Eat Your dRM Food!

Sparkly, my sister, disagrees with me.  She feels like the kitchen should be a sort of "open buffet" for children, and that no lessons of any sort should ever be taught using / about food -- that Grommets should be able to choose whatever they eat whenever they want it.  Ok, cool -- but, unlike Sparkly,  I'm not willing to make 5 separate breakfasts, 5 separate lunches and 5 separate dinners to accommodate my kids' daily fluctuating preferences.  Nor am I willing to let them subsist on a diet of chicken nuggets, top Ramen noodles, cupcakes  and bagels (unfortunate favorite choices of so many kids).

So I've got this thing with kids saying "I don't like it" the second I place a plate of food in front of them.  Yes, people - even children - are allowed to have preferences with food, but few things irk me more than when I lay out a meal and someone says "ewwwww I don't like mushrooms/tomatoes/zucchini/etc" and consequently refuses to eat ANYTHING on the table.  Imagine we were starving and ALL we had left were garbanzo beans and radishes . . . I think it's important for children to develop a WIDE palate of "acceptable/delicious" foods.  Plus, it's so incredibly much more holistically nutritious!

It goes like this for me:  Fruits and veggies are the most preferred fuel for the Human Body, and for the most part, they're all delicious.  Granted, some may take a few times to get used to (okra), or taste best when cooked into a dish of some sort (um, eggplant), but none of them are truly gross.  (At least in the general realm of fruits and vegetables ... there may be some obscure plant-born item out there that is totally disgusting, but it's not something that makes it into my kitchen).  So -- GIVE 'EM A TRY!  I'm a damn good cook - don't you DARE eschew my amazing, nutrition-packed dinner before you even taste one bite!

ANYWAY -  Xrad's kids will eat anything.  They have the most weird, eclectic, random diet I have ever seen.  Basically, if it's edible, they're good to eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks ... whatever and whenever.  So, imagine my surprise when Oddie blared out one day that she wouldn't eat my legendary beef stew because it had chunks of zucchini in it -- and "she hates zucchini". 

I was floored, and, well, since that's a trigger for me, I was also pretty bugged.

Then I had a brilliant idea:  I took Oddie into the kitchen and invited her to eat a teaspoon of baking soda.  She balked.  I said, "Really, try it!  It tastes weird, but it won't hurt you".  Since I'm a pretty awesome Auntie, Oddie went ahead and ate the spoonful of baking soda.  Of course her lips puckered a bit and her jaw worked for a minute, but I quickly gave her a big glass of water to chase it with.

"How'd ya like that?" I asked.
"Pretty yucky," answered Oddie.

"Oh, really?" I asked, "But I thought you loved cookies, cakes, bread, brownies and ALL of that stuff"
"Uh, yeah," she replied with that "duh" tone and an eye roll

"Oh - well this stuff is in all of those.  You never even tasted it there, did you?   Now go eat my delicious Beef Stew."

...and she did. 
...and she loved every bite.
So there!