I was a picky eater as a child. All our food came from boxes or crinkly bags, and we drank soda and sweetened juice all day. We had fresh vegetables maybe two or three times a year. Once I grew up though, I hated being like that. I found it embarrassing. Two things that helped me break that - the first by choice and the second by necessity.
One was deliberately trying new foods regularly, and learning that “new taste or texture” did not mean “going to make me sick”.
And the other was deliberate removal of processed foods and sugar. Occasionally I still have some, and even go a little nuts for a month if I find something I can have, but it’s difficult to do considering that I have food allergies that make it sometimes quite impossible to find even unprocessed foods here in the US.
I’m part of the growing minority here that is allergic to corn, which cuts out most things in grocery store: root vegetables (the corn allergy community figures this is due to absorbed fertilizers from the soil or the corn-based ethanol that makes them sprayable), waxed produce (peppers, pome fruits, cucumbers, citrus fruits, tomatoes, melons), anything with a flow agent (most salt, spice blends, and flour), anything stored on slow-melt ice (brassicas, fish), anything sprayed with or processed with corn-derived acids (meat, most cooking oils), or packaged in a corn-derived plastic.
So now food comes from farmers, the garden, foraging, and occasionally a few fancy expensive brands of pantry goods from fancy expensive stores.
Making food less dopaminergic, harder to get, seasonal, and variable, has cured the pickiness I used to experience, which is the one true silver lining of being allergic to… well, everything.
I had no idea about the contamination/deliberate use of corn derivatives in so many 'fresh' products. You have opened my eyes.
I'm guessing that many of the people in the corn-allergy communities, like you, are able to think broadly and find a path through the constraints. I'm wondering how many do not. I'm genuinely shocked.
Thank you so much for writing this! It's not a topic I've heard anything about in the UK - though we don't have the same corn subsidies and surpluses so corn-based products are much less common. Wow...
I leaned in hard to baby-led weaning and was so proud that my oldest ate everything. But now she’s suddenly picky at 4, and it’s gutting me. She will simply refuse to eat what we serve and cry during the night that she’s hungry. If a child refuses to eat and seems to be suffering, how long do you go on?
Owch, that sounds hard to deal with at the moment. :(
Don't worry though, this is a normal phase. In our home, we start with some of everything on our plate, and we have a single food rule - "you never need to finish your plate, but you can't have more (of everything) until your plate is empty.". And when they are small, we start with a little of everything, then if they want seconds, they have a little of everything more. Only snacks between meals are vegetables, and all food is on the table to start (i.e. no dessert to wait for). Once they have finished, there's nothing until the next meal.
Some things that might help - get her to serve herself to a little bit of everything. If she tells you she's hungry at night, be sympathetic, "I'm sorry you're so hungry. I bet you'll be glad when it's breakfast time."
The other thing that worked well with the little ones was to tell them stories about the microbes that live in their tummies. They only eat fruits and vegetables, and they need the child to feed them. And when the child eats fruit or vegetables, you can hear the microbes saying "THANK YOU!" There's a bit of magic there. Once they are very comfortable with the idea of microbes, you can then ask something like "What are your microbes going to eat?" or "Microbes LOVE x vegetable." We also played a game where you ask the children what the microbes say when you give them different foods. So "Carrots" = "WE LOVE CARROTS". or "Cake" = "no thank you". Useful affirmations as well!
Hope something helps! It will pass. It's important to feed all of your body with the foods that you eat, but sometimes some storytelling or magic can help. :)
I think this article got the bulk of the issues. I do think, like the Japanese intuit, that palette can be trained. I will also note that store bought baby cereals are extremely sweet yet many parents wean their kids on these. They’re very easy to prepare, far easier than adult food. Just add water. That should make one very suspicious; almost too good to be true. If you wean your child on such much sugar, no wonder normal foods taste bland to them. Same with salt. If you’re used to salty foods, then normal foods will taste bland.
