Expanding fruit and veggie selection with toddlers

I really need to expand my kids worlds. Veggies are a problem, fruit not so much. They'll eat about any fruit. However, my son has always hated veggies. I know the studies, taste buds formed in the womb, all that malarky. I can tell you that I am a veggie person. I like them. I craved green beans when I was pregnant with him. He behaved like the girl from the exorcist when I gave him green beans. Getting him to eat veggies is still difficult and sometimes still ends up with him ralphing. I'd like to get more veggie variety into their lives, and my own. How do I go about getting them to eat this stuff? It's bad enough that he has to swallow each pea down with water. I can't imaging how I'm going to get him to eat anything else. HELP!

btw son is 4 and daughter is 2.

Tastebuds may be formed in the womb but I believe that likes and dislikes come from trying things over and over.

My son is 12 now and finally starting to like more things. I think if you can get one bite into a kid that is enough for any given meal. My son eats with his eyes and if he decides he doesn't like the look of the food then he doesn't like the food and getting him to taste it can be a fight. It's a fight I've stopped having. Continually offering and letting him choose seems to be working better. Letting them know that it's ok not to like them now but that they will learn to like them can help. They won't really believe you but saying it over and over and getting that one bite in them if it can be done without tantrums is how it starts. Some people would say to force them and make them sit there till they are done. That never worked for me and I've decided that it isn't kind and causes more problems than it solves. I would recommend the book "French Kids Eat Everything" to you. I don't agree with everything the author says but she has some good ideas for getting started. Above all just keep trying things over and over and don't worry about quantity.

Everything here I've learned from trial and(lots of) error. I hope it helps you a little.

Oh, another thing I found that really helped with my own frustration level was to teach my son the difference between "that's gross" and "I don't like it".

I do make him eat 3 bites of everything before he can choose not to eat it. He frustrates me because he loves things but decides he doesn't. He loves shepherds pie but one day he just decided it was gross. Huge fight, he ate some, told me it was great and ate it all. Kids are killer.........

I do know that last year he ate every pea he could so long as he was able to pick it and eat it right out of the pod. So perhaps that will be the ticket.

Tonight I was planning burgers and I'm thinking perhaps I'll do carrot chips and sweet potato fries.... maybe. Maybe I can get him to eat it if I hide it. Frustrating!

Thanks for the book suggestion though, going to look into it!

Heh, I totally get how frustrating the love it today hate it tomorrow thing is.

Tastes keep changing and expanding. I'm a formerly picky kid myself but now I eat things even my parents think are icky.

So I bought a purple and a regular sweet potato. We cut them up. Our son was excited to be eating colored french fries. Then he wouldn't even try them. Ok, I made him take 1 bite but he declared it was disgusting and wouldn't eat any fries. That child...he kills me.

Don't try to convince him too much. Sometimes, kids resist things more if we try too much to convince them. Just be patient and keep experimenting with different vegetable recipes. I'm sure he'll slowly develop the taste and interest in vegetables.

We had huge success with our son when we switched to a whole foods diet.  It took a few days to adjust to a life without goldfish and pretzels, but once all the junk food was completely eliminated, he fell in love with veggies.  Most children (and many adults) have desensitized taste buds from all the processed food, high fructose corn syrup, etc.  Once my son's tastes adjusted to REAL FOOD, he was all in.  He always asks for more broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, fill in the blank.

Every kid is different.  What is wildly successful for one may fail miserably with the next.  I've pretty much raised 9 (my youngest is 15, and I'm not sure your ever done raising your kids).  There are some general principals I've found useful.  I realize they are all obvious.  Sometimes the obvious bears repeating.

1.  Kids learn by copying you.  If you really like something, they will probably end up liking it also.  If your always chewing on a carrot, they will just naturally pick one up and chew on it.  If your faking it, they will pick up on it.

