Kids eating food

“If I have to eat the whole thing I’ll barf,” I bark at my mother. “Just three bites and you can be excused,” mom prods. I shake my head in disgust, sitting at the dining room table with my sister and brother staring at two fried oysters on my plate. “At Girl Scout camp, we always have to try three bites,” offers my sister emphatically, sporting a sinister grin as she slurps the buttered spaghetti noodles she receives because she is a “picky eater.” My brother, the adventurous one, forks both oysters, closes his eyes, plugs his nose with his free hand, inserts both bivalves into his mouth at once, chews twice and swallows. He looks at me in my struggle, smiles a toothy, oyster-filled grin and asks loudly enough for mom to hear, “May I be excused?” As he speaks, oyster particles shoot out of his mouth onto my plate making a once gross meal inedible.

What are my options I think to myself? I can stubbornly sit at the table until bedtime and wait out mom’s determination to have me explore the culinary world of shellfish. I can cry, scream and yell to distract the purpose of my discomfort hoping for banishment to my room without dinner. Alternatively, I can put the food into my mouth, race to the bathroom and deposit the evidence into the porcelain throne and with one flush, problem solved. Wishing to enjoy the summer evening riding bikes with friends, I choose the latter.

I follow through with my plan. I shove the oysters in my mouth, run to bathroom, deposit evidence, flush evidence and exit the bathroom reporting, “See, I told you I will be sick if you force me to eat that nasty food.” Success! One point for me, zero for mom — or so I think.

This is not my mom’s first rodeo. She tenderly touches my forehead, feels no perspiration and notices my tan face is not the pasty, colorless mess of someone who just threw up their dinner. “Nice acting job,” she smiles, acknowledging my scheme while offering a plate of buttered noodles. “Maybe we’ll try again another time.”

Mom is right and psychological science supports that trying food at a young age does create an adventurous eater. In contrast, forcing a child to become physically ill while consuming food creates a reluctant or fussy eater. Where is the balance?

Food is survival. Instinctually humans learn to consume things that help them survive and avoid things that, when consumed might end in one’s demise. For this reason, our body rejects — by making us nauseous — things that smell or taste like things that have made us sick in the past. Examples include:

• Women who have morning sickness when pregnant might only be able to eat yogurt when sick — they cannot keep anything else down. After the child is born, the woman might instantly become nauseous when she smells yogurt, sees yogurt containers in a store or someone mentions the word yogurt. The woman has made an association between yogurt and sickness and avoids yogurt to continue being well.

• Coyotes attack a herd of sheep and kill a lamb in their pursuit to feed the pack. The rancher scares off the pack but the dead lamb remains in the pasture. The rancher sprinkles poison on the carcass of the lamb and when the coyotes return, eat the lamb and the poison. Once consumed the coyotes become violently sick and learn to avoid, and even become fearful of sheep.

• Alcohol works in much the same way. When one consumes too much tequila and becomes sick; smelling, seeing pictures of or having someone mention the word tequila make the feeling of nausea instantly rise in the alcohol consumer’s tummy. One might ask; why does one continue to drink if he has an instinctual drive to avoid that, which makes him sick? The reason is difficult to stomach. The desire to feel high, and the resulting addiction created by fighting nature’s instinctual means to keep one well, wins. The person is deciding to accept the sickness he knows will arrive the next morning to become instantly gratified now. The problem with this thinking is, nature eventually wins and the alcoholic becomes ill from years of poisoning his body.

• As a child, a parent forces him to eat something his palate is not ready to consume and become sick ingesting the unwanted food. This instinctual means of survival remains active as the child becomes an adult and the food forced to eat as a child remains impossible to eat as an adult.

How might a parent support a finicky eater while creating a culinarily adventurous eater? First, food must be a celebration and eating every meal at the dining room table begins the celebration. Numerous psychological studies on family health, juvenile delinquency, substance abuse and healthy eating report the same result; a family that eats dinner together at the dining room table at-least four nights a week is a healthier family.

Secondly, serving the same “safe” foods everyday creates an apathetic palate. A child’s palate changes constantly. A parent should continue to introduce food once disliked in new or creative ways as the child ages. Many foods once disdained will be favored if introduced at the right developmental time.

Next, food is mood congruent, so introducing new foods to a child as a celebration will increase her mood hence, increase her desire to sample newly introduced food. When a child is happy, she tends to be more exploratory with her food. When she is grumpy, joy in exploring food diminishes. Forcing a child to eat liver when she is mad at the world because she just had a timeout for talking back to her dad, will only lengthen the battle already fought. Having her try Brussels sprout after you and she prepare them together, then serving the delicious mini cabbages on your best china to your family and friends will aid her sampling a food despised by most children.

Speaking of Brussels sprout, poorly prepared food decreases a child’s willingness to accept that food into her diet. Over-boiled, baby food consistency sprouts are disgusting. Roasted sprouts with olive oil, salt and pepper and Parmesan cheese are delicious. My wife hated asparagus as a child because she never had it prepared properly. The vegetable of her youth — canned, grey, soft, overcooked sprigs of what used to be asparagus, served with mayonnaise or butter were unappetizing and unappealing. The vegetable of her adult life-lightly grilled fresh sprigs seasoned with olive oil; balsamic vinegar and pepper require no sauce and taste like summer. She learned to love asparagus.

Also, teaching a child where his food comes from and allowing him to grow, raise or produce the food he consumes creates a culinary journey of adventure. Planting a tomato seed and waiting for it to sprout, watering, weeding then harvesting the fruit makes eating the delicious bounty life changing. Every tomato eaten after the first homegrown tomato will flood the mind with summer memories and positive thoughts.

Lastly, if you wish a child to eat food she disdains, have a peer eat and enjoy the food first. A child who refuses to eat a certain food in the presence of her parent will often eat the same food when a peer eats and enjoys the food.

In my journey to eat adventurously, I slowly learn to tolerate oysters with constant prodding from my mother. I eat them when offered but do not hate nor love them, until one day.

I love the ocean and visit as often as possible. Joining the Air Force, my home station is in South Dakota, about as far from a coast as one can be and still be in the United States. Being this far from the ocean creates a strong craving difficult to stave off. Searching to satisfy my craving, my wife and I reserve a table at, The Pirates Table, the only seafood restaurant in Rapid City at the time. The dinner special that night is oysters on a half-shell. Feeling adventurous and noticing the oysters are the only non-fried fish on the menu, I order them. Slurping the first oyster into my mouth, I close my eyes and am surprised at my emotion. As I bite the mollusk, I taste the ocean as briny saltwater flows over my taste buds and down my throat. I smell the ocean as saltwater fills my olfactory nerve. At this moment, I take a mental trip to the coast and gain a new understanding of this once distasteful food. Food is a powerful thing.

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Send comments or other suggestions to William Rutherford at bprutherford@hotmail.com or visit pensiveparenting.com.