^^Mazen’s first food photography!
I’ve mentioned before that Mazen is a typical picky eater. He’s not all Plain Jane, and he does have a handful of very healthy foods that he likes, but I would never use the terms “adventurous” or “well rounded” to describe his diet. I can’t help but compare his meals to those of other kids I know (I’m looking at you Eat Live Run and Daily Garnish!) and feel like a failure as a mom. We’ve done our best to present a variety of healthy options and enthusiastically model healthy eating, but sometimes I wonder if it’s just luck of the draw. We do have a very strong-willed personality over here!
Matt has done a really good job of cooking with Mazen this past year, and not surprisingly Mazen has tried many more new foods at Matt’s house. So I decided I needed to step up my game and work on our meals: shopping, preparing, and eating together.
Mazen doesn’t like spaghetti (I know, right?!) but he LOVES pizza, so my idea for a meal was to put his favorite pizza toppings on noodles. This isn’t a gold-star meal, but it incorporates several vegetables and is only one step away from something he really likes. Matt has had good success with assemble-yourself meals, so I kept everything separate and we built our bowls together.
So how did it go? Really well!!! He loved the assembly, and while he didn’t gobble it all down, he ate a little of everything (veggies included).
Yes the pepperoni was the biggest hit : )
We said “cheers” with his and hers kombuchas too!
And he took photos of his bowl and of me using my big camera – not bad for his first time!
I have since also done a DIY taco bar with him (which was not a big hit) and homemade pizza (which was). I’d love any more ideas of meals your kids love to help make!
Terry says
My son doesn’t like spaghetti either or mashed potatoes, all the foods I was told kids loved! But we find what he likes and is growing and healthy love your post! Hiding vegetables, putting cheese on them etc, never worked. Thanks for the great ideas
Andrea says
Taco (salad?) bar!
KathEats says
I did that last weekend! It wasn’t as big of a hit as I was hoping, but that could have just been his mood…
Maria says
When my kids were little we would make plates of macaroni with faces. They would have grated cheese for hair. Cucumber rounds with black olives in th centre for eyes red pepper lips, carrot noses, cauliflower ears , kale bow ties or hair bows. They could be different every time. The kids loved them and ate so much more this way!!
KathEats says
Cute!
Lisa Valinsky says
I would recommend just getting Mazen as involved as possible! Kids are more likely to try foods that they help grow, shop for, prep, and cook, so however you can get him to help, the better!
I used to teach cooking and food preservation to kids, and found that these steps often made a big difference: http://www.lisavalinsky.com/2016/06/how-to-teach-kids-to-appreciate-healthy-local-food.html
Emily says
My kids (two and four) LOVE to help me bake muffins. There are tons of healthy muffin recipes and we can slip veggies or things like pumpkin in there really easily…they think they are a getting a “cake” treat & I am happy knowing they are eating something healthy and fun they helped create. I let them have the first turn stirring and let them pour the ingredients after I measure.
abby says
I think you are doing a great job and know how frustrating the picky eating thing can be. I do believe there is only so much parents can do and then it is up to the kids! I have 2 kids, 4 years and 2 years, and they have been fed the exact same way and my 4 year old is a much more adventurous eater than my 2 year old and always has been. She loves hard boiled eggs, broccoli, chick peas, short ribs, even raw spinach in her sandwiches. My 2 year refuses most foods on site, doesn’t even try them and pushes them away, and rarely eat vegetables unless they are blended into something. I just keep offering but obviously you can not force them to eat. I try to always include something he does like, manly fruit, and just keep hoping he will turn a corner but it is really interesting to me to see how differently he approaches food than his sister. I definitely think nature versus nurture wins on this one.
Allison says
It’s totally luck of the draw! My son used to eat anything! Now at four his palate is much more limited. Im OK with him saying he doesn’t like something, as long as he tries it. It drives me insane when he proclaims he doesn’t like what we are having for dinner….before I even tell him what it is!!
theresa says
I’ve had good success with burrito bowls. grilled chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, black beans, corn, cheese, tomatoes and brown rice or quinoa. they add what they want.
Erin @ Her Heartland Soul says
How fun! I wish I had been exposed to more foods at a younger age! It took me until I was 18 to like fruits and vegetables!
Ashely says
It really is luck of the draw. My daughter will eat anything, and my son is super picky. He wouldn’t even touch pizza until he was 7! Sometimes for my own sanity I just let him have a bowl of cereal and fruit for dinner. As long as Mazen is healthy and thriving, that’s all that matters.