2.  Stories!!!  If you want small kids to like green beans, then maybe goldilocks and the three bears was REALLY about bowls of green beans.  SELL IT!!!  When Popeye came out in the thirties, canned spinach sales went through the roof.  I've had great luck with stories.  I prefer to come at things from the side. My wife is more linear in her approach and I think my way works a bit better because usually I can slip the lesson in before they realize where this is going.  I don't normally advocate lying to small children, but my 17 year old son was an amazingly fussy eater but really enthusiastic about samurai and ninjas. Some historically unlikely foods became favored by samurai and ninjas in stories I told when he was little.  When he became a teenager I think he enjoyed telling me I was wrong in some of my stories, but it was too late, he had already decided he liked the foods I told him his heros liked.  With stories I made whining about food seem like "baby behavior".  Once that was established, little kids wanting to be big kids were a lot less likely to do it.

3.  Rename it.  Dragon Meat, Monkey Brains, whatever will catch their interest.  They could hardly give away spider crab.  They renamed it King Crab and attitudes immediately changed.  Things picked in the garden were 'garden candy'.

4.  Good Times!  We associate what we eat with how we are feeling when we eat it.  If everyones happy when you are eating something, it has good associations.  

5.  Let them help.  Food they have picked or helped prepare is intrinsically more interesting.  They've already got a stake in it.  Even two year olds can pick (under close direction) things in the garden, wash vegies, add premeasured water, watch the pot boil, etc.  Lift them up so they can see.  Of course this will slow you down so you will need to decide how much and how often you use this. This is pretty easy with a single child, harder as you add more.  On the plus side the bigger ones can have the smaller ones helping them.  It becomes a family activity instead of mom or dad fixing dinner.  The plus side is that your kids will become capable in an important life skill early on.  Also, when they are older and less enthusiastic about helping, they are already in the habit.

5.  Avoid serving what you are trying to sell if they might be getting sick.  if you get sick after eating something (especially something new), then your body may decide it poisoned you and it will taste really bad to you after that.  You can reprogram yourself over time by eating small quantities, but you are working against the tide (I snuck a jar of mayonaise when I was a kid and ate the whole jar and got sick.  I still hate mayo!)

6.  Small quantities.  A few bites each time allow the person's taste buds to adjust and are easier to get them to do.  If you need to, make a family deal where everyone takes a few bites of the new thing.  If everyone is doing it it's less onerous than if everyone is watching the one kid being forced to eat the nasty stuff.

7.  YOUTUBE IT!  Learn how to cook it well.  Cabbage is now a favorite part of our dinners, much more than a few years ago.  My wife found an old WWII british video about how to properly cook cabbage.  We hadn't realized we didn't know how to cook cabbage properly.  The family watched the video several times (it was mildly interesting and amusing) and everyone agrees our cabbage tastes much better than it used to be.  Watching the video made cabbage seem a little more interesting also.

8.  Minimize between meal snacking.  If you are hungry, food tastes better and your less likely to turn up your nose at something.  Some people are grazers and just snack through the day.  My general observation is that it makes for fussier eaters, and is often more expensive.

9.  Don't give up!  Being the parent means doing stuff you hate sometimes, for good of your child.  Just approach it like changing a dirty diaper (disagreeable, but it still needs to be done, try to see the humor it the situation).  My 17 year old was the fussiest eater I have ever seen.  He tasted with eyes and only liked white stuff (white bread, mashed potatos, rice, although he was willing to wave the color if it was candy).  For years, when he was small, every meal (almost) he would come up to the table, survey the offerings and announce loudly "I HATE THIS STUFF!  THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!"  We eventually started shouting it spontaneously, as a family chorus whenever we saw him getting ready to say it.  This embarrassed him and after a while he stopped.  It was a tough for a few years, and he is still a little fussier eater than the others, but he likes most of the stuff he used to hate.  He eats whatever is on the table and doesn't complain.  With this kid, I call that victory.  

