Ever feel like your life revolves around cooking and cleaning up after your kids, especially when it comes to dinner?
You’re not alone! In fact, when 1000 Aussie parents were asked about their dinner routine one thing was clear: we all have at least one fussy eater sitting around the dinner table.
To set the record straight, it’s completely normal for kids to reject food they haven’t tried before, so don’t worry it’s not about your cooking skills!
In saying that, exposing kids to different foods and diversifying their tastes at a young age sets them up for healthier eating for the rest of their life, according to Hannah, HelloFresh’s in-house Dietitian.
Hannah shared some great insights and tips for managing fussy eaters…
1. It can take up to 15 exposures for kids to try something new so don’t give up yet. Keep serving it up on their plate, but just be prepared for it to go untouched until they’re familiar enough with it to give it a go!
2. Serving food in a variety of ways can be helpful. If your child doesn’t like greens then try broccoli finely chopped in a tomato pasta sauce, boil potatoes for a potato-broccoli mash or serve broccoli steamed or stir-fried as ‘trees’ in a vegetable side dish.
3. As adults, we become more desensitised to food textures, but this is not the case with younger children. Try to pinpoint the particular texture your child doesn’t like and use foods your child likes to experiment with different textures. For example, potatoes can be crushed, mashed or baked; beans can be eaten raw, boiled or pan-fried for different textures.
4. A ‘no thanks’ to sour foods is a fairly common aversion, but offering it in small amounts where it’s mostly unnoticeable will help kids get more accustomed to the flavour. You can get kids to try sour foods like Greek style yoghurt, which is really good for them, by adding freshly chopped or pureed fruits.
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