How to Get Picky Eaters to Pick Real Food

There was a time in our lives when our son ate just a handful of foods: strawberry yogurt, apples, bananas, mac-and-cheese, PBJ’s, scrambled eggs, pizza, and toaster waffles. When I made dinner for the family, I would make him his own meal of the only foods he would eat without complaining. If we went to a restaurant, it had to have pizza or mac-and-cheese on the kids’ menu, or I would have to bring in food for him because he wouldn’t touch anything else.

Back then, I knew nothing about Real Food, and even my husband and I would have been considered picky — especially compared to all the variety we eat now! When we slowly began changing the way we ate, our son was definitely not on board with the changes. It took me a solid couple of years to break some bad habits (both in myself and in my children). Now, BOTH of my children are excellent eaters!

It definitely wasn’t easy, but we didn’t give up. I was determined to break the habit of fussy eating in my children, and I was most determined not to enable them to be picky any longer. If you’re dealing with picky eaters, you’re going to want to bookmark, Facebook share, and pin this post!

It is possible to get picky eaters to pick Real Food! Here’s how:

Don’t change everything at once.

Slow and steady wins this race. Introduce new foods slowly, maybe even as slow as one new food per month. I’m still trying to introduce new foods to my family. Looking back, there are years when we tried only ten new foods and loved just two or three of them. That’s okay!

As much as you may want to go out right now and fill your fridge with fresh greens, beef liver, and cod liver oil, I highly recommend that you tap the brakes a bit. Even if you’ve never considered yourself to be a picky eater, you might be surprised to discover that there are some new foods that even you need time to get used to.

Involve children in every aspect of your meals.

Get on Pinterest with them and let them look at enticing food photos with you. Hand them some cookbooks with pretty photography and have them bookmark recipes they’d like to try. Ask them to help you make a meal plan and a grocery list. Let them help grocery shop. And get them in the kitchen at an early age to help with the cooking!

My children love bagging and weighing our produce at the store, pushing the cart, and marking items off our list as we shop. I love asking for their suggestions when I meal plan because I know they’re not going to suggest something they won’t eat! Involving children in the food we eat makes them much more likely to want to try new things — especially if they’ve had a hand in getting it on the table!

Require picky eaters to taste everything.

You’ll have to decide what works for your family, but I encourage you and your spouse to agree on a certain number of bites each person has to take of each food item served at meal times. This may come with some whining from your picky ones, but it will get easier if you stay consistent. Children are often leery of trying new things on their own, especially if those new things are green and look like broccoli. 😉 Maintaining the rule that everyone needs to try a little bit of everything means that each member of the family has the opportunity to try new foods together. And, Mom and Dad, you may just find some new foods to enjoy too!

Keep table conversation light-hearted and fun, not focused on the food.

No one wants to sit at a table where the only conversation is parents barking commands (“Eat your carrots!” “You’re not leaving this table until your plate is clean!”) while children reply with whining and eye-rolling. That’s just unpleasant, and meals should be a fun and meaningful time of connection and conversation for the family.

Instead, decide beforehand that you’re not going to make the food the focus of meal time conversation — unless, of course, it’s to talk about how wonderful it is! Have a mental list of questions ready to go so that you can start some light-hearted conversation before it has a chance to go south the second a picky eater sees something green on their plate. Questions like What was your favorite part of the day?, What are three words you would use to describe yourself?, and How did you help someone today? give the family a chance to connect and converse without focusing on who is or isn’t eating the food.

Obviously, re-direct picky eaters if they do begin to complain. Remind them of your rule to taste everything at least (?) times, and then go back to your conversation. I really like this list of 50 Family Dinner Conversation Starters.

Reduce or eliminate snacking between meals.

When children are used to snacking throughout the day, they never have a chance to work up a hearty appetite for meal times. Very young children need snacks to keep them going and their blood sugar stable, but older children should be able to go several hours without eating and be just fine. A child who hasn’t snacked the day away and who has played or worked hard should have a big appetite for whatever is served at meal times.

{My once-picky son eating a huge salad at a local restaurant. He was 8 here. 🙂 }

Don’t make separate meals for picky eaters.

“But he’ll starve!!!” That’s what I used to say about my son. Trust me, he didn’t starve, and neither will your child.

Almost every time I made a meal for our family, I made a separate meal for my son. I didn’t want to fight the battle at the table, so I told myself that I was insuring a peaceful dinnertime by just giving him what he wanted. And I was right: we ate in peace and didn’t have to endure whining, complaining, or fit-throwing at meal time.

But I also wasn’t doing my son any favors. Picky eaters who always get the foods they’re comfortable with remain picky eaters. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not something they outgrow as adults. They just become picky adults. Treating them to their very own, special meal while the rest of the family eats something different isn’t fair for anyone, least of all the picky child. Setting our children up for future success means it’s our job to stretch them, encourage them to try new things, and help them learn to overcome bad habits and fears.

As someone who’s gone through this with two children (one of whom has sensory processing issues), I promise you my children didn’t starve. Yes, they missed a few meals. Yes, they cried about it, but eventually they saw that they were fighting a losing battle and they got hungry enough to eat.

Serve smaller portions of new foods.

If your picky eater comes to the table to find a gigantic spoonful of cauliflower, he will be quickly overwhelmed and probably opposed to trying either food. But, giving him a small amount (maybe 3 to 4 bites’ worth) of the newer foods may help the process seem much less daunting.