My kids (5 and 2) are okay veggie eaters- they'll eat the easy stuff like cherry tomatoes, cukes and peas in season, but have had to get creative with the squash and greens and such.  I've had a lot of success with the stealth approach- shredded zuke and carrots, or squash puree hide well in muffins and meatballs; chard, kale, and spinach blend well with berries and yogurt for smoothies or popsicles, lentils and diced celery hide delighfully in sloppy joes. And if you have to drown veggies in ranch dressing to sell it, i find that a yogurt based homemade concocotion helps absolve parental guilt .   Of course, kids are notoriously wily about food and masters of changing their minds just as parents get used to a particular routine or behavior- just as you congratulate yourself on finding a nutrient rich meal that they ate with no complaint or negotiation, they won't eat it again.  The other side of this is that they'll also change their minds, just as you resign to a life of elaborate schemes, stories, and bargains at meal time!

My mother used to make meat loaf using a can of vegetable soup.  Normal recipe then add the undiluted condensed soup.

You could grate carrots and add them to the burger mixture.  I saw Valerie [the actress with the TV cooking show] make meat balls with canned pumpkin added to the meat.

Would your son drink something like V8?  

If I remember correctly, I didn't stress over what my kids would eat or not eat.  They were served what we were having and they could eat it or not.  If they didn't eat it then the dogs got a nice treat. Don't give snacks or candy between meals and they should be hungry enough to want to eat, then let them eat what they want.  If they don't eat dinner they don't get dessert.

What's wrong with butter and cheese?  When they are the real thing, they are very healthy.  Kids are growing their bodies, and the brain is made almost entirely of fats.  The cell membrane is also made of phospholipids.  W A Price and many other health leaders believe animal fats are better than the liquid vegetable oils, grass fed, and grass finished dairy products are superior food.

One of my children's favorite lunch was canteloup boats.  I cut a section out of the melon for each child.  I supplied them with grapes, carrot sticks, slices of cheese, celery sticks, slices of raw butternut aquash, just what ever I had cut in to good sizes for creativity.  And tooth picks.

The boat was the melon, and they made what ever they wanted out of the boat, added sails or oars of smoke stack out of all the bites.  They made up stories about what was happening, and they ate bites of everything they were playing with.  It was fun.

Also, being single I did not worry too much about pleasing them.  I cooked with them in mind, but I never made separate food for separate members of the family.  Not liking this food or that food is a "first world problem".

Once my son who did like meatloaf tried to make an issue of not liking meatloaf.  Sat for a very long time stating he did  not like meatloaf.  I never said he had to eat it or could not leave the table without finishing.  The other members of the family asked to be excused and off they went.  Eventually he was left by himself, in a chair he could easily climb down from, stating periodically that he did not like meatloaf -- in a sulky and blaming voice.  When I could feel I was losing my patience, then when his next "I don't like meatloaf" came, I said "I understand you don't like meatloaf.  How do you feel about being hungry?" and went back to my noisy chore.  The next time I looked up that little boy was chowing down on his cold meatloaf.

In later years I taught them how to make oatmeal.  Then if someone did not like something, I would just say, "That's OK honey you only have to like it better than oatmeal"  And that was their permission to make oatmeal (from non instant oats non presweetened etc) and get out the yogurt and peanut butter to go along with it, or go ahead and eat their dinner.

Grown ups control what's available to the children, make healthy options available and let them make their way.  If there is no access to over sweetened junk food, fast food, all the food like substances, they'll do just fine.  As I posted on the halloween candy thread, "I used to say I did not ask you to like it,"  I had a friend that used to say to hers "liking it is extra"

Jim Faye of Love and Logic says a child is not going to die of hunger if he misses a meal.  He also says "Don't fight with smooth muscle".  

You can't make the child eat something he cannot swallow, but you can restrict access to other foods.  You can let him choose to skip a meal, with out any hard feelings or anger or frustration on anyone's part.

If this sounds like something  a parent  could get interested in , Love and Logic is still in business.  They are interested in fostering independence, good decision making and responsibility in children.  And they tell a lot of funny stories, about things like Helicopter, Drill Seargents and Consultant Parents, and they help parents develop the  needed skills to maintain quality of life for everybody.

And if not butter and cheese individually then all vegetables taste better with butter and/or cheese on them!

My siblings and I always ate our veggies first. Of course they were homegrown and super tasty. My boys always ate their veggies first, still do as young men. Of course they had great homegrown produce too. I can't imagine having Gerber baby food as a first experience with veggies and then actually LIKING them, or even plastic store produce. Can you?

