My child hates fruits and veggies! HELP

[Bree-Nan]

I am serious - she won't eat fruits or vegetables (aside from carrots). I am going to go raw for myself Wednesday but how the heck do I get my daughter to eat healthy? she will be 3 in May and lives off peanut butter sandwiches , crackers and pizza. I know it's our fault as parents but even when we tried the approach of offering lots of different healthy alternatives she still wouldn't eat them.
Do I just go cold turkey with her and make her eat healthy? I'm at a loss here. We also have a 9 month old but she is just starting to eat foods so she's a simple convert :D

[Helen Of Tennessee]

I just wrote a long post to you and became un-logged and lost it all. Ugh!!!!

I shared what I'm going through with my 2 1/2 year old grandson, and in a nutshell, this is what I wrote:

- I have only given him raw foods. I am consistant. He NEVER asks me for cooked foods.

- His mom use to feed him only raw, but she's not raw, so she would eat cooked in front of him. As he got older he wanted what she was eating, hence, slowly he has gotten more and more cooked.

- This past week he has refused raw foods. My daughter now wants him to eat more raw and is really struggling. When he won't eat it he cries and cries until she gives him cooked. (she's not consistant).

- When everyone is gone, he knows I won't give him cooked. I'll make a big bowl of fruit salad and sit down at the coffee table and it while I watch one of his DVD's. He'll come and sit with me and start picking out what he wants from the salad. When they get hungry enough they will eat.

So basically, for me, I find consistancy and setting an example to work.

1) Try offering raw foods you think she'll like.
2) Make it look attractive or fun. Make something like ants on a log - celery filled with something raw, like almond butter, then put raisins across the top).
3) Let her help prepare it.
4) You eat something in front of her and see if she'll come over and want to sample it.

Here are some websites that may have some other ideas for you:

http://www.thefruitpages.com/kids.shtml

http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/raw.htm

http://www.chidiet.com/tapes.htm

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020110shelton/020110shelton03.html

http://www.vegetarianbaby.com/raw.shtml

Let us know how it goes. I'm at an advantage because I have always fed my grandson raw, but you are coming from the other direction of trying to change. I'm sure that has to be hard as I find it hard to feed him raw when others are here at the house. Cooked is addicting and he will eat it if he can.

<>< Helen of Tennessee

[Bree-Nan]

Thank you. I am familiar with the Waldorf site because we are homeschoolers. I just tried to get her to take a bite of an apple and it was awful. I have quite a fun road ahead.

[Helen Of Tennessee]

My grandson use to eat apples, now he won't.

Another thing I just remembered since you said wrote that about the apple. My grandson started to eat apples when a neighbor girl would come over. She would always ask me for an apple and after he saw her eating it he wanted it. She hasn't been over in a while and now he no longer eats them.

Does your daughter have any friends that will eat raw foods?

Have you tried fruit smoothies? Or banana ice cream?

[Bree-Nan]

Maya doesn't like sweet foods except chocolate. She will eat cookies but no ice cream, candy, gummy foods, etc. My husband is the same way.
Her 3 little friends we don't see often. One is from a VERY mainstream family and the other two are more AP familes but they don't eat raw at all just healthy.
Hopefully when I buy groceries this week she will try a few things.

[Rawkinlocs]

will she drink smoothies or freshly made fruit juice?

I know fresh fruit is best, but what if you made her some (raw) cookies and put like shredded apples or banana puree in them? If you do a quick search in our recipe section here, there is an oatmeal cookie recipe that you put shredded apples into. That's at least a start if you know she'll eat cookies!

Would she eat fruit leather? You could blend up a green smoothie (fruit smoothie with a little bit of greens in it) and dehydrate.

I'm thinking that maybe she's going through her "assertive" phase and will become more accepting as she gets a little older. But keep trying...don't give up. Will she eat grapes? melon?

She may just not really be interested in sweet things right now (?) but if she had a yummy dip, would she eat veggies?

Also, Sweetgoddess, our other moderator here, posted a "nuggets" recipes that is good and it's made with veggies...maybe she'll like those. I'll find the recipe and post it here. You could also make her raw version of pizza and crackers.

[Rawkinlocs]

If you go to this thread: http://www.rawfoodtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5717&highlight=nuggets
and scroll down to about the 5th post, you'll see Sweetgoddess' post with the nugget recipe and pictures of them!

Also, when making recipes for her (if you choose to do that) halve or quarter if possible just in case she doesn't like it and you won't have wasted TOO much food (unless YOU end up liking and eating it :D )

[Bree-Nan]

Thanks for the replies. Maya will eat anything with "dip" I think. She is very assertive right now and basing this on her parents, I don't think she will change!
I'm off to look at some recipes...

[exurb]

I was thinking dip too, like a mock caramel dip for apple slices.

I think you should make a nice blueberry pie for dinner, and have that for dinner. There's a recipe in Alissa's book, or look online for a recipe.

[ladybug]

I am serious - she won't eat fruits or vegetables (aside from carrots). I am going to go raw for myself Wednesday but how the heck do I get my daughter to eat healthy? she will be 3 in May and lives off peanut butter sandwiches , crackers and pizza. I know it's our fault as parents but even when we tried the approach of offering lots of different healthy alternatives she still wouldn't eat them.
Do I just go cold turkey with her and make her eat healthy? I'm at a loss here. We also have a 9 month old but she is just starting to eat foods so she's a simple convert :D
My advice without telling personal info of a very long, hard, heartbreaking journey of my daughter is have you heard of eating disorders, do you want to be in a hospital waiting to find out if your daughter has an eating disorder or anxity disorder then leave her alone. She will eat when she is hungry and she will eat. Just bring in the good stuff but don't go for battle unless you want to lose.

