Top tips for picky eaters
Krysten
“Texture is important. If your picky-eater husband or child doesn’t like the texture of something like coconut, beets or cucumber, for example, but you want them to receive the benefits, prepare it in a different way.”
Picky eaters come in all ages. My husband, Jeff, and I have been together for almost 12 years, and when we first met there were things that he wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole that he will gladly eat and cook today. He loved fast food but never ate or ordered dark leafy greens.
Twelve years ago, he wouldn’t eat things like spinach, Brussels sprouts, coconut, salmon or the amount of veggies that he eats today. He had a very plain diet that consisted of fast food combos and sodas. We believe he became a picky eater due to a combination of how his food was prepared (in a microwave or boiled), the lack of freshness of his veggies and, of course, the “texture thing” as he calls it.
Texture is important. If your picky-eater husband or child doesn’t like the texture of something like coconut, beets or cucumber, for example, but you want them to receive the benefits, prepare it in a different way. Add beets to a smoothie or eat coconut in the form of a healthy raw protein bar or chop up the cucumber into small pieces and add to a Pico de Gallo salsa. The other option is to look at how the food is being prepared. For example, picky adults might have grown up eating veggies that were frozen or out of a can that were boiled or steamed with no herbs or spices. They can be mushy, lack flavor and look unappealing. If you drizzle some olive oil on your fresh Brussels sprouts, sprinkle some sea salt, garlic powder and black pepper, they tend to taste way better than before.
I, myself, didn’t like sweet potatoes until I became an adult and roasted them because I didn’t like the way we would eat them at Thanksgiving, in the form of a sweet pie with marshmallows on top.
A lot of the progress that we have made with him has been with the preparation of the food, as well as including him in the process of cooking the foods. Just as it is with young picky eaters, including them in the kitchen to help cook the foods which they are about to eat is so important.
While he still doesn’t like condiments, because some things never change, he does enjoy cooking and eating pan-seared salmon as opposed to eating it bland and baked, roasting Brussels sprouts as opposed to eating them microwaved or boiled, and he always finishes the fresh veggies on his plate — he even asks for seconds!