Besides having quality produce and being good examples, we did use two tricks.

1. Besides having a two-bit rule, they were each allowed one, only one, food they didn't like and didn't have to eat. It could change, but not every meal or every day. They actually only changed a few times, but one son will not eat zucchini to this day, although he would happily much a full kilo of fresh cucumbers.
2. When they were 5 or 6 they were not very excited about salad. So we told them it was for adults only and that they were not old enough yet. We let this go on for a dinner or two, having them beg and plead for salad. Then we told them it was okay to try it, but they wouldn't like it. They were both salad lovers from that day on haha.

Anne Miller wrote:My mother used to make meat loaf using a can of vegetable soup.  Normal recipe then add the undiluted condensed soup.

You could grate carrots and add them to the burger mixture.  I saw Valerie [the actress with the TV cooking show] make meat balls with canned pumpkin added to the meat.

Would your son drink something like V8?  

If I remember correctly, I didn't stress over what my kids would eat or not eat.  They were served what we were having and they could eat it or not.  If they didn't eat it then the dogs got a nice treat. Don't give snacks or candy between meals and they should be hungry enough to want to eat, then let them eat what they want.  If they don't eat dinner they don't get dessert.

This is what my grandparents did. it is what my folks did NOT do.

My brother and I are both on the autism spectrum, and it was SUPER frustrating as a kid to have the 'you can't leave the table until you eat 3 bites' issue come up repeatedly. There were flavors and textures as a kid that literally would make me vomit if I tried to swallow them. Some of them I've come to like as an adult, but it's been WORK. (And I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to where I can eat fish other than canned tuna, honestly- just the smell of cooked fish makes my stomach start churning. I've taught myself to eat spinach this year, and am currently working on collard greens. have gotten to the point that I can cook them and appreciate them steamed with some butter and then cut up really small on my plate and mixed in with some other veggies I like better. And at least I eat and ate SOME veggies- my brother was the Beige Food Kid.) Better to make sure they come to the table hungry, offer things repeatedly, and then NOT MAKE A GIANT deal of it.

Obviously you don't want to waste food, but make portions for the adults and a tablespoon full is PLENTY for an introduction, honestly. Let them play with it, let them push it around and smell it and lick it but not eat it- whatever it takes to let them go at their own pace!

How about showing them how to make green smoothies and then let them create their own?

When I wrote my post yesterday I was thinking of a book but couldn't remember the name.  "Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld"

"It's a challenge that many parents face: getting the kids to eat their vegetables. Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, thought she had the answer and wrote a book called "Deceptively Delicious" about how to hide vegetables within foods to trick children into eating them.

But first out of the gate in April was "The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals," by Missy Chase Lapine"

"The idea of putting pureed vegetables in kids' food has been written about elsewhere many times, and recipes on the Internet abound for such dishes as brownies spiked with spinach and pudding with avocado. But the timing of the two books has certainly stirred more than appetites."

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-by-seinfelds-wife-stirs-controversy/

This article also mentions an earlier book:  "Lunch Lessons" by Ann Cooper and Lisa Holmes.

Here are some of Jessica's recipes:

http://www.oprah.com/food/Recipes-by-Jessica-Seinfeld

Now, I am not recommending rushing out and buying these books.  Just the concept.  If you google you will probably find lots of recipes.

Everyone has given great advice and I hope you will find something that helps.  

I've been holding off posting on this thread because I've never had a problem getting my nieces to eat vegetables. But no one is mentioning some things I considered key in introducing new vegetables.

Starting from a very young age I would cut up a variety of fresh vegetables into finger food sized slices and carry them with us on errands. The more colorful the better. When the girls where hungry, thirsty, and bored; I'd pull out the juicy and nutritious snacks. Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, bell peppers, cucumbers, celery, yellow summer squash, green beans, red cabbage (no I'm not kidding), peas in a pod all make good finger foods for children. Many of these come in multiple colors also, so the snack bags are even more colorful and visually enticing.  Maybe it's cheating to tie them into a chair to try new foods, but since they were stuck in that car seat anyways... I think it was lower stress for them to experiment, also.

