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Busy Mom’s Survival Guide Podcast Episode 051.
Some children naturally outgrow being a picky eater.  Unfortunately, without intervention, many children who are picky eaters become adults who are picky eaters.

While it is difficult having children who are picky eaters, it is also difficulty being married to one.

I know this because I married a picky eater and have watched Jim struggle throughout the years dealing with multiple foods that he didn’t like.  Fortunately, Jim wasn’t content to remain a picky eater and has made tremendous improvements over the years in the variety of foods he can consume.

Jim joins me during this episode to discuss his “picky eater journey” and to help answer listener questions about being (and raising) picky eaters.

Listener Questions

Rosa: wow I guess I was lucky. My son would eat ALMOST anything. I hate Brussle Sprouts, cooked cabbage, Hominy and English peas, and he hated them too, so I never forced him to try anything that I didn’t like.

Bonnie: Any help/recipes I could get would be greatly appreciated!

Jane: haha ! Im an adult and I’m a really picky eater , always have been. Don’t like milk (allergic anyways) don’t like red meat, don’t like rice, can’t eat half the fruits because of allergies, so I think it would be a great subject

Suzanne: I have an almost 3 year old who would live on chicken nuggets and corn dogs if we let him. I try to make him try one bite of everything , but even that can turn into a stand off. How can I encourage and not nag too much?

Jennifer: If you know how to get a picky eater to try new things and eat healthy, “real” food, I’m ALL ears

Sarah: my 1st 4 kids weren’t picky, so I am at a loss that our 5th child is super picky, think it stems from GI issues as an infant/toddler and a restricted diet during that important time…but my question is…how do I get him to broaden his diet horizon as it seems to only become less diverse by the day (he is almost 5 and lives on cheese and carbs, and veggies he picks from the garden himself)

Amanda: How do you feel about trying to hide veggies in other foods to have kids eat them? How are ways you encourage kids to eat new things? My kids are 1 & 2 so we are just starting to run into obstacles.

Lisa: I am 32 years old and have never had red meat, seafood, many vegetables, even pork because I was a picky eater as a child and never made to try anything. My diet consists now of carbs and chicken. Not very nutritious. I do try something new every 5 years or so. So I would say it is very important to push kids to try things when they are young.

Sara: well, this is a complex issue for us because 2 of our kids are on the autism spectrum, and have pretty intense feelings about their food. It’s very difficult to know when to stand firm, and when to flex. How about this as a question: What do you think about supplementing with something like pediasure, or do you think just adding daily vitamins will be enough. I don’t like all the ingredients, so I’m faced with a dilemma. I need to find more ways to sneak in those missing vitamins and minerals. If you had a child that had a very limited diet, what ingredients do you think you would try most to sneak in? For example, I can never recall what certain things are good for, but I made whole wheat pancakes last night and snuck in oats, chia seed, ground flax and hemp seed. Added a little brown sugar to disguise any bitterness, and plenty of blueberries. All I know is those are healthy things, but that is only one of my tricks. Do you know any others?

Terri: I have an under 2 kiddo who seems to barely eat anything.

Laura: I’m just trying to figure out how they appear out of kids who will eat anything, and how I can help stop the transformation from occurring to my youngest. My oldest ate anything we gave him…until about two, when suddenly it had to be white or cheesy. Not that we give in to that, but…still it’s hard to get him to eat just whatever. His little brother is almost two and still eats most of what he is offered. I can feed him minestrone, or curry, or whatever, And I’m kind of dreading a sudden revision of that to “is this mac’n’cheese mama?”

Sara: Our picky eater led to his having severe food allergies. Or son, Reed, suffered with severe headaches for years until we had allergy testing done. So if your child is a picky eater, try the best you can to get them to eat a variety of balanced foods and not focus on one type of food- in his case he only ate “white” food basically which meant wheat/ carbohydrates. I was unaware that your body would shut down with allergic reactions when you ate only certain foods. It was found he was severely allergic to egg whites and wheat from having eaten only foods made from these.  We did not think it was worth fighting every day every meal ..Reed was NOT interested in getting attention from his picky eating; it extremely bothered him – worried him as well when he had to be away from home. I am not sure what is the answer but possibly liquid foods to get other food groups in a child may have helped.

Episodes in the Series

• Feeding Your Family Part 1 – Your Pantry and Shopping List
• Feeding Your Family Part 2 – Meal Planning
• Feeding Your Family Part 3 – Food Shopping on a Budget
• Feeding Your Family Part 4 – Teaching Children to Cook 1
• Feeding Your Family Part 5 – Teaching Children to Cook 2
• Feeding Your Family Part 6 – Teaching Children to Cook 3
• Feeding Your Family Part 7 – Picky Eaters 1
• Feeding Your Family Part 8 – Picky Eaters 2

How does your family do with picky eaters?  Is it something that you find yourself continually battling?

Thanks for listening!  Please join me next week as Eric Chester and I discuss work ethic.

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