The Making of a Picky Eater

We really hoped Baby M would not be a picky eater.  We did all the things the books say you should do-- we introduced veggies before fruit, my husband and I continued to eat a variety of foods and rarely prepared special meals for Baby M, we had Baby M help us cook, we grew and ate vegetables out of our garden.  But try as we might, Baby M seems to be getting pickier by the day.

One day he refused to eat pasta with sauce on it.  On another he stopped eating his apple skins.  Over the past few months he has declared that he no longer likes oatmeal, hummus, bananas, blueberries, melons, beans, carrots or celery.  I continue to serve these foods and he refuses to touch anything on his plate until I remove them.  This, coupled with the fact that our family has adopted a mostly vegetarian diet over the past year, means that some nights all he eats is rice.  The only vegetable he eats consistently is broccoli, unless, of course, you count ketchup.

So when a friend gave me a copy of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious, I grudgingly started flipping through it.  I have to admit, back when Baby M was still on a milk diet I wrote a somewhat snarky post about this book.  I assumed getting your child to eat a variety of food was just a matter of offering it repeatedly in an upbeat matter.  Little did I know I would soon be stealthily pureeing beets and butternut squash in an effort to get some veggies into my stubborn stubborn child.

We've tried a fair number of the recipes from the book and they've been hit or miss.  Given the fact that we don't eat meat and Baby M refuses to eat pasta with sauce (including red sauce, cheese sauce, cream sauce and any other type of "sauce" you can think of) the number of recipes that work for us is somewhat limited.  He loved the "Pink Pancakes" (with beets) and will happily eat muffins with any puree I happen to throw in.  He flat out refused the scrambled eggs with cauliflower puree and honestly, I can't blame him.  They tasted like I scrambled a carton of 6 month old eggs.  He also did not go for the butternut squash-grilled cheese, although my husband and I actually prefer it to the standard version, so I think we're going to give that one a few more tries.

The thing is, using a half of cup of veggies in a dozen muffins means a 3 year old would have to eat 24 muffins to get his daily serving of vegetables.  Baby M would probably eat muffins all day long if I let him, but I really don't think that's a good idea either.  Sure some vegetables hidden in a muffin are still better than nothing, but I really wish I didn't have to be so darn sneaky.