There isn't the same expectation to finish every morsel when it's a snack. They could try something and then not eat any more if it was unpleasant. Next time it was offered they'd try it again just in case. Mind you, you're not going to get every kid to like every vegetable. We've got one that will snack on raw red onions, I still won't do that. She got hooked by dismantling hamburgers to eat piecemeal. It's cool either way, just so long as the other child finds another vegetable.

I was a preemie back in the day they were really not up to speed nor had facilities to deal with such. I survived but was very sickly for my first two years and they would feed me anything they could get me to eat at all. So I have a textural issue to a lot of fruit and veggies. Still do. I was a massively picky eater because my mom would try to force me to eat stuff I detested until I became family cook and thus could control what was in my portion.

1) Don't hide the food. Honest. Be totally above board on what's on the plate.
2) Try fresh and not prepackaged overprocess crap.
3) Don't lean on sauces and spices. I used to put salt on hamburger helper because it was BLAND. (read how much sodium is in that stuff)
4) Three pieces and that's it. And yes, it can be refused for a week afterwards. Then it may be seen again.
5) Don't force, ever.
6) Some things may never go over.

1-this was my biggest gripe. I still abhor the texture of onions and cook without them. My mom would mince them up and also put peas in just about everything. A few swiped fresh out of the garden are a zillion times better tasting than canned (from a can) and reheated peas.
2-some things are quite delicious fresh. A friend was devastated that her toddler daughter refused mac and cheese (from the box). I advised her to make it fresh, add some of her favorite steamed veggies, etc (like broccoli, the girl loved steamed broccoli), and by cutting the salt over the box stuff and dressing it up, the little one went after it with gusto.
3-teach the tastebuds with the plain food. Side note, save the strong stuff for a good night (celery etc).
4-Three pieces, make them kid sized easy to fork pieces. Eat three and you can vote for not seeing it for a week. That lets tastebuds get used to the idea. Kids taste differently than adults, and some things are just too strong...
5-I was 7 and came home from school for lunch. My father wasn't one to hand out spanking and mom had made canned veggie soup (Campbell's). I could eat the soup or get a spanking with his belt (he had never done that). I pulled myself up to full height, hands on hips, and looked up (I came up to his belt buckle) and calmly told him I'd take the spanking. They made me sit there until it was I HAD to go back to school and I watched the bowl get cold, then I was put over knee and got the spanking. I hid in the bathroom and cried until it quit hurting and was late back to school (and parents had to explain that one to the teacher). They never forced me to eat anything again.
6-I have tried over decades and some things I'd rather die than eat, and I've tried everything. A few things will only go down if I puree them. The texture thing.

As some have said, take some for snacks, keep them available, cut the junk food in their diet and eat the stuff yourself, frequently and in front of them. Get them involved in growing it too. The year I was four I had my first garden plot (supervised) but I started plants, planted them out, weeded them, and harvested my crop. Mom cooked the stuff and I ate my own stuff. Do watch the strong stuff though-beets, celery, onions... they take small doses.

Lot's of great advice, particularly about kids copying parents.

My customers tell me that buying fresh veggies from me changed the way their kids eat. I can't tell you how many times people have come to me and said their kids now -like- vegetables. It's pretty basic: fresh veggies, by which I mean fresh out of the ground and not store bought, actually taste good. I know I know... it's not so simple, but it seems to work for a lot of people.

When I was a kid we ate canned green beans and crap like that. Honestly, it should be obvious why no one would find that appealing.

Before I came to Africa, I had the food battles with my kids and foster kids.  Both of my boys have special needs, and were very picky about textures and flavors.

Then we moved to Africa.  Very rural, third world Africa.  I lost the ability to cater to my little food nazis.  

Meals became very simple - usually featuring only one food at a time, plus a starch.

No snacks were available between meals, except those that were foraged from the wild or snatched from the garden.

Food is basic and unprocessed.  No chemicals and addititives to alter and confuse the tastebuds.

And I think they are just plain HUNGRY because of our very active, simple, outdoor lifestyle.

