Picky Palate Problems
Executive summary: Raising kids is difficult in so many ways, and ours certainly don’t make our lives easier with their picky eating. While I can blame nature (genetics) all I want, I still have to nurture (feed) the kids as best I can within a very limiting set of constraints.
We are driving out tomorrow to spend two weeks over Christmas and New Years with my parents, as we do most years because it’s too hard to take little kids anywhere or, alternately, leave them behind with the grandparents while hubby and I dash off (preferably to another continent) for some badly-needed adult time. It feels very confining to not have the freedom to travel (or even eat dinner past 5:30pm), but I remind myself it’s temporary. And it is nice to celebrate the holidays with the kids to create fond memories and family traditions; their excitement is contagious, and I’ve often thought that having kids is the most fun around the holidays because they love it so much. The other perk of staying with my parents is that they take care of all the cooking. Hubby and I get to enjoy homemade Chinese feasts on a daily basis, but unfortunately, I can’t say the same for our kids. The 5yo is suuuuper picky, and the 2yo only a little better. I totally tried to follow the “kids eat what you eat” rule, but it was hard to see my now-5yo eat so little when he was a toddler, so I gave in and offered him the things he found more palatable (was that my undoing?) For a while between ~6-12 months, I actually thought my son was an adventurous eater. He tried everything and enjoyed octopus at my birthday dinner that first year. But as he entered toddlerhood, he kept rejecting more and more of the foods he had once eaten, and that trend has yet to reverse itself. I think it’s stabilized at ~20 foods, which mostly consists of plain grains and fruits (although if you add in sweets, he’ll like 100 more things … but this kid turns down juice and soda!)
Proof that my son once ate octopus. Depending on how things go, it might never happen again.
I have no idea what he eats at school lunch, but I’m hoping he tries a few things here and there out of hunger and/or peer pressure (even if it’s just a plain bagel). At home, we have a formula for each meal, it’s so limited and predictable:
Breakfast: boiled egg (with salt), muffin with frosting, milk
Lunch: applesauce, watermelon or cantaloupe, Froot Loops, milk, maybe something we order from a restaurant, like fries/waffles/rice/bacon/grilled chicken, and dessert
Snack: strawberries or oranges
Dinner: he gets a choice of either plain pasta (salt is the only seasoning allowed), Ritz crackers, dry toast (he’ll put peanut butter on it twice a year), or sometimes homemade Shanghainese wontons (that’s the odd one out — my mom turned him onto those). Whichever of the mains he chooses is accompanied by salami, banana, and a sweet potato purée pouch (he only eats one kind by Happy Tot, so I always have to keep this one in stock or else he’d consume literally zero vegetables). Plus milk and dessert
Once in a blue moon, he might eat a drumstick or some steak, or nibble a broccoli, but it’s totally random unless my mom is there to coerce him to put them in his mouth (this leads me to believe that some part of picky eating is psychological). And he likes pepperoni pizza, but only from Costco and three other restaurants on earth. That’s it.
This is the only pouch my son will touch, and the only way to get any vegetables into him. When he was a baby, he’d eat any flavor of purée we got him (over Greek yogurt, no less), but those days are long gone.
In the great nature vs. nurture debate, I’ve read that most pickiness is due to genetics, so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for somehow raising our kids wrong. Genetics accounts for 60% of pickiness in children ~1yo, and 75% after age 3, a recent study shows. Peak pickiness occurs at 7 years, so I guess I shouldn’t expect things to improve for a while. Or maybe ever? My husband’s late father was extremely sensitive to smells and wouldn’t allow onions, garlic, peppers, etc. into his home. He maintained a pretty bland diet his whole life. We wonder if my son inherited his super sensitive nose, as he often comments “this smells bad,” or “what’s that smell?” etc. My husband was a picky child too (although he has an underwhelming sense of smell) and exclusively consumed chicken nuggets and mac ‘n’ cheese in his preschool years. The good news is that hubby now loves all the spicy, bold, flavorful foods he was denied growing up but gradually discovered after leaving home for college. I, on the other hand, remember eating whatever my family made when I was little, with only a couple exceptions. *Insert halo here* My parents instilled a eat-your-veggies-first habit in me that I follow to this day, often subconsciously. So clearly it’s hubby’s fault (but my bad taste — haha — for marrying him, he’d retort).
Next, I turn my attention to my 2yo daughter, who has a brand of picky eating that’s all her own. She went through the same evolution as my son — ate most things as a baby and then started to avoid more and more foods over the last year. Her picky eating seems to be more psychological and texture-based than her brother’s. The funny thing about her is that she will eat a lot of foods if she’s distracted/playing/walking around outside. That’s when I get the broccoli into her! But when she sits at the table, she will reject those same foods (unless it’s fries — she will gorge on fries). We’ve filled a whole basket on the counter with foods she likes to graze on during meals (we’re just trying to keep her occupied so she’ll develop the habit of sitting down to eat with the family). She tends to like crunchy textures, hence the crackers/veggie straws/popcorn/mochi nuggets shown below. She also likes dried fruit, randomly — maybe they remind her of gummy candies. She will eat meat but mostly only in ground form (e.g., pork wontons or xiaolongbao, hot dogs, meatballs, kebabs). The other funny thing about her is that she is always curious about what the adults are having, and will ask to try our food even if she doesn’t like it. That’s a good habit we try to encourage, but it also leads her to gulping tea and coffee whenever we grab ourselves a drink while out and about. She gets very excited about boba in particular, lol.
This is our 2yo’s bowl of nibbles that we keep handy on the counter. Different kid, different (food) problems.
I’ve often wondered what would happen if we just let our kids go hungry. Like, if they don’t eat what we eat, that’s just too bad. I haven’t found the willpower to run that experiment yet, especially given that many of our preferences are governed by genetics. I’ve also wondered how picky eating varies by culture. If you read books like “Bringing Up Bébé,” you’d believe that French kids beg for snails and blue cheese, and certainly, in China there is no such thing as a “kids menu.” I’ve also heard the currently prevailing belief that eating should be a relaxed experience and not a power struggle. I don’t want to battle my kids over every bite — someone on Reddit once astutely noted that kids won’t eat every food, but they will fight every fight. Ain’t that the truth. So meals might be relaxed for my kids, but it’s extra work for me, because I make parallel meals every day (one for the adults, one for the kids), and I also pack the kids’ food whenever we eat out. Even with a kids menu, there is a 50/50 chance my son will touch nothing, so I am prepared with his Froot Loops, banana, pouch, etc. My daughter can mostly be counted on to eat fries when we’re out, but that’s hardly a balanced meal, so I bring along fruit, milk, a peanut butter sandwich, etc. There’s no such thing as eating out spontaneously for us — I need time to arm myself with my arsenal of kid-approved foods before we go anywhere. That includes the grandparents’ homes – I preorder the sweet potato pouch and a couple other favorite foods to be delivered before we arrive. No wonder we need that adults-only (foreign) vacation so much. Maybe next year. I am perpetually hopeful, and that is the fuel that keeps me running. Whereas, my kids would run on air if we didn’t work so hard to feed them the few foods they prefer.