There also seems to be an impulse to give kids fruit juice. That is barely forbidden in my house. My husband at one point started buying apple juice and when I ask him why, he said it just seemed like the thing to do. Apparently he was raised on the concept that juices are healthy and kids should be having them! Even my parents bought me a juicer and said “you should give them cold pressed juice. It’s really good for them. WHY. When the fruit is right there? Why do I have to put it through that machine and have to do clean up after, just to make drinking still water a battle later?
I went through years before I could tolerate normal water. I trained myself off sugary drinks by first drinking soda, then going to sparkling water, then finally going to still water. I don’t need to start my kids on liquid sugar lol. We don’t stock juices in the house. If they want sweets, they can eat an apple washed but whole. I might take a bite to help them, but otherwise they’re old enough to eat fruit unprocessed. Juices are a special occasion thing. Both my kids love water and I hope that never changes.
Thank you so much for sharing! Sounds like a long journey to get used to water, and I can imagine that it made you very certain that you didn't want your children to go through the same experience. It's so much harder to take something away than it is not to introduce it in the first place - like the baby cereals. You're absolutely right that there are culturally default behaviours that it's easy to do without thinking about. Sometimes, it takes an experience like yours to reveal the problems that can come from these default behaviours...
Raising 3 children in Switzerland, where all 3 came home for lunch all through their primary school years, I found this interesting and thought-provoking. I do cook most meals from scratch, and my children have learnt some cooking skills. I do have one caveat on your article- the "rare diseases" mentioned in the bit on snacking. My eldest is autistic, and has various gastro-intestinal issues (the two are often linked), which are neither diseases, nor rare. She is only now, at almost 17, starting to recognise hunger. As a baby and toddler, she was very difficult to feed (I breastfed her for a year), and this lasted until she was about 13. Many autistic people have similar issues with food and eating, and recognising their body's needs, and it often goes unrecognised.
That sounds really tough. I totally agree - there are some things that make this much harder. My child also has a condition that makes her much more likely to be selective, and the dietitians told us from the start about the importance of setting up a good structured food environment to reduce the risk. It's not always possible to prevent picky eating in certain conditions, but it's often possible to make it less severe than it could be.
I was a picky eater as a child. All our food came from boxes or crinkly bags, and we drank soda and sweetened juice all day. We had fresh vegetables maybe two or three times a year. Once I grew up though, I hated being like that. I found it embarrassing. Two things that helped me break that - the first by choice and the second by necessity.
One was deliberately trying new foods regularly, and learning that “new taste or texture” did not mean “going to make me sick”.
And the other was deliberate removal of processed foods and sugar. Occasionally I still have some, and even go a little nuts for a month if I find something I can have, but it’s difficult to do considering that I have food allergies that make it sometimes quite impossible to find even unprocessed foods here in the US.
I’m part of the growing minority here that is allergic to corn, which cuts out most things in grocery store: root vegetables (the corn allergy community figures this is due to absorbed fertilizers from the soil or the corn-based ethanol that makes them sprayable), waxed produce (peppers, pome fruits, cucumbers, citrus fruits, tomatoes, melons), anything with a flow agent (most salt, spice blends, and flour), anything stored on slow-melt ice (brassicas, fish), anything sprayed with or processed with corn-derived acids (meat, most cooking oils), or packaged in a corn-derived plastic.
So now food comes from farmers, the garden, foraging, and occasionally a few fancy expensive brands of pantry goods from fancy expensive stores.
Making food less dopaminergic, harder to get, seasonal, and variable, has cured the pickiness I used to experience, which is the one true silver lining of being allergic to… well, everything.
Thank you so much for sharing this.
This is mind blowing.
I had no idea about the contamination/deliberate use of corn derivatives in so many 'fresh' products. You have opened my eyes.
I'm guessing that many of the people in the corn-allergy communities, like you, are able to think broadly and find a path through the constraints. I'm wondering how many do not. I'm genuinely shocked.
Thank you so much for writing this! It's not a topic I've heard anything about in the UK - though we don't have the same corn subsidies and surpluses so corn-based products are much less common. Wow...
I was hoping you had a book!
I leaned in hard to baby-led weaning and was so proud that my oldest ate everything. But now she’s suddenly picky at 4, and it’s gutting me. She will simply refuse to eat what we serve and cry during the night that she’s hungry. If a child refuses to eat and seems to be suffering, how long do you go on?