I have too many mouths to feed, and can't cater to everyone's likes and dislikes.  My motto became, "I put the food on the table, its up to you if you eat or not."

Amazing things happened.  They started eating things that they wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole in the USA.  Beans was the first thing I remember being shocked to see them start shoveling away.  Then came cabbage and collards, spinach, amaranth and chard.  Raw tomatoes became like candy, with them swiping them from the cutting board while I was trying to cook.  My autistic boy, who could never stand spices of any sort, started to LOVE hot peppers.  I have to hide the avocadoes, or they'll eat them all up in one day.  

There are still a few things that they just don't like, and thats okay... everyone has their individual preferences.  I still serve them, and they can eat or not. I don't make a big deal out of whether or not they eat, and I don't entertain any whining. Nobody has died of starvation in our house yet!  

My girls were born here and raised like this, and they love vegetables... and eat things that I can't imagine American kids eating.  My youngest loves "omurere" (jews mallow) and will happily slurp down a whole bowl full of the slimey stuff, with nothing but a little salt to season it.  My 3 year old LOVES pumpkin leaves.  

Aside from my kids, the village kids are all HUNGRY, and are never picky.  They will eat ANYTHING.  Which leads me to agree that picky eating is definately a "first-world" problem brought on by too much food and too many choices.

Just my thoughts... take what you like and leave the rest.

Maureen Atsali
ASF Farm - Kenya

Maureen,

I think you have hit the nail on the head!  

If you can't grab a snack between meals and you get hungry and your two choices are "take it or leave it" most food fussiness goes away.  I have four married children with anywhere from 2 to 5 small children.  Some of these young families are "browsers".  The family doesn't have much in the way of organized meal times and snacks all day.  Others serve a meal and that's all you get till the next meal.  Amazingly, the browser family kids are a lot fussier about their food.  There are other differences.  Some of them are very careful that the food includes lots of minimally processed vegies.  Others less so.  Some have more time and try make greater efforts to serve what their kids like.  Others have the attitude of "this is what we have, this is what you eat".  I think the attitudes of the parents about food is critical (not what they say, what they do).  As I look at my older kids (small when we didn't have two nickels to rub together) and my younger kids (small when we had more money but I was often gone on the road working and my wife had chronic fatigue and ordered a fair amount of pizza) I see some similar trends.

I realize that this is too small a sample group to be accepted and too vague to be accepted as any kind of scientific study, but I've got a feeling that it is generally correct.  

The way I would state the conclusion is that kids with lots of choices will tend to exercise their choice and be fussier (with food, given our biological predisposition towards salt, fat and sugar we can guess where that will end up).  The same observation is pretty much true with people in general whether it's about choosing a partner, a job, or what you're going to eat tonight.

back when I was a young lad we all sat at a table and were given our meal, we ate what we liked and then we were allowed to sit at the table until we liked the rest which we then ate.  Result? am empty plate, a full belly and no problems!  Back in the fifties it was fairly easy - you ate what you got or went hungry. Simple really!  These days we are too busy being politically correct to worry about the real problem - putting food into the bellies of children who needed it to be able to continue doing what they needed to do!

My kids have never been forced to even taste anything and they have complete food freedom with what we have in the house, and they eat a very very healthy diet and love veggies.

No force means no power struggles. When children have very little power (which they mostly do) they will try to size it where they can  (we all will) - and making mom upset means they are in power right there. I make sure that the house is stuffed with healthy food and find that they self-regulate very well (though the less sugar they have the better they are at it- so I don't buy sugary foods or candy very often). This empowers them to make healthy choices, to feel their own body and their own needs. Some days they eat a lot of meat, the next day carrots and hummus all day. They are willing to experiment to because they know their reactions will be respected. Our meals are pleasant family gatheringsupport, where we meet to talk and share a meal in common. Many many people have commented on how nice it is to come to eat at ours house - and I think that is a very important lesson to teach my kids.

C. Hunter wrote: And I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to where I can eat fish other than canned tuna, honestly- just the smell of cooked fish makes my stomach start churning..

