Throughout Season 3, Jill Devine has talked to several guests about food: the good, the bad, and the ugly. One consistent theme, Jill has concerns about her oldest daughter, Lu, and her pickiness with food. Jill took to her social media accounts to ask for help with Lu.
Carmen Berry showed up in Jill’s inbox with an amazing email. Here are some highlights:
My name is Carmen and I saw your request for recipes to get kids involved in the kitchen! I am a registered dietitian, a mom to an 8-month old (and an aunt to a 2 and 4-year-old), and I work at Operation Food Search! In my role at work, I am responsible for leading the nutrition education team to facilitate and build skills and knowledge that lead to sustained healthy eating habits in the community through hands-on cooking classes, interactive grocery store tours, cooking demonstrations, nutrition presentations, and other nutrition education outreach events. Just this past year, we launched our own internal hands-on kids cooking course called Operation CHEF, Culinary Habits to Empower Families. During the 6-week course, students ages 8-12 prepare delicious recipes and learn new cooking techniques.
I agree with many of your podcast guests that getting kids in the kitchen is really beneficial to open their mind to trying something new. Something else that you can try is bring your kid along to the grocery store! There are some studies that show when a kid is included in the planning of the meal and the grocery shopping, it increases the likelihood that they try the food item.
But it is important to be patient and keep trying! If your kids are helping shop and cook and still refuse the food, don’t get discouraged! Never force the issue because that usually backfires. Simply continue to make fruits and veggies a part of every meal and snack and offer them in a variety of ways. Be a good role model and eat the veggies offered at each meal. Eventually your picky eater will develop a taste for a few favorites.
My last resort I always suggest is what I call “stealth nutrition” which is sneaking in veggies into various recipes. I say last resort because this shouldn’t be your only strategy. It is important for picky eaters to see and experience a variety of veggies in a variety of ways.
Stealth Nutrition Ideas:
- You can add grated veggies to a lot of foods – fold into meatballs or meatloaf, add to a casserole, soup, or fried rice. It’s hard to pick out grated veggies since they are so small.
- Making tomato sauce? Add in shredded or diced veggies. Blend up in a blender to completely hide it if you’d like. Carrots add some natural sweetness to tomato sauce.
- Add fresh fruit to pancakes or muffin batters. A fun one is adding in grated carrots and apples to pancakes for a carrot cake like breakfast treat! Or make colored pancakes by adding in mashed up fruit like blueberries or raspberries to the batter.
- Fold pureed butternut squash or sweet potatoes into mac and cheese. The pureed orange veggies just disappear in the cheese sauce!
- Blend spinach into smoothies! I like to make a green smoothie with spinach, pineapple, banana and grapes. But if you’d like to hide it, blend it up with mixed berries. The purple hides it completely.
A recipe I have attached to this email is for turkey tacos – a tried and true recipe from Cooking Matters! Your daughter can grate the carrot, dump in the cans of beans and tomatoes, measure the spices, shred the cheese, and chop the lettuce and tomato with a plastic knife!
Jill was blown away by the email and invited Carmen on the podcast. They discussed the email in detail, as well as other ways to talk to Lu about food. The number one take away all parents should keep
