One thing I have strived to do as a Mom is instill good eating habits in Hailey. When I was married, this was difficult, my ex husband was a picky eater and Hailey picked up his habits, to this day she will not eat marinara sauce! Being single has given me the opportunity, and many times the need, to figure out how to serve healthy foods that my daughter will eat without having to worry about someone else’s influence on her choices.
Like most children Hailey will choose what’s fast food or junk food over what I wish she would eat. Some days this seems like a never ending battle. As all things with parenting, you have to learn to pick your battles. Every child will have a few things they will eat that you will rejoice in, capitalize on those! Hailey loves fruit but is not a big vegetable eater so finding vegetables she likes is a challenge, but she does like lima beans, of all things, so we eat a lot of those! I love vegetables so I make different ones all the time; our rule is that Hailey has to try it, every time it’s on her plate. I remind her that our tastes change as we get older so she may find she likes things she didn’t like in the past.
Another thing I do is try to find different ways to fix vegetables. Hailey has a strong dislike for asparagus, which I love, I found if I put fresh asparagus in a Ziploc steamer bag with a few sprays of butter and some lemon pepper she will eat it! No one was more surprised than Hailey was that she liked it, the look on her face was priceless! I had always made frozen asparagus, but once Hailey tried fresh, she was hooked! She still won’t eat frozen but she will eat fresh asparagus every time I make it.
Finding that she liked something she has always disliked has made Hailey more open to try new things and new vegetables. Many things that she won’t eat, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, she will eat if I marinate them in Italian dressing and grill them. Google has become my best friend when it comes to food. We recently tried eggplant, thanks to a Googled recipe, Hailey didn’t like it but I did so now I’m on a mission to find other ways to cook it that she may like.
Even the pickiest eaters can be tempted if they have a hand in making dinner and choosing how to cook something. I know it’s hard to find the time to do the research and cook with your children but even if it’s only one meal a week that they help decide how to prepare and then help prepare it, it will open them up to trying new things. And really, that is what growing and learning is all about, just being willing to try.