Two words: Lemon Juice.

Lemon juice will help kill fishy smell, and fishy flavor. Experiment and be stingy on the amount or that is all you will taste.

Tuna: I can recommend https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Planet-Albacore-Added-Ounce/dp/B004AHDV82/ref=pd_yo_rr_rpt-bbn_6464977011_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=GQYCSP2BKGCMJ3G9SS3H&th=1

It is very low cholesterol, high High HIGH in omega3 oils (you must eat the juice too) and can help you lower your LDL and raise your HDL. It is in own juices so you tip it all out into the bowl and flake it and the juices reabsorb giving you tender tuna. This stuff you might not have any fishy flavor at all. My spouse loves it, and before they lowered the boom on me, I ate it as an omega3 supplement. My doctor now recommends it to other patients struggling with high LDL and low HDL levels. At therapy levels consume one can every other day.

Any other kind of tuna, go for as low of cholesterol and sodium as you can get, solid white albacore is better, and use a few drops of lemon juice. On trout or salmon lemon juice is very good.

The 85c can of tuna is doing nobody any good, but you can even get rid of the fishy bit with enough lemon juice in that. Some kids will not eat tuna because of that FISHY bit. This might help. For cheaper tuna, always go for water packed, drain well (put it on dry cat food, your purries will love you) then add the lemon juice and break up/flake. Sample and add a few more drops as needed. A little will go a long ways but it will immediately cut that smell, then it cuts the taste.

Deb Rebel wrote:

C. Hunter wrote: And I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to where I can eat fish other than canned tuna, honestly- just the smell of cooked fish makes my stomach start churning..

Two words: Lemon Juice.

Lemon juice will help kill fishy smell, and fishy flavor. Experiment and be stingy on the amount or that is all you will taste.

Tuna: I can recommend https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Planet-Albacore-Added-Ounce/dp/B004AHDV82/ref=pd_yo_rr_rpt-bbn_6464977011_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=GQYCSP2BKGCMJ3G9SS3H&th=1

It is very low cholesterol, high High HIGH in omega3 oils (you must eat the juice too) and can help you lower your LDL and raise your HDL. It is in own juices so you tip it all out into the bowl and flake it and the juices reabsorb giving you tender tuna. This stuff you might not have any fishy flavor at all. My spouse loves it, and before they lowered the boom on me, I ate it as an omega3 supplement. My doctor now recommends it to other patients struggling with high LDL and low HDL levels. At therapy levels consume one can every other day.

Any other kind of tuna, go for as low of cholesterol and sodium as you can get, solid white albacore is better, and use a few drops of lemon juice. On trout or salmon lemon juice is very good.

The 85c can of tuna is doing nobody any good, but you can even get rid of the fishy bit with enough lemon juice in that. Some kids will not eat tuna because of that FISHY bit. This might help. For cheaper tuna, always go for water packed, drain well (put it on dry cat food, your purries will love you) then add the lemon juice and break up/flake. Sample and add a few more drops as needed. A little will go a long ways but it will immediately cut that smell, then it cuts the taste.

Also - they add something to frozen fish to make it last longer, but that makes them smell. I never eat frozen fish - I love fresh fish though (but had to learn to love it as a grown up bc my dad forced me to eat fish as a kid and I hated it)

Dawn Hoff wrote: Also - they add something to frozen fish to make it last longer, but that makes them smell. I never eat frozen fish - I love fresh fish though (but had to learn to love it as a grown up bc my dad forced me to eat fish as a kid and I hated it)

I never really cared for fish either but. I used to love to go fishing and the rules were 'you catch it you clean it you cook it you eat it'. So if I caught it I had to help clean too and had to eat what I caught. So it was mostly northern pike, a few perch, an occasional walleye and a rare trout. (canned corn on bobber, not fly fishing). Later years some tuna...

Still, the lemon juice I learned about from an episode of Survivorman (okay late night satellite TV when we still had it and a bad case of insomnia) and he was going through how to survive in urban in case you got caught in natural disaster (power went out, flooding, etc) and used lemon juice to demi-cook raw salmon. It cure-cooked it from raw to safe and edible (the meat hadn't spoiled yet), and he mentioned it killed the fishy taste and smell. I tried it on a can of brand name tuna and the results were fantastic.  

