce (your child helps to make), or apple bars, cinnamon apple rings with pork chops, or even dried apple slices in the gorp snack mix. Take a photo of your child holding an apple and grinning. Place the photo on a wall chart under the foods your child has tried. Next week, move on to a vegetable. Focus the whole week on, say, celery. Serve it raw, serve it with peanut butter or cream cheese. Color it (stand it in a glass of water with a few drops of food coloring, unless your child is allergic to food colors.). Chop celery, add it to tuna salad or apple salad. Take a picture of your smiling child holding a bunch of celery. Add it to the poster. You don’t serve ONLY apples, or ONLY celery, you just serve it at every meal. The idea is that some preschoolers just get comfortable with the familiar, and there is such a wide variety of food to try that they become fearful. You are helping them to become familiar with the food, and the photo chart will reinforce that familiarity.

There are may other methods, but these are the ones I’m aware of. Method three is my favorite, but if it doesn’t seem to be working for you, then you should try one of the others.

Basic Rules on Feeding Children

There are some basic rules that apply, no matter what method you wish to pursue:

Set Times to Eat
Serve mealtimes and snack times at regular intervals at about the same time every day. This will help ensure that your child is, indeed, hungry when he comes to the table. If your life is more chaotic, you may often find yourself in the grocery store with a hungry child, when the fastest, and easiest thing to do is give him a candy bar or bring home a frozen pizza. Neither is very good for his overall health.

Keep snacks small
A snack is not a meal. One graham cracker and two to four ounces of milk is enough. Second helpings are not necessary. If your child fills up on snack foods, he will be less hungry when dinner time rolls around. Also, few parents or caregivers take the time to make snack more than just a cracker or juice, so your child isn’t filling up on enough fruits and vegetables if all he eats is snacks. Yet, snacks are necessary. An active preschooler requires about 1,300 calories a day, yet his stomach is not big enough to consume that much in three meals.

Be a good role model
Your child is never going to drink his milk if he sees you drinking soda. Our children do what we do, not what we say. If you tell your child that sleep is important, but you stay up all night yourself, he will fight naptimes. If you put sweet potatoes and green beans on his plate, you’d better be eating them too.

Avoid conflict
Do not let mealtimes become a battleground. Keep the meal pleasant. Encourage your child to taste everything, but do not make it a hard and fast rule. If he refuses to taste the fresh pineapple on his plate, you can model it, showing him how much you absolutely love fresh pineapple. Then let him chose to leave the table hungry, but do not be angry about it, and do not, under any circumstance, offer him something else. He has two choices – eat what’s on his plate, or go hungry. That’s it. If he chooses to throw a tantrum, so what. He’ll get over it. And it really does not hurt a child to miss a meal or two. It is far more hurtful to offer that child something else to fill up on, allowing him to grow up with a limited palette, which will ensure that he overeats yet remains undernourished.

Setting is Everything
Set the table, and eat there. Do not get in the habit of eating in front of the television, or the backseat of a moving vehicle. Use pretty plates, even if they are paper. Use placemats sometimes. Put fresh cut flowers on the table, or light candles. Play soft dinner music. Make a list of topics to discuss at mealtimes, if conversation doesn’t happen naturally. Don’t talk about failures and finances. Keep talk pleasant. Tell a few jokes. Laugh. Ask questions. Make dinnertime one of the best times of the day, something your child will want to be a part of. Make being sent away from the table a punishment, not a chance to spend more time on the video game.

A Little Bit Goes a Long Way
Go light on salt and spices. Children have more sensitive taste buds than adults. Your chili may actually be too spicy! If you must, add extra spices to your food at the table. If your child wants to copy you (because he will) put a tiny amount of extra spice on a corner of his food. He won’t like it, but maybe he’ll go ahead and finish the part that wasn’t spiced. On the other hand, don’t just avoid cooking with spice. You want your child to grow up eating the same food that you do. You don’t want to be cooking separate meals for each of your kids and your spouse – you are not a short order cook!

Start Small, Offer Seconds
Serve him proportionally smaller servings. Learn what a serving size is, first, then serve him a third less than that. A serving of chicken for an adult, for instance, is three ounces! Most chicken breasts are much more than that. Picture a deck of cards, and that is the size of the meat you should be dishing yourself. The preschool child needs 14 ounces of milk a day – not three eight-ounce glasses. Don’t let your child fill up on beverages, because then there is not enough food in his belly to sustain him.

Avoid bribery
Do not promise him desert if he will only take a few bites of his vegetables. That only teaches him that deserts are yummy foods and vegetables are yucky foods. In fact, don’t serve deserts. Keep your meals low fat, low calorie, low sugar meals. Your family will thank you for that some day. If you must have sweet foods sometimes, serve them instead of a snack, not as a reward following dinner.

Grow Your Own
Have him plant his own garden. Grow a garden of your own. Some children won’t eat cooked peas. But they are actually quite delicious raw! Especially if picked while they are still small. Some children hate cooked carrots, but will dig up the carrots from the garden and eat them raw, the dirt still clinging to them. Gardening could be an enjoyable family affair.

Variety is the Spice of Life
Offer a variety of foods. Anyone would get tired of eating the same old same old. Concentrate on foods grown locally for you, as these will be the more cost effective and healthful options. But serve foods from other parts of the world, too. You might pick one night a week for ethnic cooking. One week you serve Mexican, with tacos, burritoes, quesadillas, and refried beans. Another week might be Chinese, or Italian.

Love Conquers All
Most of all, love your finicky eater, and chant this little saying whenever you get frustrated with him. “This too, shall pass.”

Photo Credits:
Top: photo by Mary Paulose
Middle: photo by David Davies
Bottom: photo by Rachel Tayse