Oh boy, can I relate to this one. I know it’s a challenge to cook one family meal with a picky eater. BOTH my kids are picky eaters. But, I have the pleasure of saying my son WAS a picky eater. He grew out of it at around 10 years old. So yes, there’s hope!

Instead of despairing and scrambling to cook multiple dishes to please everyone (which can be extremely exhausting on a day to day basis), here are some tips to help you deal with the problem head on.

1. Serve foods separately

Some kids prefer to eat different foods which are on different little platters. My daughter Nina is the perfect example. She’d never touch any food that was touching another food, but will at least try and taste foods that are plated separately (most of the time).

2. Include something they like, and make it nutritious

Out of all the things you serve, make sure that one item is something your child likes, and try to pick something with some nutritional value. I’ll go with another familiar example. Nina loves carbs, so I’ll do my best to include. something like wild or brown rice or potatoes with a meal which I’m not sure she will eat.

3. Serve in stages

When I know I’m serving two different foods, one of which is an ‘ok’ food, and another food which is a favourite, I’ll hold back on serving the favourite to Nina before she’s eaten the ‘ok’ food. She’s perfectly okay with this because she knows her favourite food is coming after she eats what’s in front of her.

4. Stick to a routine

Kids are more likely to play around with their foods if they’ve just snacked recently, which is why I like to stick to a routine when it comes to snacking pre-dinnertime. I struggle here, because Nina is very prone to screaming the house down in hunger out of the blue 😅 This is where my next tip comes handy…

5. Snack smart

When I feel like I cannot handle the stress of having a 5 year old whine and cry because she’s hungry, I give in with foods that take a while to be eaten whilst not being super filling. My favourite is sunflower seeds with shell. Other options include pomegranates, shelled nuts (for older kids) or frozen yoghurt.
If your child is quite the snacker, be mindful of what he or she is snacking on. Be sure to offer a variety of nutritious snacks throughout the day, so if dinnertime isn’t greeted with as much enthusiasm as you wished, you don’t need to worry as much.

6. Offer water when peckish

Just like adults, some kids may be mistaking thirst body cues for hunger ones. Don’t just offer water and have it be though. Explain to your child. Nina, who is almost 6, will sometimes announce she is hungry, and then run for her water and say ‘let me try and drink some water maybe I am thirsty.’

7. Stay positive

Don’t serve meals with trepidation. Make comments on the lovely smell in the kitchen, and serve the food with a smile. Assume the meal will be enjoyed, and not the other way round. And don’t make a big deal out of ‘yuks’, glares, and ‘I don’t like this’ announcements.

8. Ask older siblings to help

You’d be amazed at how helpful this can be. Having older kids taste the food and comment on how good it is, and have everyone chime in can do wonders!

9. Know your facts

Did you know that studies show that a new food takes 8-10 tries for it to be liked by a child. Yep. True. I have kept persisting with some foods and have had success with one which I never thought I would. My non-veg eating daughter (after MANY casual tries) will eat cucumber. This happened around 6 months ago and I still rejoice silently everytime she announces she wants cucumber ‘because it is healthy’. Which brings me to my next point…

10. Educate them about food

We don’t do ‘bad’ and ‘good’ foods in our house. We do ‘very healthy’, ‘healthy’ and ‘not so healthy’, and aim to get a mix and balance. Kids love being good and getting a gold star, so why not teach them how to do it? This is such an amazing life skill to teach them. I’ll have to bring up a personal example again, because there’s nothing like one to explain. A few weeks ago we had pizza for lunch on a Sunday. Nina will only eat 2-3 slices, so I boxed up the rest and put it in the fridge. Come evening, I asked her if she wanted another slice, and she looked at me strangely and said ‘But I had it for lunch, and it’s not so healthy’ — to which I replied ‘it’s okay, you had a small portion and it’s a one-off. Why don’t you have just one sliced and eat something healthy with it?’ She was happy with that and had pizza, cucumber and a rice cake. And later on, when she was hungry again she asked for a banana. Now this makes me feel like I’ve done something right despite all of the struggles!

11. Meal plan

There are many reasons you should meal plan if you have picky eaters. Being able to plan how to serve meals with these tips in mind is one of them. I have a really interesting blog post which goes into 10 really great reasons why you should meal plan even if you have picky eaters. You can read it here.

12. Serve it differently

The same food can be served in many different ways depending on one’s liking. There are some dishes that my son Yanik is not a huge fan of, but add them to a wrap with some cheese, and toast it, and voila – it’s now a hundred times tastier. I do this with say, chicken. Ours is baked one way and the kids would rather eat it with a glaze. I’ll make the glaze (and freeze extra portions), and simply glaze and put in a separate dish. Done.

13. Do what you have to

9 times out of 10 when I feel like cooking something that I know for sure won’t be eaten, and when I’m too tired to worry about it, I’ll just cook Nina an omelette and serve it with a side dish we’re having. I aim for progress, and not for perfection, and my sanity is just as important 😁

Back in 2019 I’d interviewed picky eating expert and children’s cookbook author Annabel Karmel about her take on picky eating. She actually introduced me to a strategy which I believe kick-started Nina’s little interest in trying new foods. You can read the blog post here.

I know how trying picky eating can be, and while it is a headache and struggle to try cook one family meal with a picky eater, it is doable most of the time!

Love,

Nakita xxx