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Taking the Kids on a Food Adventure – Picky Eater Strategy

January 30, 2017 by danawyyc 3 Comments

great

One day I decided to try to sell my kids on the idea of being Food Adventurers. We weren’t going to a new restaurant, we were going on a Food Adventure! We weren’t trying trying new suspicious looking foods, we were having a food adventure!

I’ve found this to be very successful and we continue to use this concept all the time. My kids have not magically turned into little foodies, but I get a lot more buy in from them and using the process I’ve outlined below I have been able to get them to try just about anything. They’ve even found they’ve really liked some things they were pretty sure they weren’t going to like.

Trying New Foods as a Food Adventurer

As a parent, take the pressure off. Expect them to explore and discover the food not necessarily to eat it. We say the steps out loud and I will often do the steps with the kids too.

  1. Touch it (pick it up, poke it)
  2. Look at it
  3. Smell it
  4. Listen to it
  5. Lick it
  6. Bite it
  7. Chew it

We don’t always get through all the steps but that’s okay. Particularly with foods that they are really resistant to, maybe even having it on their plate is a big deal. Don’t be afraid to try it again another day (again and again and again). Repeated stress-free exposure (and this can be 20 or more times) has been shown to increase acceptance over time.

But sometimes it works right away. Sometimes a food they were worried might be spicy, turns out to be something they love. It’s quick, easy and can be done anywhere.

One time we used this at a barbecue restaurant – we ordered a platter so there was lots of choices and the kids did a food adventure with many meats and sides and they each found a few things that they loved (and  a few that they didn’t. It is now one of their favourite restaurants.

food-adventure

Filed Under: Parenting, slider, Thoughts

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kyla says

    February 1, 2017 at 12:06 am

    YES. I need to do this with my kids. I am so tired of the NO and turned up noses.

    Reply
  2. Colleen says

    February 1, 2017 at 1:46 am

    I am so thankful I didn’t have picky eaters! I don’t think I did anything special to make them that way…and to be honest, my cooking usually is awful so it’s amazing they ate anything I cooked at all!!! Great post with fabulous tips.

    Reply
  3. Jo-Anna Rooney says

    February 1, 2017 at 1:50 am

    So many great tips! My youngest is such a picky eater…when he was a toddler he used to lick stuff before he would eat it! Kids are hilarious

    Reply

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About Me

I'm an experiential playground expert and mom to three young kids. I live with my husband in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. When I'm not looking after people, I'm reading all the YA fiction I can get my hands on and am attempting to learn photography. My laundry-folding suffers due to more interesting pursuits.

You can also find me over at:
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