Advice History

Introduce vegetables by color--and with new dipping sauces. Pick a color for the week such as green and only serve green vegetables during the week such as broccoli, peas, and cucumbers. The next week try yellow, squash, peppers, or yellow tomatoes. You can also line up ranch, melted cheese, Italian dressing and honey mustard for dipping. Have your kids keep a list of veggies according to their colors and by the end of the month have a veggie rainbow meal using their favorite colored vegetables from each week. Some great vegetables to try are colorful peppers, carrots, snap peas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers.

 Picky Eaters

Almost all kids have specific flavors or textures in food that they just don't like. Some children are even more finicky, and won?t eat foods with certain colors, or will have rules like not allowing different foods to touch each other on their plate. The important thing with any child is to not force food upon them; this puts them on the defensive, and their developing senses of individuality will kick into teenage proportions, which just sets the stage for major battles at the dinner table.

Introduce new foods to your children in small portions. Have them try a couple bites of something new instead of filling their whole plate with it and expecting them to finish everything. Also, prepare a backup dish that you already know they will eat so that they will still eat something during the meal.

Some experts say it can take multiple exposures to a particular food for young palates to develop a taste for that food ? essentially saying, to some children almost everything is an acquired taste. Keep in mind that overly-seasoned recipes and complex flavors will overwhelm many children?s taste buds. Start them off with simple flavors and preparations. Appreciating food is just like learning a sport or how to paint ? you have to start with the fundamentals before you break into advanced technique.

Make tasting new dishes fun, not a chore. It?s best not to offer them rewards of sweets in exchange for trying something. Make the adventure and possibility of discovering a new favorite food a reward in itself. You should also try things with your kids so they see that it?s ?safe? when you like something, as well as bond with you when neither of you likes it. Sharing a laugh over how bad something tastes is a great experience to share with your children.