Owch, that sounds hard to deal with at the moment. :(
Don't worry though, this is a normal phase. In our home, we start with some of everything on our plate, and we have a single food rule - "you never need to finish your plate, but you can't have more (of everything) until your plate is empty.". And when they are small, we start with a little of everything, then if they want seconds, they have a little of everything more. Only snacks between meals are vegetables, and all food is on the table to start (i.e. no dessert to wait for). Once they have finished, there's nothing until the next meal.
Some things that might help - get her to serve herself to a little bit of everything. If she tells you she's hungry at night, be sympathetic, "I'm sorry you're so hungry. I bet you'll be glad when it's breakfast time."
The other thing that worked well with the little ones was to tell them stories about the microbes that live in their tummies. They only eat fruits and vegetables, and they need the child to feed them. And when the child eats fruit or vegetables, you can hear the microbes saying "THANK YOU!" There's a bit of magic there. Once they are very comfortable with the idea of microbes, you can then ask something like "What are your microbes going to eat?" or "Microbes LOVE x vegetable." We also played a game where you ask the children what the microbes say when you give them different foods. So "Carrots" = "WE LOVE CARROTS". or "Cake" = "no thank you". Useful affirmations as well!
Hope something helps! It will pass. It's important to feed all of your body with the foods that you eat, but sometimes some storytelling or magic can help. :)
Thank you so much for all the thoughtful advice! I’ll be incorporating these tips.
I think this article got the bulk of the issues. I do think, like the Japanese intuit, that palette can be trained. I will also note that store bought baby cereals are extremely sweet yet many parents wean their kids on these. They’re very easy to prepare, far easier than adult food. Just add water. That should make one very suspicious; almost too good to be true. If you wean your child on such much sugar, no wonder normal foods taste bland to them. Same with salt. If you’re used to salty foods, then normal foods will taste bland.
There also seems to be an impulse to give kids fruit juice. That is barely forbidden in my house. My husband at one point started buying apple juice and when I ask him why, he said it just seemed like the thing to do. Apparently he was raised on the concept that juices are healthy and kids should be having them! Even my parents bought me a juicer and said “you should give them cold pressed juice. It’s really good for them. WHY. When the fruit is right there? Why do I have to put it through that machine and have to do clean up after, just to make drinking still water a battle later?
I went through years before I could tolerate normal water. I trained myself off sugary drinks by first drinking soda, then going to sparkling water, then finally going to still water. I don’t need to start my kids on liquid sugar lol. We don’t stock juices in the house. If they want sweets, they can eat an apple washed but whole. I might take a bite to help them, but otherwise they’re old enough to eat fruit unprocessed. Juices are a special occasion thing. Both my kids love water and I hope that never changes.
Thank you so much for sharing! Sounds like a long journey to get used to water, and I can imagine that it made you very certain that you didn't want your children to go through the same experience. It's so much harder to take something away than it is not to introduce it in the first place - like the baby cereals. You're absolutely right that there are culturally default behaviours that it's easy to do without thinking about. Sometimes, it takes an experience like yours to reveal the problems that can come from these default behaviours...
Raising 3 children in Switzerland, where all 3 came home for lunch all through their primary school years, I found this interesting and thought-provoking. I do cook most meals from scratch, and my children have learnt some cooking skills. I do have one caveat on your article- the "rare diseases" mentioned in the bit on snacking. My eldest is autistic, and has various gastro-intestinal issues (the two are often linked), which are neither diseases, nor rare. She is only now, at almost 17, starting to recognise hunger. As a baby and toddler, she was very difficult to feed (I breastfed her for a year), and this lasted until she was about 13. Many autistic people have similar issues with food and eating, and recognising their body's needs, and it often goes unrecognised.
That sounds really tough. I totally agree - there are some things that make this much harder. My child also has a condition that makes her much more likely to be selective, and the dietitians told us from the start about the importance of setting up a good structured food environment to reduce the risk. It's not always possible to prevent picky eating in certain conditions, but it's often possible to make it less severe than it could be.