Ok, I have to clarify, I am not an established parenting blogger or child educator, so please read on and take my advice with a pinch of salt. What I can offer here is only a regurgitation of my thoughts after making at least 4-5,000 meals (if not more) for my family since we had kids (my son is 11 and daughter is turning 9). I also had a good chat with the little ones and gathered their personal tips, which I will share below as well.
First, I want to share my mentality towards food. We eat an average of 3 times a day, each and every day. Civilizations can be defined by or easily recognizable simply from the cuisine their people grow up eating. Food is, therefore, to me, one of the most important forms of general knowledge you can impart your kids, whether it's understanding the sources of food, differentiating good ingredients from bad, knowing exactly what they put in their mouths, or learning how to prepare their own meals.
I am also not going to tell you to reward/punish your kids for trying new food. I tried it before, to limited success, but it goes against everything I believe eating should be. If they learn to enjoy a new kind of food, it is the best reward they can get, not anything you give them after.
If you are still reading, thank you, it means you might benefit from this, so here goes:
- Don't be picky
By that, I don't only mean picking the kinds of food you eat, I also mean the time you eat. I made it a point for the family to sit at the table to eat together as much as possible. If you start telling your kids frequently you are skipping meals or eating later, you will have no comeback line when they do the same to you in the future. To the next point....
- Don't be a picky eater and expect them to like what you dislike!
If you do not like vegetables, it's not reasonable to expect them to like it. If you are drinking coke, it is a weak excuse telling them coke is not good for them. Kids know. They model, so set a good example. At the very least, if they eat exactly the same things as you, don't complain that they are not eating more variety, or eating unhealthy. Look into the mirror first.
- Don't stop trying.
In my parental experience, I kind of feel that liking vegetables is not intuitive to human nature in general, but maybe it's just my kids. However, the only way to beat it is to keep trying. Just because your kids like chicken and hate vegetables doesn't mean you should only put chicken on the table and make less dishes for convenience. You will end up with kids who only eat chicken!
In fact, you should still cook vegetables and put them on the table regardless. One day, the switch in their brains will flip and they will ask to try. Trust me. It works. Just don't stop.
- Make them jealous (from my soon-to-be 9-yr-old daughter)
An extension to the previous point, she explained that she started eating many things because she saw us enjoying some dishes repeatedly and got 'jealous'. For example, curry chicken (spicy) and braised bittergourd (bitter). So yes, keep cooking the things (you thought) they don't like!
- Mix new ingredients into old favourites (from my 11-yr-old son)
This is an old 'trick', like how I keep adding a lot of chopped parsley into my pasta, because I know if they get tired of removing them one by one and just pop a piece in their mouths, they will learn that parsley is actually acceptable.
- Know your food
This is very, very helpful. Knowing Nutella is made of hazelnuts (*smirk) can help you convince the kids to try hazelnuts. Knowing Ribena is made of blackcurrants might help you encourage them to eat blackcurrants. Use every morsel of knowledge you have, and educate them all about food in the process.
I hope these 6 short pointers can inspire you to push on in your quest to lay a foundation to get the kids to eat a healthy variety, doing them a world of good as they live their own lives in the future as parents to your grandchildren. It's actually more a mindset that what you do, isn't it?
