Picky eater getting pickier

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Hello again, more eating/diet questions.

As you know, if you read my posts, my daughter is both gluten intolerant and a picky eater. The gluten intolerance exacerbated the picky eating, in that she was never given packaged (junk) food until we did the elimination/gluten free diet. She then made the connection that packaged (junk) food makes her feel healthier. It's a long story, but a perfectly logical conclusion from her point of view.

She is getting pickier in her eating. She will now eat only meat, plain gluten free noodles, gluten free cereal, hemp milk, and the occasional vanilla yogurt. She will eat some brands of gluten free chips and cookies. With persuasion my husband got her to try a gluten free brownie, she decided those are o.k. on occasion.

What can I do to get her to try new tastes/textures? Should I just let it go for now?

I worry because the longer I just try to play it cool, ignore it, and let her eat food she likes the more selective she becomes.

Is there anyone who has lived through a similar parenting experience and knows some tricks?

Thanks

Hi! There was a similar discussion here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2701309 ... t=#2701309

Is she eating any friuts and/or vegetables?

While we like to espouse the necessity of a well-rounded diet, the only thing that REALLY matters is that she's getting a certain mix of key nutrients. Those can be gotten from a fairly limited diet - as long as she's eating those key nutrients. If she's getting iron and protein from her meat, and complex carbs from her grains, then she just needs a dark green veg and a colourful fruit, and she's pretty much set.

Supplementing with fish oil caplets is also a good idea

If I recall, your daughter is 4 or 5?

It is very normal at that age for kids to narrow their food choices, so I'm not sure that trying to force the issue at this time can even be effective.

Some families will require one bite of the scorned food. If you want to go that route I would have no objections, but I found it too difficult to enforce in my family.

The good news is that my kids have chosen to re-expand their food chocies on their own. They narrow, then they broaden. As long as a variety of foods remain available, they will eventually start to try them. This seems to be quite normal with kids. They see you enjoying your food, they are exposed to the smell and look of it, and eventually something clicks.

Someone I read about used to have this 22 day rule, for every lunch she packed their child peas for lunch everyday for 22 days. If they did not touch them for 22 days then she moved onto something that the child has never tried like corn or carrots and stuff like that. Kept a log about it so she did not try those things again.

She has never eaten fruit of vegetables. When she was a baby she would eat bananas, but that stopped when she was maybe 2.5. She used to drink orange juice, but now she won't.
We give her a multivitamin, a zinc, and 1 tsp fish oil everyday. The zinc is per the gastroenterologist suggestion.
There is no question of forcing her or having a one bite rule. She is capeable of ripping doors and windows out of walls and starving herself 'till passing out.
She will, on occasion, help to cook. She still won't eat it.
She always helps with the grocery shopping. She still won't eat it.
We have a garden, she will plant the food, water the food, weed the food, harvest the food. She still won't eat it.
We spend our summers in a cabin in the middle of a virtual blueberry forest. She'll climb the blueberry bushes, pick the blueberries, read the cookbooks, choose a recipe, help cook the recipe, she still won't eat it.
She did on one occasion pick 2 cups of blueberries then found some bear tracks and headed off to give the berries to the bears. We stopped her in time.
Any food in the shape of an animal or artistically displayed will be condemened with disgust because, as she sees it, food is food and its not to be played with.

Any ideas? My husband is getting excellent at cooking gluten free breads, so that would be ok if she would eat it.
There is a serious cost consideration with the price of gluten free granola bars, cereals, and other packaged foods.
As a family we believe in local, organic, non-packaged stuff, so her way of eating kinda grates against my locavore morals.
A lot of this is just me venting. It is increadibly frustrating and I don't want to, in even the slightest manner, pass on my anxiety about her diet in a way she can detect.

There was a span of about 6 months when I was 4 when I didn't eat anything except cheerios with milk and the occasional orange juice, so I know what it's like from your daughter's end of things, at least.
She'll more thank likely grow out of it, but if you're worried about her nutritional health, have you tried giving her chewy kids vitamins? They're delicious, and I'm sure even the pickiest eater would love them.
If she doesn't want vitamins, or you feel like she should be getting her vitamins from something a little more natural, try slowly building up her food tolerance. Mashed potatoes are usually pretty easy, and I know I loved them as a kid. Fruit and veggie juice (that's a link) is also a sneaky yet effective way of getting in some nutrients.

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Since she eats meat, will she eat meatloaf or meatballs? If so... it's pretty easy to sneak in pureed veggies into the mix - carrots, spinach, red pepper. All big ticket nutrient veggies.

I was going to suggest growing a garden as that worked with our son but... looks like you already tried that

i can sympathize =/ i have 3 boys, the middle child eats nearly everything and willingly tries new foods. even eats frog legs at the chinese buffet, and his favorite foods are shrimp, mushrooms, and any and all meats. as a baby i despaired he would ever eat as he rejected any baby food offered. his first food was at 10 months, a spicy chicken burrito from taco bell. he would eat a bite, cry, eat a bite, cry, eat a bite, cry.... to this day he doesnt like spicy foods but loves burritos and everything else.

the other two would literally starve if they didnt have something from their select list of foods to eat.

our oldest is 13 and has always been very picky. he also has a strong gag reflex, so if he thinks he doesnt like something, he will gag if it even touches his lips. you cannot reason with this child and he will not try new foods under any circumstances. wont eat obvious chocolate cake if you tell him its something else he thinks he doesnt like. over the past year and a half, he has started trying new foods finally. even tried sushi with his beloved auntie. he didnt like it, but he chewed and swallowed it, which was a first for him. most food issues with him have been essentially control issues.

our youngest is suspected asd, and even pickier than his oldest brother. he has a list of about 20 foods that he will eat (not including cookies, ice cream, and cake, but he wont eat pie). majority of the list is carbs and specific fruit. canned peaches but no fresh. used to love spaghetti, but "i dont eat that now". elbow mac and cheese is the favorite food but wont touch any other kind or shape of pasta. meats must be processed and round (hot dogs without bun, hamburgers with bun, sausages preferrably link but patty acceptable), absolutely no fresh meats like chicken breast or even lunch meats.

these kids were all raised in the same house by the same parents, and have had remarkably different beginnings and reactions to food over their lives. i can only assume that kids are people too, what works for some wont work for all.

so my suggestions based on our experiences would be to feed your child what she will eat. keep offering new or different foods with no pressure. cereal, the kind with lots of vitamins and minerals added, are eaten a lot at our house, even for dinner. we also go through 3-4 bottles of v8 fusion juice a week (tastes like fruit but one cup has one serving of fruit and one of vegie juice). keep acceptable snacks around the house she will eat.

and trust that millions of kids have grown up just fine while eating little more than a handful of foods. frustrating for us the parents, yes, but they usually make it to adulthood just fine.

Hi Azurecrayon, thanks for the sympathy, it helps.

What we do to get vegetables into her is, whenver we blanche or heat vegetables for the family we save the water. We then use that water to make a vegetable stock. We then use that stock for boiling her noodles, hoping she can get some nutrients from the rich broth via noodles.

I wonder if she will ever grow out of this and expand her diet. D.W. is right, she is only 4, and it is natural for kids her age to limit their diet. It is just really hard for me to play it cool all the time, so I come here to vent.

My son only eats cereal.

We put it in soy milk for his protein. He drinks his vegetables via juice. Then supplemented with vitamins.

All cereal- all the time.

He is getting his nutrients and there are more important battles to fight. So I am OK with it.