Tips from the pros for getting kids to eat well
There’s no question our culture has a savvier palate these days. Our demand for freshness and integrity in food is on the rise. Italian, Chinese, and Mexican cuisine are considered mainstream, while the flavors of Korea, Peru, and Morocco are becoming more commonplace. What’s more, research has taught us that eating a wide variety of foods helps us meet our daily nutritional requirements.
What, then, can a parent used to gourmet flavors do to avoid the fate of having to serve children macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, or chicken fingers, night after night?
For a start, pique your children’s interest in food as early as possible. Take them shopping and make it an adventure for both of you. Michelle Gayer-Nicholson, executive pastry chef at Franklin Street Bakery in Minneapolis, has two daughters, ages 3 and 4. To get them interested in food, she takes them to the farmers’ market every week in the summer.
Trips to the grocery store can be an opportunity for learning and exploration. Cid Chavez, a regional extension educator for the Nutrition Education Program at the University of Minnesota Extension Service, suggests this game: At the grocery store, ask your child to find a kind of fruit that neither of you has tried before. Agree to buy whatever it is, take it home, and try it together. “It gets to be a competition, in a nice way,” she says.
Kids in the kitchen
Get your kids involved in making meals as much as you can. Kathy Solem, an early childhood educator for Anoka-Hennepin Early Childhood Family Education, says you can start early. An 18-month-old can peel eggs or pour things out of measuring cups. As kids get older, they can chop ingredients and read recipes. Give them their own tools, like a cutting board or measuring cups.
Chef-restaurateur David Fhima, of Fhima’s and Loto in St. Paul, and Louis XIII in Edina, has four children ranging from 3 to 14 years old. He has always gotten his kids involved in cooking, even in the simplest tasks, like mixing chives, spices, and seasonings into ground meat for burgers. “Kids love to put their hands in things. Kids will always eat or at least try something that they were involved in preparing,” he says.
Even things like broccoli: “If your kids don’t like broccoli, what are you doing to the broccoli? If you just steam it, I wouldn’t eat it myself,” says Fhima. He suggests preparing it with your children, by brushing it with olive oil and sprinkling it with salt and pepper. Ask each child to wrap a single portion in foil, maybe in a creative shape like an animal head, before putting them in the oven.
Beyond cooking, seize other opportunities to educate your kids about food. Gayer-Nicholson and her children grow a garden together. “I want them to understand where vegetables come from and what it takes [to grow them]. We don’t throw away food. We appreciate it,” she says.
Jordan Smith, chef/partner at Hemisphere Restaurant Partners, which owns Mission American Kitchen, Atlas, and Good To Go in Minneapolis, and Kabobi, in Eden Prairie, has five children ranging from 8 to 15 years old. He likes to talk about the meal as they eat together as a family at the dinner table. “They are great critics,” he says of his kids.
Start small
When it’s not possible to get kids involved in the kitchen, there are other strategies for introducing new foods. Start with a small portion. Chavez says that bite-sized pieces work well. “Let’s say that it’s a fruit or vegetable, cut it into something bite-sized and give them one bite. When they see a whole plate of food, they know they can’t eat it all, and they might not even try. They may think they’ll have to eat the whole thing,” she says.
Solem also suggests some guidelines for trying new foods. Introduce a new food no more than once every three to four days. Also, do not get discouraged if a child doesn’t like something the first time. Parents should present a food at least eight to 10 times, possibly in different forms, before giving up. If your child doesn’t take a liking to a raw vegetable, try it cooked, like in a vegetable soup, or try grating or shredding it. Children make many of their judgments about food based on texture and appearance before they even taste it.
Children’s palates will also change as they grow, often abruptly. Smith says that overnight, it seemed, his son’s favorite foods became his worst enemies. “He loved collard greens, broccoli, and kohlrabi, and it went on for a few months. And suddenly one day, it’s like ‘I hate this!’ I struggled to figure out that he wasn’t doing that to be difficult,” he says.
Make their own judgments
In Fhima’s household, the number one rule about food is not to say you don’t like something unless you’ve tried it. Rather than deciding himself what they might like, he encourages his children to try something and make their own judgment “The other day, I was eating some spicy corn chips and offered one to my daughter. My significant other said, ‘No, no, they’re spicy,’ and immediately, my daughter says, ‘It’s hot, hot, hot!'”
In fact, there doesn’t even need to be a separate category of “kids’ food” in your household. In Smith’s house, unlikely items like oysters and steamed whole fish are family favorites, and his kids don’t think of them as weird.
While it is good to encourage children to try all foods, parents should never force a child to eat something, Chavez says. “If they spit it out, that’s okay. Let it go. Don’t make it like punishment, or the next time they see it, they’ll think of it as punishment. Just try it another day,” she says.
Learn by example
Children will pick up on your bad habits. If you eat junk food incessantly, your children are likely to ask for it, too. Chavez says, “I think that’s interesting when parents say their kids need to eat vegetables or not have soda, and the example they’re giving is contrary to all of those things. They lead by example.”
Every year, Fhima hosts cooking classes to celebrate the end of a kids’ baseball or soccer season. Children come with their parents, and he notices how parents’ attitudes are manifested in children’s behavior. “It’s amazing to see how the palates are. Some kids are so much more adventurous than others. All you have to do is look at the parents. The parents say, ‘I don’t want this or that,’ and the kids eat the same things. Other kids say, ‘Load it up,'” he says.
Once kids start school, new social groups and peer pressures can change their outlook on food. Fhima made bag lunches for his kids with things like a sandwich on whole-grain bread, with salami, tomato, lettuce, and Dijon mustard, or a couscous salad with grilled shrimp. After a time, his kids begged him not to send lunch anymore. “At first, I took it personally. But I realized later that they just didn’t want to be different,” he says. Fhima stayed the course, though, and continued to send lunch. But he made one concession, allowing them to choose a dessert.
Staying committed to good, nutritious food isn’t easy, of course, but here are some tips from professional chefs who’ve been there.
No time or desire to cook?
Try healthy prepared foods. Stop at a Middle Eastern deli for dips, pita, and sausages. Your kids will love scouting out foods that may be new to them.
Buy for the week and plan easy meals.
Over the weekend, buy and chop tomatoes, onions, and garlic. Save half in the refrigerator, and combine the rest with olive oil, salt, pepper and herbs, to eat on bread. A few days later, the remaining, already-prepped items can be cooked down as pasta sauce or made into gazpacho.
Season your food.
If your family is not crazy about carrots, try sauteeing them with a little butter, brown sugar, and salt.
Don’t make separate meals for the children and adults in your family. Who wouldn’t find that exhausting? Incorporate foods you’re sure your children will eat into the meal while also introducing new foods. Also try serving the components of a dish (the pasta and the sauce, for example) separately for the very youngest kids, who are more comfortable with simple foods.
Dining out with children
Start early
Don’t wait for some magically appropriate age. Get your children accustomed to eating out as early as possible.
And eat early
Go before the dinner rush – before your kids get tired and before the fancier dining rooms fill up with couples on dates.
Go kid-friendly
Try restaurants where you see other people dining with children or you know the chef or owner has children. Examples: Caf Brenda, Tejas.
Introduce foods at home first
Try a couple of foods at home that you know will be on the menu. Restaurants are high-energy, with many distractions. It’s not the time to introduce unfamiliar foods.
Tip like crazy
If your kids make a mess, be apologetic to the server and leave a generous tip. He or she will understand.
Eliminate “kids’ menu” from your vocabulary
Children do not need to eat differently than adults. Ask for regular menu items in a child’s portion. Don’t avoid restaurants without kids’ menus; most will accommodate.
