Posted by Green Diva Mom on Jan.18, 2010

©iStockphoto.com - Catherine Yeulet

The earlier you start introducing new foods to children, the more likely they are to take to new, healthy foods. Toddlers and school-age children can learn to enjoy new foods if they’re introduced in a low-stress way that works with the way children eat, taste and think. Introducing new foods and developing an appreciation for healthy foods can be more difficult for older children, but still possible. Here are some strategies that work for our Green Diva Moms.

Try and Try Again

When introducing new foods keep in mind that it can take over a dozen tries at different ages for your child to acquire a taste for new food. Children are sensitive to temperature and texture in addition to a food’s flavor, so a food prepared one way may be acceptable when it is distasteful prepared another way. Kids who balk at baked or grilled eggplant may like it roasted. Over the course of a month offer the new food every couple of days, and try different preparation methods. If a child hasn’t taken to the food after a month, try again a few months later.

Make sure your child knows that changes in taste are part of growing, just like getting taller or getting new molars, and it’s OK to change their mind about liking a food. Foods that tasted bad before may taste different now, and that different types of similar food may taste different. A child who doesn’t like black raisins may like golden raisins.

The Two-Bite Rule for New Foods

Another good idea is to institute a “Two Bite Rule” for every new food, just giving the new food a chance. You will be surprised at how fast your little one will be enjoying new foods with the Green Eggs and Ham approach.

Make Food Fun

Our mothers may have had rules against playing with food, and as moms, we should reinforce the difference between food and toys. That doesn’t mean snacktime can’t be fun. Help your child make patterns or spell out words with raw vegetable sticks and fruit slices on the plate.

Encourage their artistic abilities using healthy foods as an art media. While your 4-year-old may not be up to a tomato rose or carved melon basket, she can make curls and loops out of carrot shavings, “glued” together with hummus.

Pear Bunny Salad
4 pear halves, canned in water, drained, or cored fresh pear halves
Slivered almonds
Raisins or other small dried berries
1/4 cup cottage cheese
4 large lettuce leaves
4 baby carrots or carrot sticks

Place one lettuce leaf on each plate and set a pear half on each leaf. Place one tablespoon cottage cheese at the wide end of the pear for the cottontail, and make the bunny’s face on the narrow end with the almonds as ears and whiskers and dried fruit as nose and eyes. Place a carrot by each bunny. You can substitute other vegetables for the carrot “bunny food” to introduce new foods to your child.

Presentation for New Foods

Kids, like adults, eat with their eyes. Kids love bright colors and love to feel older, which you can use to your advantage by setting a “grown up” table with decorative dishes to introduce new foods. If your child is old enough, break out the good china for a special meal, and set a candlelight dinner.

For younger children who may not be ready for the breakable dishes and open flame on the dinner table, consider introducing new foods by throwing a party and celebrating the new food. Kids love parties, and you can introduce the new food as an invited guest.

Introduce New Foods With Foods They Already Like

Rather than introducing a new food naked, on its own, incorporate it into a compatible dish the child already likes. If a child likes spaghetti, mix chopped zucchini, carrots or mushrooms into the sauce for a spaghetti primavera. This isn’t the same strategy as “sneaking” vegetables into other foods. You don’t want to hide the new food, just make it more acceptable by working it naturally, and obviously, into  a food your child already likes.

Using a kid-friendly dip like yogurt, nut butters or fruit spreads can transition children to new fruits and vegetables.

Engage the Child in Healthy Food Preparation

Actively engage your children in grocery shopping, teaching them how to pick out the freshest vegetables and fruit in the produce section or at the farmer’s market. Let them help in the kitchen with dinner preparation. Even younger children can pour an ingredient from the measuring cup into the bowl, and children are more likely to eat food they help prepare.

If you have a sunny plot of ground or a place to put a planting container, let your child help plant and grow vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, squash or radishes. Leafy greens are a good choice for younger children, since many grow quickly to harvestable size and many varieties have unique colors or shapes. Consider Neon Lights swiss chard, Bull’s Blood beets, Red Sails lettuce or Reddy hybrid spinach for colorful, kid-friendly greens.

Strategies to Avoid

Fighting

If mealtime becomes a battleground, no one wins. Children can be remarkably stubborn, and making a fight over brussels sprouts won’t encourage your child to try the new food, or any other new food.

Hiding Healthy Food in Other Food

Sneaking spinach into brownies or squash in the mac’n’cheese doesn’t help your child make healthy eating choices or develop a taste for healthy foods. Not to mention, the amount of vegetable you can “sneak” into food isn’t anywhere near enough for the child’s health. In addition, kids are remarkably savvy about such strategies. Children have more taste buds than adults, so they have a more sensitive sense of taste than mom and dad.

Incorporating fruits and vegetables in unexpected dishes, like zucchini turkey loaf, is one thing. However, if you wouldn’t make the dish to eat yourself, don’t expect your child to enjoy it.

Forcing Children to Clean Their Plates

If your child is genuinely not hungry, forcing him or her to eat every morsel on the plate only provides a lesson in ignoring natural satiety clues, which sets the stage for weight difficulties later in life. If your child is truly not hungry enough to eat what is on his plate, the meal is over.

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Posted under Family, GDM Kids, Tweens, Teens.