Tonight at dinner:
Me: “How’s your spaghetti?”
FoodieTot: “Not good. There’s something wrong with it.”
Me: “What’s wrong with it?”
FoodieTot: “It has tomatoes in it.”
He did consent to eat several bites, trying to avoid the visible tomato pieces. I used a different brand of crushed tomatoes tonight, which had a more visible chunk I guess. We’ve been waging battle over tomatoes his entire 3.5 years of life (well, once starting solid foods). He’ll occasionally try one, only to spit it out. We ran into his best friend at the market one summer day and she was buying herself a pint of cherry tomatoes. He declared he did like them then, so we bought a pint as well. Once again, there was a bite quickly followed by, “eww, yuck!”
So I was relieved to read this part of (ChowMama) Stacie’s interview with Feeding Baby Green author Dr. Alan Greene:
“… on average, most kids in the US don’t like whole tomatoes but, if you have them help to chop the tomatoes (carefully, of course), they’re about twice as likely to like them. If they go into a garden and pick a tomato or get a tomato from a farmer’s market before chopping it, they’re about twice as likely again to like it. And if they plant the tomato and watch it grow, most children will actually like tomatoes, just from watching them grow.”
Since the first two suggestions have failed thus far, you can bet we’ll be planting a tomato plant this spring!
For more funny things kids say about food, check out Jenna’s new weekly “Big Words, Little Foodies” round-up over at Food with Kid Appeal.
And in other feeding kids well news, I’m sure you all saw Michelle Obama’s launch today of “Let’s Move!” — a campaign to fight childhood obesity by increasing access to healthy foods (at home and at school) and encouraging physical activity. (Watch the GMA interview with the First Lady.)
You can get involved by becoming a fan of Let’s Move on Facebook, and visit Slow Food’s Time for Lunch campaign to send a message to your legislators urging increased funding for healthy school lunches.
As Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel explains, “One in three children will grow up to get type 2 diabetes, one in three is overweight or obese, and in the last thirty years, childhood obesity rates have tripled. Fortunately, this is not a mysterious disease. We don’t need to search for a cure. We know what the cure is. Eat healthy food, in reasonable quantities, and stay physically active.”
We’re fortunate to have ready access to fresh, locally grown tomatoes, even if the boy doesn’t yet appreciate them. We have a long way to go to make sure the same is true for every child in America. I’ll be following along and sharing more with you as the “Let’s Move” campaign progresses.
7 responses so far ↓
1 jenna // Feb 10, 2010 at 9:24 am
half of the adults i know, who i wouldn’t classify as “picky” don’t like raw tomatoes. they eat them cooked, but not raw! it’s a very common aversion. try this. make it a challenge. this is how i came to like most foods i used to hate (and i was picky). see if you can get his mind to think “there is some way, some recipe, some method, some type of tomato that i will like, i just need to find it.” maybe going into growing season it will be those tomatoes he grew that he end up being the winning tomato. thanks for playing big words little foodies!
.-= jenna´s last blog post .."You Ate What Mom Fixed, Good, Bad, or Ugly" =-.
2 Michelle (What's Cooking) // Feb 10, 2010 at 11:35 am
That is so funny – my daughter won’t eat tomatoes, either. She is a “pasta with butter and snow cheese” kind of girl. The term “snow cheese” came from the appearance of the parmesan as we grated it over her plate when she was teensy.
On a picky eater note – it takes 8-12 exposures (tastes) of a new food before many people like something…so keep on tryin’.
.-= Michelle (What’s Cooking)´s last blog post ..My Cooking School for Kids – How it all began… =-.
3 Cheryl Arkison // Feb 10, 2010 at 2:04 pm
We’re lucky, our girls love tomatoes, but heaven forbid you should try to feed them rice or, currently, noodles that aren’t straight.
4 Gaelle@whatareyoufeedingyourkidsthesedays.com // Feb 15, 2010 at 9:58 pm
My two kids love tomatoes. Don’t ask me what I did (they are French, maybe that’s the answer!!) to make them eat them. However, there is a ritual going on with tomatoes : they come with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and salt (and sometimes pepper and mozzarella and basil). They love them cut in small dices but have a harder time with the Cherry tomatoes, which I/they find too big for their small mouth.
On the other hand, we don’t like canned tomatoes; I’d rather open a jar of tomatoes sauce than mix something with canned tomatoes… or if not available, just plain pasta. Planting them is a great idea! We’ll grow some on our balcony this year!
5 Jill // Feb 16, 2010 at 9:49 am
Oddly, N really likes tomatoes, but only in the form of raw grape tomatoes. He’ll eat tomato sauce, too, but not too chunky.
.-= Jill´s last blog post ..Langres, France =-.
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// Feb 19, 2010 at 5:00 pm
@ jenna & michelle — He eats them in sauce, thank goodness, but I think that the brand I used that day had the skins on still which gave them away. Funny that they pick up on something so little, huh?!
@ Cheryl — Now that’s a new one, objecting to non-straight noodles. Not even macaroni?
@ Gaelle — I’ll have to try halving cherry tomatoes this season … maybe I can ease him into it with tinier bites.
@ Jill — I always assumed grape tomatoes would be easy, since they look like candy. Glad N. agrees, at least. 🙂
7 Constipation Remedies · // Nov 14, 2010 at 9:16 am
feeding babies may be a bit tiring but i enjoy this job specially when the baby smiles back at you “.