Our kids are pretty adventurous in the kitchen- at least for three year-olds. They are famous in our neighborhood for requesting goat cheese or brie at picnics. You give them American Cheese they’ll tell the host your cheese has no flavor. They know more about food at their age than I knew at thirty and maybe have eaten more fruit then I did by that age. Then, I met Karen. Your diet changes when your new girlfriend is a feeding expert. Expect to be introducing new foods. Now, as a family we took up the challenge and ran with it.
We’re doing a loose weekly experiment. Every week we bring home fruits and veggies completely foreign to us. Week one we did a coconut. We knew what a coconut looked like, but we had no idea eating it would involve a trip to the garage.
After than we went to jicama. I picked it up at the store having no idea what it was. We googled the PLU code and youtube helped us figure out what to do with it. We loved it both raw, as a taco shell or topping and in smoothies.
Last night, we picked up something that was a sun drop? We believe it was in the honeydew family. Likely some type of hybrid. Not so much info on this one it we it was sweet and a nice compliment to a bowl of strawberries.
So far we’ve enjoyed the randomness of mother nature’s offerings. Completely different textures, tastes and methods of eating pushes our kitchen creativity. We explore as a family and immediately begin to put meals together around them. Without being too heavy handed new foods put an emphasis on health. It also keeps your meals fresh and different at least a few times a week.
That’s awesome that you’ve gotten your kids to be adventurous with their eating! I have a friend who introduced a lot of healthy, interesting food into her child’s diet as a toddler, and now he’s a great eater. (Though I doubt that would work on everyone.). Cool experiment! Now I want to try it sometime.
Yes, if you refer to Dr.Kay Toomey’s steps of eating you can experiment with yourself and actually measure how long it takes to advance up the steps when you’re introduced to a new food. This is a practice I have my parents participate in for feeding therapy.
I completely agree with you. Children can learn to be adventurous when it comes to trying out new foods if they are exposed to the opportunity at an early age. The parents have to be willing to try new things themselves because if the parents don’t have an open mind then the kids will copy them. It sounds like your kids are extremely adventurous in the kitchen. Good job!