Sophie says
Gosh, I think Mazen is a pretty adventurous if he’ll eat mushrooms. I hated them when I was a kid and didn’t like them until adulthood. So slimy, LOL! I’m sure you had some things you didn’t like to eat when you were a kid, right?
Can’t wait to see what you guys will make next!
KathEats says
I don’t think I ate any veggies but broccoli until high school!
Sophie says
LOL! See – he’s not doing so bad after all!
Sue says
Don’t compare your life to other people’s instagram accounts! Especially when it comes to what their kids are eating. 😉
I love the idea of DIY meals. We do a similar one with tiny slider buns and sandwich fillings – meat, cheese, greens, pickles, avocado – and some baked sweet potato fries. With the tiny buns they can have more than 1 to get some fun and variety.
Shel@PeachyPalate says
Love letting my niece and nephew help get the dinner prepared, it makes them so much more enthusiastic when it comes to eating it!
Leslee @ Her Happy Balance says
Maybe a little omelet station or make-your-own chili bowls? I don’t have kids yet, but this was really refreshing to see that even knowing the proper nutrition as an RD doesn’t make it any less challenging to try and teach it and transfer those habits to your child. I always thought I would just try to follow the Satter method and everything would be hunky doory. This is a great glimpse into real life, thanks for the openness.
Julia says
A nice veggie addition to omlets or scrambled eggs is puréed cauliflower. I cook and purée cauliflower ahead if time and freeze it in ice cube trays. For 6 eggs I would thaw 2 cubes and mix them in before cooking. You can’t taste the cauliflower and it makes the eggs more fluffy.
Sarah says
My son is 2.5, so he is still a little young for raw leafy greens, but he will always try salad if I let him help using the salad spinner. We are starting to work on supervised knife skills too, which almost always means helping with veggie prep, and therefore trying/eating veggies. He gets excited about gardening, the farm share, and the farmer’s market too, so if I remind him that something is from the garden/share/market, he’s more excited about it. Even more so if he can just pick & eat! Sometimes, a green smoothie is the only way to get a veggie in him, and other times he is really open-minded.
I also don’t do back up options. Whatever I made for breakfast, lunch, or dinner is all you get – you don’t have to eat it all, but there are no alternatives. If he eats poorly/picky at one meal, I know he will be extra hungry (= adventurous) at the next.
KathEats says
Green smoothies all the time here too!
I have also started a “this is your dinner and you’re not getting a backup” plan, and it’s been going well. If he’s still hungry after dinner because he refused most of it, he gets a choice of carrots, almonds, or sometimes a yogurt, but only healthy options. Carrots are now his favorite “bedtime snack.”
Sarah says
I love that he thinks carrots are a bedtime snack, haha!
Emily says
We do the same thing with offering either carrots or an apple before bed if our kids are still hungry 🙂
Alexandria says
You are doing all the right things! My 2.5 year old loves to help me bake and is a big fan of “bowls” – we make Asian, Mexican, and clean out the fridge versions with different veggies, grains, proteins, and sauces. Still an “assemble yourself” meal but lots of opportunity for variety. We definitely go through our picky phases too, and as a fellow RD mama I know it’s a challenge sometimes when you feel like your kiddos diet isn’t as well balanced as you hope. Don’t get discouraged & keep sharing your ideas & successes with us!
Morgan says
My daughter is 7 so a little older but went through a very picky phase when she started school. One thing that has helped her is that we have themed dinner nights. We started with just Taco Tuesday, and I figured out that she would eat pretty much anything if it was some sort of taco and she would just get super excited about it. We have had sweet potato/black bean tacos, shrimp tacos, even Thai tacos, and she gets excited because it’s Taco Tuesday. Sounds silly, but she always eats it. I have now added an Asian Night and she’s been pretty willing to try that stuff too. We’re having Indian style lentils tomorrow night, so I guess that’s going to be the ultimate test. At any rate, it’s a fun way to try new foods for us as well.
KathEats says
I love that idea!
Cait says
I have one picky one and one kid who eats everything…funny thing is I am a professional chef and I am pretty sure the picky one will regret everything he didn’t try when he was little,but oh well.DIY pizza and quesadillas seem like a good start(mine will eat beans and avocado on a quesadilla -really anything with cheese!)I know you guys go to the farmers market-that is key for kids(especially picky eaters)- lots of samples of stuff they might not normally try …my picky eater also grew some veggies in the back yard-at least got him to try some fresh peas and radishes.
Supposedly if kids try things repeatedly they are more inclined to like them(I admit I am not great about this!).
How about pea pesto as a pizza topping?I also had a friend who would make zucchini pesto for noodles that kids liked…and I make zucchini bread and pumpkin bread fr my kids too with whole wheat pastry flour and less sugar.
