Kids and food

What is the most off the beaten track "adult" food you have been able to get your children to eat?

I've heard of all sorts of methods of getting kids to eat things from hiding it in mashed potatoes to using reverse psychology.

Do any of you have a 9 year old who loves steak tartar or raw clams?

Just curious, no real moral to this story.

No, but I have a 9yr old that will fry venison steaks himself after school, in butter and garlic salt. Delicious!

onthekeg said:

No, but I have a 9yr old that will fry venison steaks himself after school, in butter and garlic salt. Delicious!

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That works! As a kid I liked venison an awful lot as well. I didnt like ketchup until I was a teenager though, go figure.

My 10 year old will eat almost anything, except tomatoes or fish. He'll eat spinach, raw and cooked, asparagus, lima beans, he eats the hottest chicken wings we can find, I really can't think of anything except fish and tomatoes that he won't eat.

Now, my 6 year old is kinda a PITA. Doesn't like most vegetables, have been really working just to get him to eat potatoes (mashed or home-style chunks) other than french fries. He's mostly fine, but as we try to eat better, he's the one out of the two that doesn't like most of the stuff. All-in-all though he's pretty good. At least I don't have to make him hot dogs or chicken fingers every night. He'll eat all the meat except fish, like his brother.

We food-process carrots and such and put them in our meatloaf. It's so tiny they don't even care. We make smoothies with frozen fruit, spinach, milk, etc. As long as it looks like a shake and tastes good, they don't even care if spinach is in it. If they're "lookers" make it tiny so they don't even notice it.

I don't have kids, but I do have nieces & nephews. I once left a can of sardines in mustard sauce on the table & my 4 year old niece started playing with it. The can was the pull-ring type & I told her if she opened it, she had to eat it. Sure enough, she cracked it open, so I got out the crackers & a fork, got her all set to eat sardines in mustard sauce on crackers; thinking it would be quite a battle. That little girl sat there & happily munched away on those sardines & actually asked for more when she'd eaten them all. I was so impressed, I gave her a fudgecicle after the 2nd can of sardines.
Regards, GF.

gratus fermentatio said:

I don't have kids, but I do have nieces & nephews. I once left a can of sardines in mustard sauce on the table & my 4 year old niece started playing with it. The can was the pull-ring type & I told her if she opened it, she had to eat it. Sure enough, she cracked it open, so I got out the crackers & a fork, got her all set to eat sardines in mustard sauce on crackers; thinking it would be quite a battle. That little girl sat there & happily munched away on those sardines & actually asked for more when she'd eaten them all. I was so impressed, I gave her a fudgecicle after the 2nd can of sardines.
Regards, GF.

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Hee Hee! Even I havent had the sardines in mustard sauce!

Love the sardines in mustard!

I made "mashed potatoes" from squash one time and made my little one eat it a few bites. She threw up.

Sow she won't eat anything that she knows has squash in it. Even if it's a completely different kind of squash.

She loves Pasties though. I think it's time to make a few again.

I really wanted to make a joke about nipple tassels, but thought better of it since your daughter was in the story. Had it been your wife or sister I wouldnt have been able to resist.

Now that that is out of my system, the history behind the Cornish Pasty is pretty interesting, and I would think that a kid especially would love the idea of lunch on the left and dessert on the right!

I think if you are trying to expand a kids eating horizons at 9 it is going to be pretty tough. I have some experience getting teenagers to eat different things and it is tough to expand peoples eating habits after years of limited exposure.

Our girls eat what we eat everyday or they don't eat. So they pretty much eat everything. I can't get my oldest to eat more than a bite or two of leafy greens, but that is about it. Both kids will readily eat everything from head cheese to pickled herring, to sushi, and meat pies. They don't always eat everything or like everything, but the rule is they need to take 3 bites of everything just to try it before they decide they don't like it. That's how I was raised, and I am happy with my own results so far. My girls are 3.5 and 2.

Homercidal said:

Love the sardines in mustard!

I made "mashed potatoes" from squash one time and made my little one eat it a few bites. She threw up.

Sow she won't eat anything that she knows has squash in it. Even if it's a completely different kind of squash.

She loves Pasties though. I think it's time to make a few again.

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It's an allergy. My youngest has it, too. If he's even near a pumpkin being gutted, or tries any sort of squash, his gag reflex kicks in. Started when we were carving pumpkins one year. He couldn't be within 6 feet of them. He's fine with sweet potatoes, but no spaghetti squash, etc. Not sure about zucchini.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

Our girls eat what we eat everyday or they don't eat. So they pretty much eat everything. ...They don't always eat everything or like everything, but the rule is they need to take 3 bites of everything just to try it before they decide they don't like it. That's how I was raised, and I am happy with my own results so far.

