Has anyone successfully improved picky eating?

Post Reply New Topic

I was a very picky eater as a kid. I liked only one food...chef boradee raviloi...that was it. Everything else was criminal.

I still remember when my mom got remarried and all the sudden became this gormet cook that made me eat all this weird stuff. The thing I hated thge worst were big noodle pasta, rice, and spegetti anything. However I loved can spinach, still do! I remember one time mom cooked rice and told me that I could not go to bed untill I ate all of it. I was tired and rice just grossed me out, plus I had a swallowing disorder and anything sticky would cause me to puke. She would punish me for puking...so I just shoveled the rice onto the floor, carpoet floor, I may add, and rushed off to bed. I was hoping the dog would eat it. No, he didn't.
Well anyway, the next morning...I was in big trouble and had to clean all the rice up. The good news was she did not try to get me to eat rice for a while. The one thing I hated more than anything sensory-wise was ham. To me it tasted too bitter and almost gone bad...I hated ham until my teens.

Now I eat stuff my mom wont...lol and try to get her to eat it
like sushi...I loooove sushi, but mom cant get past the raw fish thing. I like caviar too for a rare treat...she hates that too.
I'll try anything at least once.
Most of my picky eating ended in middle school...things just started tasting better for some reason.

I wish my mom was like DW_a mom when it came to foods as a kid. There was no way my mom was going to win the food war with me as a kid cause I was just so sencitive to so many things, plus the swallowing disorder, which I still have to some degree.

Jojo

I did meals like normal but made sure there was at least one thing on the plate that I knew she liked. The rule was that she had to try everything because palate's change. If she tried somthing, even the tiniest bit, she didn't have to eat anymore of it if she didn't want to. Eventually she started eating more and more of certain things. Now she'll eat most things except tomatoes and sprouts.

Yes. Explain all the nutritional information found in new foods and explain in a picturesque way of how the body appreciates new food giving you more energy when processing new food.

Mention the vitamins and explain what the vitamins do for your body.

Explain with new meat products the protein and what the protein does for your body.

Make it fun by pretending that cells in the body are like little people jumping up and down for joy when getting new sources of food with these nutritional elements. Make it seem like the body is a factory.

If your child enjoys having a treat after a meal, the only way your child gets the treat is if your child is brave enough to try something new and give a limit on how much the child must eat in order to obtain the prize. It could be a few M&M's or perhaps another reward like play time with certain toys.



I didn't like scrambled eggs until after 17 and I couldn't stand them unless they were in a sandwich. I didn't try anything unique until after I was 21.

The biggest food influences on my daughter... Pokemon and other kids. In Pokemon her favorite are grass types. She was interested in trying food that grass types eat. Win on the veggie front! Other kids make her curious and she is apt to try a food another kids tells her is great. She may or may not like it but she at least tries it.

I think you should definitely get your child to try new foods, but if you're going to get stressed or annoyed when he doesn't like them, forget it. If a child doesn't have the freedom to dislike something without his or her parents getting angry about the fact that they won't eat it, they'll never try anything new. When I was six up until I was about 10 I would only eat chips, sausages, chicken nuggets and canned Heinz "spaghetti & sausages in tomato sauce". My mother used to shout at me for hours, bully me, lock me in my room and give me the silent treatment when I tried a food and refused to eat any more because I didn't like it, and that is why I am 18 and still only eat a very restricted diet (a few set meals/foods only, probably less than 20. Maybe even less than 15.)

I used to be a super-picky eater. I gradually grew out of it after being exposed to a lot of new foods, much of it ethnic.

Definitely get the kids to at least taste new stuff but if he refuses it after that just let him be. Personally I can't stand anything with a creamy texture (like mayonnaise and many salad dressings.) A lot of people don't seem to understand why I don't like these things and I tend to get upset when people try to force them on me. Or when I order a sandwich with no mayo and they put mayo on it anyway.

Oh I hate that. And all the shops that take it so for granted that it isn't listed in the ingredients, so you have to always remember to ask.

I have an instant gag reflex to mayo. Don't know why, always have, and it is the reflex that usually leads me to discover it's there, so I know it isn't in my head, either. Other than the fact that eating it would make life simpler, I don't see why I should eat it, it isn't healthy, so I haven't worried about "why" I gag on it, I just don't eat it.

Last night my used-to-be-picky ten year old was proudly sampling several sides at the restaurant that she used to shun, all while asking me what I do and don't like, and for everything I don't like proudly countering that she is sure she will eat everything when she's all grown up, and she's looking forward to it.

Really cute

I confess, I'm still something of a picky eater. I didn't grow up with exposure to much variety, and my dad insisted we eat everything he liked, even if it made us gag, and what he liked was an odd and limited menu. We weren't allowed to find our own way at all, and I think that is why it has been so hard for me. I knew straight off I didn't want that for my kids, and when we have open discussions about food as my kids explore, like my daughter did last night, I feel good about the road we're on.

First off, I think 25 is a huge number. When my son was that age he ate maybe half the number of foods your son does, just to give you some perspective. I have other kids and I've never been too bothered by a picky eater. Heck, I'm a picky eater. What's worked for my son was mere exposure. From food buffets, to other family member's dinner tables. At some point, my son got curious and wanted to try a new food.

Another idea that you may want to try is to bring your son into the kicthen with you to cook the foods he does like. Would he watch a cooking show with you? Call your local Whole Foods or similar stores and find out when they have sample day and take your son. Don't tell him that's what you're doing, just go to the store to get your groceries. Also, take him to a farmer's market, start a small herb/vegetable garden with him or just for yourself. He'll get curious at some point about what your'e doing and the food you consume from your garden.

Be careful if you ever come to Japan. They slather everything in mayo. Even certain types of sushi!

I doubt it. Mayonnaise is a Western creation; you probably saw sushi with mayonnaise in an Americanized Japanese restaurant or a grocery store. The terrain where Japan is located does not allow for large-scale production of vegetable oil and vinegar emulsified with egg yolk, at least not until the 20th century. According to Japanese food customs, food is supposed to be tasted in its pure form. Dressings and sauces are quite limited; soy sauce, wasabe, and/or pickled ginger is the maximum that gets put on foods. That's especially true if the mayo is the chipotle kind.

Did you notice the location in Wreck-Gar's profile?

Things change, I guess, is the best explanation

I don't think you have ever been here.

http://www.kewpie.co.jp/products/mayo/index.html

"Americanized" sushi means "California" style like those big maki rolls. Plus the food customs you mention sound like something very old people eat.

Anyway staying on topic if I was still a picky eater I'd definitely starve to death living here.

Oops.

But honestly, I had no idea Japanese cuisine used a lot of mayo. (Maybe it's a new thing.) I've eaten at a lot of Japanese restaurants in the US, and I rarely saw mayo being put on food, except some spicy maki rolls. Oh well, live and learn.

It's something you'll mostly see out here, I think...and it's mainly on Western style food too. Like pizza.

Scroll down to the "Charcoal-grilled chiki-teri."

http://www.dominos.jp/eng/pizza/search/99999/20006/

Again, staying on topic, if I was still super-picky I'd be on the next plane home.

I've never been a picky eater. I eat almost anything.

Simple way to get someone eating is to make them work up an appetite through some kind of physical exertion. Things taste ten times better when you're actually hungry.

Oh boy - never never never! Well, not in this house anyway

If our son is really hungry and we present him with something new or something he doesn't much like, then that is meltdown territory. It's awful, truly awful, he's so stressed by his desperate desire to eat but can't overcome whatever it is that stops him eating some foods. We have way more success with new foods when there is less pressure either from appetite or us.