Yep, start 'em young, and kale's not a problem!
For this week’s question, we’re going into the world of the picky eater. If veganism is constrained by a smaller overall selection of foods, what happens if your child doesn’t want to eat any of them? In other words, how do you get your child to eat their fruits and vegetables if he or she is a picky eater?
I asked the Council of Vegan Parents what they had to say on the subject, and wow, they said a lot!
Once again, not a vegan problem
One of the themes that keeps coming up here is that a lot of parenting problems aren’t really vegan problems, but they can be perceived as barriers to veganism for some until you call them out. Picky eating probably falls into that category, but based on the feedback from the Council, we’ve got it pretty good!
As Erin put it, “it’s funny because I find that our vegan diet is far more varied than our omnivorous diet was, and so our daughter has so much variety she doesn’t seem to have any picky tendencies.”
In other words, vegans may have fewer overall choices, but we tend to take advantage of a lot more options than the “here’s your meat, here’s your starch, here’s your green” plating that can happen in the omnivore world, so your picky eaters might actually have more choices available than if you weren’t a vegan family.
Work with, not on
Nobody recommended staging an epic battle with your picky eater over broccoli, and it seems that the winning approach is to explain and negotiate.
Linda says “we also want them to eat a variety of healthy foods! What works well with my 5 and 3 year olds is simply explaining this… I ask them to try it and tell them they can spit it right back out if they don’t like it… If they refuse, I tell them I will just leave it on their plate, ‘just in case’ and I walk away. Usually, they will try it.”
Valerie formalized the process a little more: “we have a rule that he needs to try at least one or two bites of whatever is served for dinner.”
Lead by example
As everyone who’s heard one of their children’s early words have four letters in it knows, kids learn a lot from what you’re doing. If you make fruits and vegetables a key part of your meals, they’re going to be much more likely to follow your lead, as opposed to a “do as I say not as I do” scenario.
Like Erin says, “when I was a kid, vegetables were loved in my household, even though there was meat too. I never knew that kids didn’t usually like veggies because no one saw any reason to share that bit of information with me. We don’t realize how much we shape others’ feelings.”
Repetition, repetition
It’s important to realize that most new flavours aren’t going to be a hit the first time around, regardless of whether you’ve got a picky eater or not. Linda says, “With kids you often have to present a food many many times before they learn to like it. It takes a long time for some foods to feel familiar to them. Forcing it will backfire.”
Always have a plan B
So what if your picky eater refuses everything on the plate? Is it time to drop everything and make a new dish? Not so fast, says Erin: “I think a lot of parents offer more and more choices over and over when the kid throws stuff on the floor. This just teaches them to be picky and wait until their favorite thing is given.”
But again, what if they’re not eating? Here’s Linda’s solution: “another thing I do, is if they completely refuse to eat the meal I make, I will not make another, but tell them they can either eat what I made, or choose ONLY raw fruits or vegetables out of the refrigerator. This way, they choose their favorite healthy option and I don’t need to make another meal!”
Finally, it’s handy to remember that just like this isn’t the last meal they’ll ever refuse, it’s not the last one they’ll ever eat, either. As Valerie explains, “kids will eventually eat when they’re hungry. If the only options available in the home are the healthy ones, they won’t starve. 
”
Try lots of things
As we said above, it can take a lot of attempts for a food to “click” with your child, and one way to keep things fresh while increasing the chances of a hit is to vary things, and there are a lot of ways to do that!
Steph had a wide range of options, including changing the temperature (for things like marinated tofu pieces,) spices used (bland isn’t always preferred,) the size of the pieces (both to fit in their hands and to change the texture in sauces,) and you can also let food get eaten off your plate, because things always look more interesting that way.
Valerie found it helpful to vary the colour of the foods, at least in smoothies, specifically ones with leafy greens added in – you can change the green/purple mix by simply adjusting the berry to greens ratio.
What about hiding foods?
While most of the feedback this week was pretty unanimous, one area where there was some debate involved whether or not to “hide” food from your picky eaters by blending it into sauces or pureés. This might have more to do with the ages of the children involved, so here are both viewpoints!
Valerie had great luck via the book Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food
Steph and Erin had other thoughts on the matter, which centered on teaching their children what foods are supposed to look like, and keeping the same menu for everyone at the table.
Like I said, this might be an age thing, and pickiness probably varies from child to child, so I’d love to hear more experiences in the comments!
Enjoy yourself
Let’s close this one off with a reminder from Steph to have some fun along the way: “looking at anything through the eyes of a child makes it new again. He likes to play with his food, which is awesome, so we like to take it outside sometimes to let him learn without worrying about the mess.”
Of course, this isn’t the end of the topic, because we haven’t heard from you yet! Is your child a picky eater? Did you figure out any ninja tricks to get some foods on the favourites list? Let us know in the comments!
Thanks to Linda, Steph, Valerie and Erin for their help on this one!
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