[choleblack]

I've had some luck reciently doing the old Dr. Sears toddler tray. I cut up a bunch of fruits & vegies & a dip and put it on the coffee table during the day. Strangely my fairly stubborn DD is sampling the tray. When she asks me for something to eat the first words out of my mouth are "have something healthy". It's not 100% working yet but she's making some improvement. My other trick has been to find intersting foods & give them names she likes. Tangerines are baby oranges, champagine grapes are baby grapes, zucchini noodles are alien noodles.

Good luck going raw!

Chole

[karenisraw]

Maybe you could make little smiley faces with the food on the plate, or make smiley fruit or veggie pizzas for them.

[Autumn]

I was just going to suggest the smiley faces as well. You could make other pictures too with fruit and veggies - trees (celery for the trunk, carrots for branches, broccoli for the leaves or a sun (any round veggie/fruit with carrot slivers as the rays. Kids need that visual appeal. The cuter or more fun the plate looks, the more they'll want to dig in. At least that's what I've read, and seen with other mothers.

[Bree-Nan]

Thank you all. We do have a "snack box" from Tupperware with copmpartments that we tried for a while so I'll dig it out again. We also have a cookbook for children with all of the faces, boats, clocks, etc ideas so I'll check that as well. we are shopping this morning so I am going to let Maya pick what she wants to try.

[jennplas]

hi,

i have a 3 year old and i, being a compulsive overeater most of my life, was worried that she would follow my path. i found that if i got all worried about what she wanted to eat or not, then she tested my limits even more. at 3 years old, as mentioned earlier, they want to assert themselves. they want to show you who is in control (meaning them). since they dont have many things to control, they KNOW they can manipulate parents when it comes to eating.
what i did is that i just kept on serving her raw veggies with whatever else i would serve. for example, if i served some kamut noodles that she loves so much, i would serve veggies on the side, no dip as she doesnt like anything mixed together. as i was preparing a dish with green and red peppers one day, she was hanging around me... and so i said "no no no dont eat my red peppers" jokingly. next thing i know, she takes a slice and runs off with it and eats it and asks me to do that again. it dawned on me then that perhaps she doesnt like the same vegetables as i do in the raw form!! (i dont particularly enjoy red pepper on its own) so anyway, from that day, i thought i would just keep on getting vegetables that i commonly wouldnt eat so much raw .. she tried some as a game and now she ADORES red peppers. she wont eat carrots unless they are unpeeled. she dislikes the prepeeled baby carrots and she wont eat peeled and cut carrots! i kept discovering these things without even letting her know that i was watching. i never made a big deal about her food to her face. if she wants a snack, i make her choose. i say "would you like a pear or an apple" if she doesnt choose one of them and offer another fruit alternative, oh well. i just move on with my day. if she is hungry enough she will choose one of the ideas or even suggest another fruit or vegetable. she is smart and she knows what is a fruit and vegetable and what is not. kids wont let themselves starve. so as long as you have choices available for them, then they will eat something eventually. our job is to find out how they like their food.. i discovered many little things that she likes just cut a different way (like the carrot example). i dont believe we should always try so hard by making faces and designs with our food necessarily.. my daughter likes simple things and usually in their natural form. her tastes will change often too. some days she will eat 5 clementines in a row, and then for weeks she refuses to have any. but then suddenly she likes oranges. for a while she loved raisins, now she tells me she doesnt enjoy raisins. i just let her choose the stuff she will eat. i dont make a big deal out of it, and i am consistent. when i go to the grocery store i walk around and talk about the different fruits and vegetables we see. i explain to her that this type of fruit is sweeter and this type of fruit tastes like this and that. i try to give her knowledge and to give her an *interest* in eventually trying the foods. even if she wont try it now, she will remember it later on and may eventually try it.
remember that children will not let themselves die of hunger, especially not in countries of abundance we are in. they may *try* to manipulate us for a while but when they see it doesnt work for a while... then they will just find something better to focus on.
dont make yourself feel guilty about it... as moms we have a habit of making ourselves feel guilty for everything. we do the best we can with the means that we have :) and our children will appreciate it later on...
good luck!
jennP

[rawpriestess]

You are the parent, you are the provider, what you provide she will eat.

If you provide pizza and peanut butter, she will eat them

if you say, we don't have any, you can have this, and offer her almond butter and raw pizza, then she can have those items.

she will also have to get over her wheat addictions too.

with crackers, sandwiches and pizza crusts, she's deffinitely into the wheat.

I used to hate apples, because they made me sick, the reason they made me sick, was because I had wheat allergies, which reacted to the wheat.

I also couldn't eat oranges because they reacted to the lactose, -- milk-- that I was drinking.

so, cut out the stuff you don't want her to eat and offer other items, and allow her to pick whatever she wants, but only provide what you think is good for her

so no matter what she chooses, it will be raw and healthy.

But let her make her own choices, but you can definitely make all of her choices healthy.

[Angelic Light]

Good advice rawpriestess!

[yeahbethany]

I agree with RawPriestess - you provide what your child will eat.

A good book to check out (not raw, but very healthy) is Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right by Joel Fuhrman. He's got advice for dealing with picky eaters. The gist of this is - you gotta only provide healthy food in the house. Kids will not starve themselves. If you continue to have unhealthy food in the house, they will eat it.

Another key point is "no rules only for children". All rules children are made to follow should be followed by the adults in the house as well.

It is really an amazing book. I recommend it to ANYBODY with children, and without!