Anyway looks like Mazen is a really good eater so I wouldn’t worry too much about it!!
KathEats says
I’m fascinated by so many of you who have one who is picky and one who is not. Makes me feel better that it is nature 🙂 Pea or zucchini pesto is a great idea because he does eat pesto (although not ON things like pasta – just as a dip!)
Heather says
I agree that involving R in the process has kept him interested in trying new things. My favorite way to get him to eat spinach is with pesto. I use this recipe and do mostly spinach instead of just basil. I think the pesto would make great pizza sauce if you can’t get him to do the pasta. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/pasta-pesto-and-peas-recipe2.html
Sara says
I make veggie “pancakes” for my 2.5 year old all the time. I start with the Smitten Kitchen zucchini fritters recipe, but have added shredded carrots and spinach, too: https://smittenkitchen.com/2011/08/zucchini-fritters/
He loves to watch the veggies go into the food processor and helps put in the flour, baking powder, and eggs, as well as helps to stir. They also make a great packed lunch option for his daycare.
KathEats says
Good one!
Sara says
I have one kid who is open to trying everything and one kid who eats about 6 things. From what I have seen/read, Mazen looks like a really great kid to cook for! He eats veggies, he tries new things, he eats things that are strongly flavored (like pesto).
We did nothing to encourage one kid eating better than the other. It was luck of the draw or an aspect of their personality that has made it shake out this way.
Interestingly, the kid who won’t eat is the more physically adventurous one!
It looks like you are doing everything you can to give him options and let him explore his world – including food. Power over food is one of the first things kids express as its one of the first powers they have. Maybe give it more time…
And nice job to Mazen on the pictures!
Katie @ Peace Love & Oats says
That’s great that you’ve both been cooking WITH him. My mom didn’t like cooking so she had about 10 simple recipes she’d rotate and she preferred to just get them done quickly so I never really learned how to cook. Granted I also don’t love cooking… I do love eating!
Tiffany says
Q is happy to “help” me cook…if I roast potatoes or broccoli (or whatever), she sits on the counter and puts what I’ve cut up in a bag…then we add oil and spices and she gets to shake it. I find she sneaks pieces of broccoli this way and is excited to eat it when it comes out of the oven. Does he like corn on the cob? She does!
mandie says
I think all kids go through picky stages, just keep presenting him with the foods and he’ll pick up. I also wonder if kids being picky these days has to due with eating out so much. I mean they get to pick what they eat when they’re out, so they feel that applies to when they’re home as well. And most restaurant kids menu’s are awful and full of the same stuff (chicken nuggets/fingers, hot dogs, pizza etc.)
KathEats says
Good point!
Stacey says
Now that he’s older and more aware, maybe next summer you can have him select and help plant some veggies in your garden. Then he can help water, pick the veggies and decide a meal to eat them in. When I was little one of my fondest memories was going to my grandma’s house and helping her in her veggie garden. Picking and eating the produce immediately was such a treat! My mom never planted a garden so this was something fun for us to do together and obviously it still stuck with me! My daughter loves veggies thankfully, but at 18-months and still ramming around the house I’m not letting her into my garden 🙂
Dana says
He might be a little young for this, and I do not currently have my own children to bring in to the kitchen (expecting our first in January!), but my mom combatted our picky eating in two ways that still stand out to me: 1) we were allowed to have ONE FOOD we genuinely did not like, and never had to eat, but if it was an ingredient in what was being prepared we had to be in the kitchen helping prepare our alternative (mine was tomatoes, I’m super good at veggie lasagna now…)–all other foods we had to have one bite (she didn’t police how big or small); and 2) one night per week we were the meal preppers! I think this fostered appreciation for the work it took to prepare the meal, and responsibility in pre-planning–we had to submit our “grocery list” by Sunday morning when she left for shopping, and then if we needed to defrost meat it was our responsibility. Obviously, she helped and supervised, and we repeated meals A LOT (I never have made tacos as an adult, thanks little ‘bro…) but I really think it did a lot for us! And our relationship with her, because we had that dedicated one-on-one time. Just a thought, probably on hold until he’s older 🙂
Annie says
This is random, but my first “cooking” memory with my mom was making fruit salad, which we would have with breakfast or dinner (because, this was the Midwest in the 80s). I loved carefully slicing bananas with a butter knife because I never got to use knives otherwise! Mom would do harder fruit like apples with a chef’s knife.
Denise A Belyavsky says
I have used Jessica Seinfeld’s (married to Jerry Seinfeld) recipes from “Deceptively Delicious” and “Double Delicious”…she purees vegetables and uses them in all kinds of yummy recipes.