How to introduce raw

[denisedeland]

Delete please thank you

[adrienne]

hi!
good for you for getting started with the young one, take your time and don't push...they always seem to know when you REALLY want them to have something!!! i have a very fiesty 2yo and she seems to be able to smell the slightest bit of desperation! LOL!
how about smoothies/shakes? start with fruit ones with banana's as the base and see what happens, i know you said he doesn't like fruit but maybe he'd like to try and help you make one and maybe tell him it's for you and don't even offer him any and see what happens.
it's hard to feed the little ones no matter what, check out the raw kids posts here and see if any of those spark some ideas for you
he's bound to come around soon esp. since his older sibs are eating lots of raw
good luck!!! :)

[juliebove]

My daughter is almost 8. She will eat some things raw, but not a lot. She loves those "baby" carrots. Won't eat cooked carrots but will eat them raw. Won't eat any other kind of carrots though, unless they are in coleslaw. Oddly, she has loved coleslaw since she was a toddler. Not sure about the dressing though. She is picky about her dressing and I don't know that there is a raw one she would eat. She can no longer eat standard slaw due to her food allergies. I used a bit of fresh tomato juice to moisten this last batch I made...grated onion, carrot and cabbage, and oddly it tasted too sweet.

She is just now eating salads, but only a bit unless she is really hungry. Then she might eat a small plate of it. She likes green onions, radishes, slices of cucumber and peas straight from the vine. Likes strawberries straight from the vine as well. Likes some kinds of apples and occasionally pears. Also likes most melons, but watermelon in particular. Will eat corn but only if there is no silk mixed in it. If she sees one bit of silk she won't touch it.

She liked sprouts the first time I served them but hasn't touched them after that. She'll eat cashews but no other nuts.

With her, a lot of it has to do with who she is around. She actually ate a lot more raw food as a toddler than she will now. I was very ill when she was little so she wasn't around many people besides me. I ate mainly raw vegetables then so we always had them on the table or in the car for snacks. She ate celery carrots in any form and peppers. Now she will rarely eat celery and never peppers. I think this comes from comments other adults have made around her. "Oh, my kids won't eat THOSE!" When she hears this stuff, she stops eating whatever the food is. She did this with onions. She used to love onions. But when her best friend's dad started shrieking about my putting onions in his kid's food, she has refused to eat onions. She still eats green onions though. Just not the bulb kind.

I do not push her to eat certain foods. That doesn't work with her. I do tell her that she must try a bite of whatever it is. And she is good to try new foods.

We get a box of organic produce each week. I think that helps. She helps me open the box and put the contents away. I also have her go shopping with me sometimes and let her pick out whatever she wants from the produce section. And we have a small garden. I think kids are more likely to try things they've grown themselves.

I also think some kids are just more likely to eat vegetables than others. I always loved them. But I hated most fruit. My brother loved most fruit but hated vegetables. This hasn't changed much. He does eat a few more vegetables than he used to. I still don't like much fruit and I have found a few more vegetables that I like, but not a lot.

My daughter's new best friend hates vegetables of all kinds. Dislikes most fruit. But her little sister loves all kinds of fruits and vegetables and I have to be careful when she visits. She's only 4. She'll start picking things and eating them, but they won't necessarily be ripe, or clean!

[apuriana]

I mentioned this to my son's teacher and they sent out a specialist. She said to take it very slow. Start out with, it just in the same room with him, then put a token amount of food on the other side of the table, next meal move it closer, next meal move it closer, next meal put it beside his plate, next meal taste a little of it ect.

I tend to just include a bit of what I want to introduce with other food, like I'll grate a bit of carrot on his plate.

When I was growing up, the rule was that we ate the "health" food first and then ate the "good" stuff. I liked this, because I was rewarded for my effort and I also had the memory of the "good" stuff crowding out the memory of the bad.

[rawpriestess]

I can tell you what I did with Dragggon's teen age son when he moved in, basically he only ate fast food and junk.

so, the first thing I did was have lots of fresh fruits and veggie snacks available, he didn't touch them, he would make top ramen as a snack, 5 of them, he was a growing teenage boy, YIKES!!!


so, I asked him what where his favorite foods, and I started making them, such as burritos, but what I did was I added some rice and beans to the meat, and I used 1/2 hamburger and 1/2 TVP, once he got used to this, I started adding more lettuce and tomates, and cutting out more meat, until there was no meat in them at all, they were also cooked, but I kept adding more fresh veggies, until it was basically a flour wrap with veggies inside, all fresh.

I also started making raw soups, but I would warm them on the stove to just warm enough to be warm, but not hot, he loved these, I would sometimes, mix 1/2 my raw veggie soup with 1/2 campbells soup.

I would make things like beef stroganof, but use some zucchini noodles mixed in with the pasta noodles, he couldn't tell the differnce.

I would add tons of mushrooms to the stroganof, and lots of zucchini, and only a little pasta, and lots of sauce, but made with almond milk, not dairy.

I would also make fresh fruit juice, and he could drink as much as he wanted, but we would only buy him one can of soda a day, so he would end up drinking the fruit juice because it was there.

We also made big salads, that he didn't eat, so I would start making spaghetti, and adding lots of veggies all chopped up fine in the sauce, and fresh slivered spinach (did this for my son when he was young too)

basically I just started adding veggies to everything, soups, omelets, sauces, took out all the dairy, and used nut milks, started adding TVP instead of meat, then just kept pulling out more meat, and adding more veggies, and they just ate it, if you are a good cook, or chef, it isn't hard to substitute one thing for another, if you understand texture is almost more important than flavor in alot of foods.

If you take a bite of bread, it tastes pretty horrible, but what you put on the bread, is what makes it taste good, butter, jelly, etc. same with sauces etc, so the taste isn't as important as the texture alot of the time.

Also, most kids like soft textures, they like pudding and ice cream and chocolate milk etc. so you can make banana papaya pudding, or add some banana to vanilla pudding mix, make banana ice cream, or add softer fruits to ice cream, make chocolate almond milk etc.

[berrymarymac]

I love your approach RP!!! Even though I am FAR from having children, I would do the same exact thing! Great way to introduce better foods into his diet!

[Conscious Midwife]

With the toddler I would make frozen fruit desert and do smoothies wih cool cups and straws. You could also consider putting the food on the plate in a fancy or cute way, like making charecters.


You can also check this website:
http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/rawrecipe.htm


I saw a website one where a catipillar was made using celery for the body and tooth picking in assorted veggies and rasins for the other parts.

Just be patient and creative

[rawpriestess]

LifeAgift,


this may be the website you were looking for, this is a fun website for kids and adults

http://www.msss.gouv.qc.ca/nutrition/cru-cru/en/home.php

[denisedeland]

Thank you so much for the help. I'm making some dried fruit for the kids today. I think he might eat that. I am also making fruit rolls. He loves fruit roll ups so I really think he will eat that. Thanks agian for the help...

Denise

[Conscious Midwife]

LifeAgift,


this may be the website you were looking for, this is a fun website for kids and adults

http://www.msss.gouv.qc.ca/nutrition/cru-cru/en/home.php


That's it RP, I went searching thru other threads trying to find it. My toddlers 2 and 3 are vegetarian and until recently were mostly vegan. My nana just retired after 30 yeas of childcare and she was vegan and thats all she served.

I luv this cute website.

[denisedeland]

Thank you for the web site... It looks like i could really get alot of info from there...

Denise