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+1 We subscribe to this as well. I find that removing a cop-out sugar answer (e.g., applesauce, yogurt, cereal, etc) improves willingness to eat what's provided. And absolutely no tolerance for a bad attitude. If she doesn't like it, fine, she can say no thank you. But no whining.

we are that way, too. you eat what we have or you go hungry. sure, I'll put ketchup on it...but if i do, you better eat it. im not making some concoction that nobody'll eat once you decide you dont like it. of course i dont make stuff that i know they hate like fish, but often theres at least one thing that my youngest isnt crazy about. i give him small portions of that so he can more easily "finish" it. if we have any sort of treats, has to eat a prescribed amount of everything on plate first, usually all of the main course and most of any sides.

tre9er said:

It's an allergy. My youngest has it, too. If he's even near a pumpkin being gutted, or tries any sort of squash, his gag reflex kicks in. Started when we were carving pumpkins one year. He couldn't be within 6 feet of them. He's fine with sweet potatoes, but no spaghetti squash, etc. Not sure about zucchini.

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I think she just didn't like the taste. She's tried a couple of different squashes since then and just doesn't like them. It's because they are all called squash. I bet I could fix up something delicious and call it a squash and she won't eat it.

And to be fair to her, it wasn't a very good dinner that night.

She will eat some odd things but is fairly suspicious of most unusual looking items.

Homercidal said:

I think she just didn't like the taste. She's tried a couple of different squashes since then and just doesn't like them. It's because they are all called squash. I bet I could fix up something delicious and call it a squash and she won't eat it.

And to be fair to her, it wasn't a very good dinner that night.

She will eat some odd things but is fairly suspicious of most unusual looking items.

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Hmm, must not be the same thing as mine has, then. He literally started gagging after coming near the pumpkins we were carving and has had the same reaction to squashes without us telling him.

Has she ever had squash without knowing it? I'd be interested to know how that goes because I really feel that mine has an allergy based on his reactions.

She ate some spaghetti squash with marinara last night. Probably 1 bite. She said it was ok, but apparently not ok enough to eat more of it.

I used to eat coconut as a kid. For a long time I suddenly gagged whenever I could smell it. Couldn't stand it. Now I can eat it in like candy bars, but I really don't prefer to. I can sometimes taste if candy has coconut oil in it.

Even mostly naked girls on a beach is a turn off if they smell like coconut!

Weird, mine must have an allergy then because he never expressed that he thought the pumpkin was gross or anything but he was gagging (and was only about 3 at the time, too young to fake it or be dramatic about it).

Homercidal said:

She ate some spaghetti squash with marinara last night. Probably 1 bite. She said it was ok, but apparently not ok enough to eat more of it.

I used to eat coconut as a kid. For a long time I suddenly gagged whenever I could smell it. Couldn't stand it. Now I can eat it in like candy bars, but I really don't prefer to. I can sometimes taste if candy has coconut oil in it.

Even mostly naked girls on a beach is a turn off if they smell like coconut!

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I'm impressed that she tried even one bite after a bad experience like that.

One time when we were at a chinese barf-ay, my 7 year old daughter asked what was in a tray. I told her they were frog legs. She gave the typical yuk reply and we filled our plates and sat down.
It wasn't 5 minutes and she brought up the frog legs again.
She asked if I would eat any. I didn't want any so I said if you do.
She said yes. We both ate some and she wanted more. She keeps asking where we can get them again!

She also doesn't like hot foods. She has tried and liked curry when I'm eating it.

I've taken my oldest out for sushi for her last 3 birthdays, she's now 12.. she loves all of it.. when she was 3,4&5 all she wanted was green beans.. the second kid (10) all we have to do is smother it in ketchup.. the third one (6) will eat almost anything we put in front of her.. the fourth (4) sits at the table and won't touch anything and usually sits an extra 1/2-1 hour longer whining about finishing but when she was 2 we caught her eating those pill bugs off the patio..lol..

Our kids are pretty easy when it comes to food. They are older now (14, 16, & 18). We took a tough love path pretty early on - you will never find a cheese pizza in our house! Tough love for us means that the food is in the table - your choice to eat it or not. No extras if you didn't bother with the food you were served. We never fought about it - the food went away when the meal was over. If you got hungry later, there were leftovers in the microwave. It helps that my wife is an awesome cook! Everyone is allowed one "by" - one thing that they can pick that they never have to eat no matter what.

Weirdest thing? Probably raw oysters. You won't find a lot of kids lining up of those!

My son is usually really good about eating his food. We give him the choice of a veggie and as long as he gets to choose something or have some say in what's being made, he'll eat it. He actually asked for (and ate) peas the other night. I had to pretend to like them too. There has been an occasion where I told my wife that I wasn't going to eat what was being made (i.e. scrapple, asparagus, any kind of mushroom). There are some things that just over the line for me. She ate those items alone while my son and I had breakfast for dinner. He's a good 3yr old.