For toddlers who might object to a strong smelling fish anything, this is a way to make it more friendly and not overwhelming.

Deb Rebel wrote:

Dawn Hoff wrote: Also - they add something to frozen fish to make it last longer, but that makes them smell. I never eat frozen fish - I love fresh fish though (but had to learn to love it as a grown up bc my dad forced me to eat fish as a kid and I hated it)

I never really cared for fish either but. I used to love to go fishing and the rules were 'you catch it you clean it you cook it you eat it'. So if I caught it I had to help clean too and had to eat what I caught. So it was mostly northern pike, a few perch, an occasional walleye and a rare trout. (canned corn on bobber, not fly fishing). Later years some tuna...

Still, the lemon juice I learned about from an episode of Survivorman (okay late night satellite TV when we still had it and a bad case of insomnia) and he was going through how to survive in urban in case you got caught in natural disaster (power went out, flooding, etc) and used lemon juice to demi-cook raw salmon. It cure-cooked it from raw to safe and edible (the meat hadn't spoiled yet), and he mentioned it killed the fishy taste and smell. I tried it on a can of brand name tuna and the results were fantastic.  

For toddlers who might object to a strong smelling fish anything, this is a way to make it more friendly and not overwhelming.

Serviche - cold cooked fish. I love that

I never had this problem with my girls because they have strong appeties. I never made dramas if they don't eat a thing. I have a problem getting bone soup into them though, but I guess my bone soup is not good enough. There were few rules: dessert only if you eat your mains and no snacks (they have a snack after school though). Yes outdoor play no computer until they were maybe 9.
Now my partners son is just the cotrary. As he is not very often in our house our leverage is small. He will not even try a new thing. His mum gives him only a small variety (like MY cereal) and he rarely tries anything new. My coclusion is that probably all food which comes out of a factory changes a kid's taste buds - you can serve him a can of baked beans while we have something yummy.Second he sits too much, gets snacks between meals. I would not give anything between meals apart from something they forage in the garden. And it is important that you ignore the whole thing. Don't push, try make dramas. If kids don't eat they miss out, and the next meal they will be hungry.

Deb Rebel wrote:

C. Hunter wrote: And I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to where I can eat fish other than canned tuna, honestly- just the smell of cooked fish makes my stomach start churning..

Two words: Lemon Juice.

Lemon juice will help kill fishy smell, and fishy flavor. Experiment and be stingy on the amount or that is all you will taste.

Tuna: I can recommend https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Planet-Albacore-Added-Ounce/dp/B004AHDV82/ref=pd_yo_rr_rpt-bbn_6464977011_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=GQYCSP2BKGCMJ3G9SS3H&th=1

It is very low cholesterol, high High HIGH in omega3 oils (you must eat the juice too) and can help you lower your LDL and raise your HDL. It is in own juices so you tip it all out into the bowl and flake it and the juices reabsorb giving you tender tuna. This stuff you might not have any fishy flavor at all. My spouse loves it, and before they lowered the boom on me, I ate it as an omega3 supplement. My doctor now recommends it to other patients struggling with high LDL and low HDL levels. At therapy levels consume one can every other day.

Any other kind of tuna, go for as low of cholesterol and sodium as you can get, solid white albacore is better, and use a few drops of lemon juice. On trout or salmon lemon juice is very good.

The 85c can of tuna is doing nobody any good, but you can even get rid of the fishy bit with enough lemon juice in that. Some kids will not eat tuna because of that FISHY bit. This might help. For cheaper tuna, always go for water packed, drain well (put it on dry cat food, your purries will love you) then add the lemon juice and break up/flake. Sample and add a few more drops as needed. A little will go a long ways but it will immediately cut that smell, then it cuts the taste.

LOL - it's funny you say that, because I *love* lemon in/on everything. Lemon and butter makes a LOT of things palatable.

It's just such a balance, though, of getting kids to legit try things but also respecting when they are trying and can't.