Food: Tempting Kids with New Foods

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Tempting Kids with New Foods
Thursday, June 01, 2006

By Christina VanGinkel

Cooking a family meal can sometimes seem like such a big deal. A menu must be decided upon, and at the same time, you have to consider if each family member will eat this dish or that, or will at least tolerate them enough to try a bite or two of whatever is on the current menu. If someone at the table does not, this means the possibility of grumbles, or even worse. If you happen to have a wide range of ages at the table, the disparity between what is acceptable and what is not can be huge!

Never a big rule maker when it came to family meals when my kids were small, I would usually insist that everything had to be at least tried once. Not once at each meal, just once every so often. They would have to put a spoonful of whatever the dish in question was into their mouths and chew it, but if they truly found it offending, they could spit it out into the garbage. If some time had gone by, say six months or so, and a dish had been passed on before, I might once again suggest that something passed on be tried again, if not an actual bite, then at least give it a good smell. If something was found to be truly offensive to a child, I rarely kept after them to try the food again, unless I came up with a very different way to cook it or include it as an ingredient in a very special dish than how they had first sampled it.

My oldest son to this day does not like onions, yet he loves mushrooms, even going so far as to look forward to when Morels are ready for picking each spring, when he happily heads out several days in a row picking them wherever he can find them. I love onions, cooked, fried, and fresh, yet gag at the thought of a mushroom hitting the inside of my mouth. Even the smallest fleck of a mushroom, if I know it is on my plate, is enough to ruin my appetite. From this simple example, I remind myself that not everyone likes what others do, even in the same kitchen. My youngest son and husband are another example in contrast. My husband will gladly stir together different foods, while my youngest son may eat the same ingredients, they all need to be separate and identifiable on his plate. Needless to say, my youngest son has never eaten a single casserole in his life.

Kid's tastes change, and what may not be a most wanted item for a while, may possibly become a favored staple in the same child's diet just a few months later. At the same time, something may never win over a child. I have foods to this day that I do not like, and I would not want them forced on me, so the thought of forcing a child to eat something they do not want just was never my parenting style. Others I am sure will disagree with this, but I found that most kids will find enough foods in a range of food groups that they do like, that their diet will end up well rounded and adequate for a growing child.

If this just does not seem to work for your family members, consider ways to help your kids become acquainted with different foods so they at least have the opportunity to try different foods and dishes.

Some ways I went about it were, instead of forcing my kids to eat certain dishes I cooked up, I always tried to come up with side dishes that my kids would eat, or at least be willing to try. I did this by allowing the kids to shop with me, and point out foods they liked, or were willing to try. We also tried to visit different ethnic restaurants, and point out t dishes on the menus that they might like to try. Restaurants often have sampler assortments, and if you visit a restaurant that does, this is a great way for everyone in the family to try something new.

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