Totally eliminate processed foods.

And I mean TOTALLY. Processed foods have all kinds of junk added to them that tell the brain they taste amazing. MSG (under many aliases), artificial sweeteners and flavors, lots of extra sugar, iodized salt, trans fats, etc., trick our tastebuds into believing that whole foods aren’t as tasty. And, truthfully, they AREN’T as tasty to the palate used to eating food from a box or bag. By eliminating these foods from your picky eater’s diet, you’re helping to re-train their brains and mouths to taste food as it should be, not after it’s been adulterated by processing.

Learn to replace favorite comfort foods with healthier versions.

If your picky child(ren) is anything like mine was, they limit themselves to the foods they know are comforting. For my picky eater, these foods were frozen waffles, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and flavored, sweetened yogurt. For your child, it might be boxed mac-and-cheese, frozen chicken nuggets or fish sticks, or hot dogs. I once knew some kids who dipped literally everything they ate into Hidden Valley Ranch! Whatever the familiar foods are, instead of taking them away (unless you want a revolt on your hands!), find ways to make the healthiest versions possible.

Soaked, sourdough, or sprouted waffles can replace frozen ones. Homemade peanut or almond butter (made with soaked and dehydrated nuts) on sourdough bread with some raw honey is an excellent PB&J replacement. Homemade mac-and-cheese with gluten-free noodles is much more nourishing than anything out of a box. Making your own chicken nuggets is not only easy, it’s extremely frugal! And even for kids who want to dip everything in ranch, homemade ranch dressing is leaps and bounds above the bottled junk.

Always serve one thing you know they will eat.

It takes time for picky eaters to adjust to new tastes, smells, and textures. They shouldn’t have to give up or do without the foods they already enjoy while they’re learning. Even if it’s a small piece of a favorite fruit or a slice of bread with almond butter, make sure there’s at least one item on their plate they will enjoy — even if the rest of the meal or the new food isn’t enjoyable (yet).

Don’t bribe kids with dessert.

Having dessert is a special and fun way to end any meal, but dessert should not be a reward. It should just be dessert. If sweets are an expectation to picky eaters, they will never choose to eat healthier foods without expecting to seal the deal with sugar. We want our children to truly love, crave, and enjoy nutrient-dense foods — not just eat them as quickly as they can to “get it over with” and get dessert.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Research has proven that it can take over 20 tries of a new food before the tastebuds begin to enjoy it. Don’t give up on a food just because your picky eaters didn’t like it the first time you served it. Wait a few days and try again. And again.

{For his 11th birthday, our son requested gluten-free fettuccine Alfredo, roasted Brussels sprouts, pan-sauteed green beans, and kombucha soda!}

Change your cooking method.

If steamed broccoli isn’t well received, try roasting it instead and squeezing some fresh lemon juice over it when it comes out of the oven. Different cooking methods change the taste and texture of foods, so don’t give up on a food unless you’ve cooked it several different ways and none were liked.

I happen to be a picky salad eater. I didn’t start eating salad until I was in my 20s, and even then, I needed a lot of croutons to make it palatable. Then I figured out that it was the texture of thick, white lettuce stems that I didn’t like. I used the crunch of the croutons to cover up the texture of the lettuce stems. Now, I know that I need to remove the stems from lettuce when I’m preparing it at home and leave just the dark, leafy green parts. Prepared that way, I can eat a big salad with no croutons at all. That probably sounds really strange to millions of crisp salad lovers out there, but it’s what works for me — a recovering picky eater.

Remember: we all have foods we don’t like. That’s okay.

For me, it’s green beans and raw tomatoes. I can’t do green beans and raw tomatoes. My husband has repeatedly tried guacamole, and he still doesn’t care for it. Neither of our children like sauces, dressings, or bell peppers — and all of that is okay. When you consider that our formerly picky son now loves Brussels sprouts, roasted broccoli, salad, and fruits and raw veggies of all sorts, the fact that he doesn’t care for bell peppers or ranch dressing on his salad isn’t that big of a deal.

There’s no set rule on how many foods it’s okay to like and not like. I do think it’s probably safe to say that you should have more foods on the “like” list than the “dislike” list, though. And it’s probably a good idea to make sure the foods that you do enjoy aren’t all the same color (specifically, white or brown: bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta).

Special Circumstances

With a child who’s been formally diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, I do understand that there are children suffering from issues, such as autism, who are extremely picky. I do not mean to belittle your situation at all, and although SPD is not on the autism spectrum, all autistic children suffer at some level with sensory issues. For our daughter, we had to make the conscious decision that we would not allow her issues to overcome her potential to enjoy a variety of activities, including eating a variety of foods. We would not allow it to be our excuse for not challenging her to expand her food options.

If you are dealing with a particularly special circumstance with your child, here are some resources that may help you as you endeavor to help your child try and enjoy new foods:

• My Kid Eats Everything! — Know Your Food with Wardee episode #32
• My Kid Eats Everything! book by Susan L. Roberts
• Seven Ways to Help a Picky Eater with Autism
• Fussy Eaters by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
• How to Get Kids with Sensory Issues on the GAPS Diet

Do you have picky eaters in your home? Is it putting strain on the family? Please share if you have successfully re-trained a picky eater!