Dr. McDougall's Online Discussion Board

What is your kid's favorite healthy food?

My 10 y/o son loves cabbage. Steaming it and adding a little Braggs makes him very excited.

My 2 year old loves steamed broccoli with a sauce made from a combo of natural soy sauce and agave nectar. He also loves my spicy curry sweet potato soup. The funny thing is that he is actually quite picky and refuses a lot of foods that are more simple.

My 5 year old and 8 year old love baked fries (russet or sweet potato), veggie burgers (we get some with no soy) with lots of toppings, vegan burritos (from Costco!), my homemade apple sauce, berries with some drizzled melted chocolate.

Buritto night... we use whole grain flour tortillas and then have brown rice, black beans and corn steamed and all kinds of fresh veggies cut up with salsas to choose from. It is like a little burrito bar and my 7 year old son loves making his own and eats every bit.

Pacificfords wrote:Buritto night... we use whole grain flour tortillas and then have brown rice, black beans and corn steamed and all kinds of fresh veggies cut up with salsas to choose from. It is like a little burrito bar and my 7 year old son loves making his own and eats every bit.

My son goes crazy for burritos as well. He likes just about anything wrapped up in a burrito!

I'm having such a hard time with this! My, almost, 14 month old is so picky and would live on morning o's (whole foods cheerios) and fruit if I let him...

It's hard enough dealing with people when they find out he's vegan, but then compound that with being so picky and I stress daily.

One of his only tried and true things is the Dr. Preagger's spinach patties, but I've been trying to phase those out of his diet b/c they have egg whites. But he LOVES them

He'll sometimes he brown rice spiral pasta with fat free organic spaghetti sauce and he does really love steel cut oats in the morning. I make him homemade guacamole too, but sometimes he doesn't want to eat that and I end up eating it which is not good for me!

TheGreenBird wrote:I'm having such a hard time with this! My, almost, 14 month old is so picky and would live on morning o's (whole foods cheerios) and fruit if I let him...

kids at that age do tend to be picky. If it's any help I read once it is a survival mechanism in children's brains which make them picky below the age of about 5. Evidently they have a hard time distinguishing foods that are spoiled because their taste buds and the links in the brain that associate taste are not fully developed. So their brain says "don't eat that, it might kill you"

Ohh I forgot about my son's other favorite food. Steamed Buns. He would eat these night and day if I let him. Luckily a local Asian market has vegan ones for $1.39 a 6 pack. My favorite is vegetable mushroom and my son's favorite is pickled green mustard leaf and bamboo shoot. They also are easy to make as they are just stuck in the steamer for 15 minutes. My son actually had some for breakfast today!

It really is what you get them used to. My nieces know there's such a thing as white rice, but they never get it at home. Brown rice ONLY at home (my bro and SIL aren't McDougallers but eat 99% vegetarian and pretty healthily), so they eat it up happily.

It is harder once they go to school, though. Now that my nieces go out to eat, go to other kids' homes, etc., they have developed less than healthy preferences. My SIL tries to balance things--if she were to forbid X, Y or Z they would WANT X, Y or Z, so she just tells them that it's o.k. occasionally but that A, B, and C are better for them. Mostly this works.

ETeSelle wrote:It really is what you get them used to.

That is what I used to think until I got a truly picky eater (kiddo #3)!

If you have one of these eaters, you can't help but stress. It is good to know about toddlers and digestion/nutrient absorption. That helps put my mind at ease a bit.

My 2 year old still nurses a lot too. I like that he has that basis of nutrition. I think nature designed our little ones to nurse for years, not months for this very reason.

My older niece was a VERY picky eater. My SIL just offered her 3 things at each meal from which she could choose and that was that. They really will NOT starve themselves. She's better than she used to be and seems almost adventurous these days (she's 13), but for a number of years we all just studiously ignored her about it. Attention = approval.

ETeSelle, I like your approch. As a mother of 3,grandmother or 5, greatgrandmother of 1,I feel in most cases picky eater are searching for attention. Just my take on things.